The Saints of Winnipeg

Recently, we moved to St. James. The other day while driving around, I got to thinking "What kind of Saint was St. James anyways?" So I googled it on my phone, to realize that he is the patron saint of Spain, veterinarians, furriers, tanners and pharmacists (and more, that is a wiki-summary). Clearly this area should instead be named after St. Anthony , who looks after the elderly. Yeesh. One day I made the mistake of going to Safeway on seniors day. NEVER AGAIN. Old people + Safeway + free shuttles + 10% off = Me being asked to get things off the top shelf (uh, hello, I am only 5"6) and them cooing at B, who did not like the attention thank goodness.

Anyways, this got me to thinking about the other saints in and around the city: St. Boniface, St. Norbert, and St. Vital. I know there are a few others, but those are the main ones.

I always figured St. Boniface had something to do with the French, being the namesake of the French part of Winnipeg, but he was surprisingly un-Francophone. He also is the patron of, amoung other things, Germany, brewers, and file cutters. There are also legends of him inventing the Christmas tree. Very un-French. What about crepes and ceinture flechees?? And the tourtiere and POUTINE! They should just rename the whole area St. Voyager upon petitioning for Sainthood of course. And falsifying records of a man named Voyager who came to the area in search of pelts, who would go on to discover poutine one day after tripping over a large canot outside the portage while holding a grocery bag with cheese and gravy in one hand and a fresh order of fries in the other. Ok? Get on that. I'll start an online petition.

St. Norbert is home to some beautiful monastery ruins, but St. Norbert himself founded the Premonstratensian order of canons, who are clearly not monks. In my opinion, they should name the area after Le Nob, a sign I have giggled at many times on my way to the farmer's market or on road trips down south. Although as I recall, it was recently renamed The Nob Pub, which is not as great of a name for a neighborhood.

St. Vital (who is also the namesake of City Route 165) was not a saint, but merely declared venerable. While he could maybe one day become a saint, he did not even become venerable until many years after he became canonized on maps. So basically, it's a lie. Seeing as the area is known for it's giant mall, maybe St. Lucy should be considered, as she might have been the patron of shoe sellers, which is close enough, as they have some pretty major sidewalk shoe sales there. Or maybe the area could go back it its French roots, and consider something like Centre Commercial, although that seems more fitting for Regent Avenue.

Anyways, I should probably get some sleep. Tomorrow is Saturday, and as much as we'd all love weekends to be relaxing, Saturdays are usually pretty busy. I need to return some knitting needles (arg, I bought the wrong size TWICE!) and stop at DollarGrandma as we like to call Dollarama to pick up some simple craft supplies to round out the ones I picked up today. But maybe more on that another time.