grim

Yeah sure cars do kind of dissolve in Ottawa from salt if they are not treated. It is always the innocents who get hurt eh? I don't know what your talking about with winter humidity in Ottawa. It is dry as a desert. Too dry. Chapstick or else dry. -18 celsius days are rare. The storms do roll through here. Today is a typical winter day. -5 celsius. Sunny. Light wind. Perfect. Perfect for skiing. I play hockey at lunch on an outdoor rink near work. It's not Southern California temps for sure but also without the commuting, congestion, pollution, earthquakes, crime etc. Nobody would claim that pleasant weather is the reason to live in almost any Canadian city. All in all, most Canadian cities are excellent. Alberta is a great place. I've sent a lot of time there. I just happen to like the beautiful forests and zillions of lakes around Ottawa (or Montreal) and the cheap lakefront properties. Alberta doesn't really offer that. It does have spectacular mountains. Summer at the lake here is an affordable lifestyle. I paid less than $50,000 for a three bedroom lakefront cottage 50 minutes from centretown. Not perfect but a bit of paint and a few Home Depot trips and weekends of hammering, it looks great. Swimming right off the dock. The kids can't wait to get there. Places like this around here are everywhere. Show me a place this nice near Toronto or Vancouver at ten times that cost within a 3 hour drive. The lifestyle in Ottawa is excellent.

Hi, I assume it was my message you were responding to. I didn't mean to "bash" Ottawa. Black Dog returned from a week in Montreal and proclaimed the awesomeness of the place. I was trying to illustrate that when you visit someplace, you see the tourist attractions and the highlights, but don't experience the ups and downs of day to day life. I was trying to illustrate, using my experience in Ottawa and Vancouver. If I had gone to Ottawa for a week or two, I could have come home and raved about all the cool galleries and the canal and the maple trees and all the old buildings and stuff that we just don't have here in Edmonton. But, since I lived there for a few years, I saw not just that stuff, but also experienced a whole lot of stuff that is much less than awesome about Ottawa. I hated the climate. I found there were just as many dumb-asses there as there are here. "Klondike Days" maybe have been cheesy and tacky, but no more so than "Super-Ex". (I'd probably take Ottawa's Winterlude over Edmonton's Fringe, though.) I was just trying to illustrate that there's more to a city than the stuff you squeeze into a week-long tour. And while we big-city Albertans are aware of our shortcomings of our 2 major cities in comparison to Canada's older major centers, we are not so much aware that in many ways we're also blessed compared to those cities. -k Yeah I understand. Sure there idiots everywhere. Including here. I have been all over Canada and we chose to live in Ottawa to raise a family. A nicely compact but large enough city. Close to other larger centres. Large technology sector for employment. What I like most about Ottawa is the fact that I can drive to our beautiful (and inexpensive) cottage in under an hour from centretown. Try that in Vancouver or Toronto. What I like least is the winter freezing rain. But the typical winter weather is usually bright and sunny and moderately cold. To me that is much more bearable than that bone-chilling prarie deepfreeze. To each their own. We love it here.

Out of my way I got here late. Wow so much unjustified bashing of my city Ottawa. People are so insecure. Nothing like the plentiful and beautiful cottage country around Ottawa region to spend the gorgeous Ottawa summer. Frankly it is infinitely more pleasant than Klondike Days.