26. The ultimate sense of coziness you’d experience while wearing one of these perfect-for-prairie-winter snuggies:

via https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net
via https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net

27. Hard-core hockey fans

via maybeedmonton.tumblr.com okay, THIS IS TAKING IT TOO FAR.
via maybeedmonton.tumblr.com
okay, THIS IS TAKING IT TOO FAR.

28. The Edmonton – Calgary rivalry

29. Feeling triumphant when you make it to a gay bar when it’s 40 below

30. Summer days that go on forever

31. Sunshine at 10 p.m.

32. Feeling super-human as a little kid because it’s 10 p.m, sunny, and you’re not tired.

33. Queer hipster skateboarder girls in the summer

34. The sense of mystery in not knowing if a woman is the gay kind of butch, or the works in the oil industry or on a farm kind of butch.

via maybeedmonton.tumblr.com
via maybeedmonton.tumblr.com

35. The sense of accomplishment when you discover that she is, in fact, gay

36. The smell of dust on a gravel road

37. Thunderstorms. I love how clean I feel after having danced in the rain, when the air smells so fresh and the summer dust has been washed from my skin.

38. Dancing through canola fields

That's me on the far left. Canola fields are fun, but what no one ever tells you is they're also full of things that scratch and bite your legs!
That’s me on the far left. Canola fields are fun, but what no one ever tells you is they’re also full of things that scratch and bite your legs!

39. Cowboys. I know it’s a stereotype, but yes, they do exist. Every now and then I see a man in full cowboy-gear just walking around downtown going about his business. When I was a waitress, I once served an entire table full of cowboys. They tipped well.

40.  The last remaining grain elevators. Between the 1890s and the 1930s, almost 6,000 grain elevators were built across the Canadian prairies. My Opa worked in one when he first came to Alberta from Holland in the 1940s. Unfortunately, grain elevators weren’t the safest places – all that wood, grain dust, and flour led to many fires and explosions. Today, hardly any grain elevators remain, but some have been turned into museums.

photo credit: danwdotca
photo credit: danwdotca

41. Having a whole train car or bus to yourself

42. Road trips to the mountains

43. Ridiculous giant statues. Prairie cities love celebrating their cultural objects in a big way.

Vegreville Egg
Vegreville Egg

44. Hay bales against the sky

via matadornetwork.com
via matadornetwork.com

45. Picking berries in the summer: saskatoon berries, raspberries, choke cherries, cranberries

46. Vision. Your line of sight goes so far in the prairies, especially when you’re in the country, or in Saskatchewan. When there’s a thunderstorm and lightning lights up the whole sky, it looks like you can see the whole world and everything is bursting with electricity, energy, light.

47. Quilted fields

via Matador Network
via Matador Network

48. The fact that the Idle No More Movement, Universal Healthcare, and the Suffrage movement all started here

via National Post
via National Post

49. A newspaper article in which police officers spend six hours on snowmobiles trying to herd a cow and bull who’ve gotten loose in the city. There’s really nothing more Canadian-prairie than this article.

50. Waiting at the doctor’s office and finding an adorable picture of a young K.D Lang in Alberta Views Magazine.

A young, adorable K.D. Lang. Check out the socks.  via Alberta Views Magazine  July/August 2011
A young, adorable K.D. Lang. Check out the socks.
via Alberta Views Magazine
July/August 2011