Braving Winnipeg’s winter with hometown musician Begonia | Canada Voices

Alexa Dirks is all-too-familiar with the rest of Canada’s perception of Winnipeg: “Cold, boring – or they don’t consider it,” she said. So she jumped at the chance to prove her hometown is worth a visit in winter.

The singer, better known as Begonia, is a three-time Juno nominee and Polaris Music Prize shortlister whose lyrics include playful, nostalgic local references. She’s also defensive of Winnipeg – happy to mock its flaws herself, but bristles when it becomes a punchline for outsiders.

“It’s like when you’re a kid and someone makes fun of your mom,” she explains.

Dirks has called on the help of her partner, artist Seth Woodyard, and her band’s trinket-packed tour van for the outing.

“There’s a lot of richness to discover, but you have to be open to it,” she says.

I’m here for the first time and understand why some might be reluctant to arrive in Winnipeg midwinter. I dressed for the confrontational cold – but wind chills close to minus 50 C? That’s just spiteful.

We start in the Exchange District, which reveals the city’s proud, gritty character. Faded painted signs for businesses such as work-boot wholesalers and recycled-auto-parts dealers are a common sight on the sides of buildings. They hint at the industrial foundation that earned Winnipeg the nickname “Chicago of the North,” before factors, including the Panama Canal opening in 1914, derailed transcontinental trade and slowed investment.

After warming up with coffee and a tasty bowl of braised beef chilaquiles at Clementine Cafe, we take a brief walk to the Into The Music record store. It’s easy to understand why this spot is so beloved among locals, with its eclectic yet orderly selection and engaging staff, but Dirks is slightly uncomfortable. She’s searching though CDs as eight versions of her own face look down from record covers attached to the wall above.

We slip out and take a short drive. I’m on the hunt for the Raber Glove Manufacturing workshop for a pair of locally made Garbage Mitts, originally designed for Winnipeg trash collectors and renowned for their incredible warmth. The company, which has passed through three generations of the Raber family, doesn’t sell on-site, but a staff member lists nearby stores that do as we marvel at its vintage sewing machines and dated decor.

Dirks and Woodyard take me to Tara Davis Studio Boutique on McDermot Avenue – an example of how other buildings have been reimagined as trendy shops. This proves to be an excellent stop and I emerge with adorable cat-themed hair clips my young daughters will almost certainly, eventually, lose.

We move on to the Forks Market, where we meet Michael Jordan, the drummer in Begonia’s band. I smile but it feels like a particularly violent gust will freeze my face into a permanent grimace instead. It’s his 18th winter maintaining the Nestaweya River Trail, named for the Cree word meaning “three points,” which he describes as a “transit corridor” used by skaters, skiers, bikers and walkers until Mother Nature shuts it down sometime in March.

The confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers was a meeting place for Indigenous people for over thousands of years; today, the number of visitors during the warmer winter weekends can exceed 15,000 per day. We head to Jordan’s small, off-roader to explore it, with Dirks and Woodyard insisting I ride in the heated cab so I can learn about this important part of Winnipeg’s winter experience. I reluctantly agree, while the couple clamber into the exposed cargo bed.

The trail cuts through downtown Winnipeg, at one point passing a sculpture of Louis Riel that stands in front of the Manitoba Legislative Building. Imaginative and colourful warming huts conceived by architects from around the world also appear on either side of the route. One of the most breathtaking – German designer Franziska Agrawal’s 33-metre corridor of snow arches – is in the process of being assembled.

Dirks suggests we visit Crumb Queen on Osborne Street for lunch. My mortadella sandwich with pistachios, pesto and lemon ricotta hits the spot perfectly before I over-indulge on a cornflake cruller. We stop at more shops and for coffee, but I’m grateful when Dirks says they’ll drop me off at the hotel for a brief break. It gives me a chance to defrost.

When it’s time to reconvene for dinner, I direct everyone to Christa Guenther’s Feast Café Bistro in the city’s diverse West End. Guenther, a member of Peguis First Nation, created a menu that reimagines traditional Indigenous dishes with bison, elk, fish, local wild berries and nuts.

My favourite is a dish that infuses sweetgrass – one of the four sacred medicines and not traditionally used for food – into roasted bison with garlicky mashed potato squash, roasted vegetables and smoked wild blueberries. I also tried a spoonful of Dirks’s bison chili, which was perfect for the cold.

We visit some of her favourite haunts after our meal. She stops to talk with Winnipeggers often as we explore the city. Drinks flow at each unexpected reunion at places like the much-loved music venue Times Changed High and Lonesome Club. Dirks jokingly says this is where she grew from a girl to a woman.

Winter seems to spark Winnipeg’s creativity and Jesse James Millar, the head tech at Times Changed bar, who’s known Dirks for at least 10 years, thinks the reason is simple. “When it gets so cold, you either get a little crazy or create something beautiful.”

Or crazy and beautiful. That night we also went to a Winnipeg Pro Wrestling event at the West End Cultural Centre. Dirks got called into the ring and Begonia blossomed, beguiling the audience with an unannounced performance.

Two wrestlers hounded her off the stage after two songs. But she soon reemerged in a colourful moth costume, threatening to hit the fighters with a chair, before delivering one more hit. Pairing a rowdy crowd baying for choke-slams with soulful and extravagantly packaged pop seems unorthodox, but it works in a place like Winnipeg.

Special to The Globe and Mail

The writer was a guest of Visit Manitoba. It did not review or approve the story before publication.