Happy Manitoba Day

[plonq]

May 12th is the date that we have set aside as a day of mourning to lament the fact that early settlers decided that this would be a good place for a settlement. Regrettably they came here in the summer when it seemed like a halfway decent place (if a bit buggy) and they had already unpacked their carts and set up mud huts before winter landed on them like a cartoon anvil. Legend has it that they tried to cut and run, but their horses had already frozen to the ground trapping them in a frigid hell.

They would have starved in that first winter if they had not eaten their frozen horses (hence the local popularity of traditional horse jerky) and turned to selective cannibalism. By time time spring returned to the land, the survivors had managed to turn their suffering into a cynical delight in their own misfortune. They would take unholy glee in showing their frostbitten stumps to travellers, regaling them with tales of Arctic horror and saying things like, "You call that a winter back in Toronto? We call that a warm snap out here!"

Sadly they built a city here and now we feel obliged to use it.

Every year on May 12th we celebrate the sad legacy of these insane settlers by decorating the festive shrub, donning the traditional long-johns and singing patriotic shanties by the fire while we pass around the hot, maple rum and horse jerky.

Comments

[branwyn.livejournal.com]

*laughs... or is it sobbing* It's all so truuuuuuue!

B.

[pierrekrahn.livejournal.com]

LOL. Awesome.
Did you write that?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[warheart.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty sad holiday :/

[plonq.livejournal.com]

If you ever spent some time in Manitoba you would understand.

[fuzzytoedcollie.livejournal.com]

That's too funny!

[neverville.livejournal.com]

=o So the Franklin expedition isn't a unique bit of history

[dronon.livejournal.com]

Oh geez. You know, it never occurred to me that Manitoba even had a day. Growing up in Ontario, there was no Ontario Day 'cause the province was created as part of the paperwork that Canada Day is based on, along with three other provinces.