Christina and
Jonathan came over a couple weeks ago for drinks and one of the topics of conversation was some of the differences we've encountered
between Ontario and Saskatchewan. Since it's the May long weekend and that's one of the things that came up, I thought this would be a good time to list a few of those differences…
– in Ontario, they call May long weekend “May 2-4”. In Saskatchewan, we just call it “May long” and nobody has to be reminded how much beer you should attempt to consume during this first ritual weekend of spring.
– I've touched on it elsewhere about how a lot of people in Ontario seem to have no problem throwing out perfectly good furniture and electronics without attempting to recycle them or give them away unlike in Saskatchewan. For instance, I think my first couch had three (and possibly) four previous owners and got passed on to someone else when I was finished with it.
– milk is extremely expensive here ($4 for a 2L jug here – I can't remember what it costs at home but I don't think it's that much. Jill – do you know?)
– apparently people don't buy extra bread and keep it in the freezer
like we do in Saskatchewan. In fact, Christina says that lots of
people here don't even have deep freezes. (Shea: “My parents have three
– two of them full of meat!”)
(Then again, pockets of Saskatchewan have their own little unique things – Shea's hometown is still the only place I've seen where people keep their cheques and cash in their fridge freezer until they can get to the bank. Why? Before fire safes were common, the fridge freezer was the last thing that would burn in a fire. I've always said it would be really easy to be a successful criminal in her hometown – wait until a Saturday in summer when there's a wedding. Since everybody in town will be at the wedding, either as a guest or volunteering in the kitchen and since nobody in a small town locks their door, you could very easily go house-to-house grabbing the “cold cash” <rim shot>)
– every food delivery place here asks for your buzzer number whereas in Saskatchewan, I think giving the apartment number was usually good enough . If it was a different number at the front door, the delivery person would look at the list and figure it out.
– very few washrooms have paper towels, instead most have hand dryers. Perhaps they're more environmentally friendly but I'm not a big fan of hand dryers and usually end up drying my hands on my shirt anyhow.
– this is pretty obvious but distances mean a lot less here (at least where we are.) Pretty much 1/3 of Canada's entire population is within a six-hour drive of where we live. In Saskatchewan, you have to drive six hours just to get to a major city with more than 250 000 people.
– I've seen exactly two gravel roads here and when Shea and I have gone for drives in the country, we can't stop laughing at the “farms” that have paved roads in front of them AND mailboxes! No shit.
– Saskatchewan doesn't have an NHL team but I bet the Moose Jaw Warriors could still give the Leafs a run for their money! 
Admittedly, I am working on a very small sample size for most of these observations – well, except for the food delivery one. I think Shea and I have tried every delivery restaurant in the city and all of them asked for our buzzer number! 
