Well, I wrote another book. Sorry.
So...
My parents taught on a First Nation reserve in northern Manitoba for a few years. They only planned to stay a few months but they were beloved by the community and couldn't bring themselves to leave. I visited there several times, and enjoyed the experience if not the urban form.
I lived for years in Winnipeg, Manitoba - working primarily as a journalist but that's also where I first transitioned into marketing and communications. I loved the people (so tall, so Eastern European... I'm definitely the only Newfoundlander who can spell Zienkiewicz and Kowalchuk on first try) and certain neighbourhoods (the Exchange, etc.). Overall, though, unfortunately, I was miserable. So much so I became bitter and saw everything negatively. All I could see by that point was beige city on grey streets punctuated by surface parking lots. I became an angry drunk, which terrified me. And I was alone, there is no significant Newfoundlander community there.
When I was a teenager, we took a train trip across Canada one summer - from Halifax to Vancouver and then onto Victoria. My mother wouldn't get off the train on the prairies. She was horrified. "How can people live like this? Don't set foot off the train, you'll be killed." The irony that she ended up moving there for a few years wasn't lost on her, and she fell in love with Winnipeg. I don't think anyone has ever been as excited about seeing the Eagles and spending a Saturday in Polo Park. And if Winnipeg ever comes up in conversation, she always says, "Think what you will, but I'll always be grateful to Winnipeg. That city was good to you."
I fell in love with Calgary on a business trip in April of, I believe, 2012. I was coming there from Winnipeg and the difference in the two cities was a positive one for my individual preferences. I found Calgary lively, happy, positive, colourful, uplifting... and, most importantly, the people there obviously loved it. There was none of, "This place sucks!" that my friends in Winnipeg were always saying, more than I ever did. And SO MANY NEWFOUNDLANDERS. We went to the Ship & Anchor, I believe it was called, and I felt like I was in St. John's. I shared a table with a dozen or more people and never knew a soul before setting foot inside.
I have several relatives in Alberta, including a cousin who is a teacher, and her husband, an engineer. She thought the people were conservative and backwards at first. I'll never forget her bewildered phone call, "We're at a bar and they're LINE DANCING! I'm not even joking. And they think we're hicks?" But at her wedding here a few summers ago, most of her bridesmaids were Albertans. They have a child now and she's finding it very hard. She doesn't want to raise her family there, nor does her husband, but they have no comparable employment opportunities here. Interestingly, a lot of their friends are actually Albertan, and not Newfoundlander expats.
Another cousin, who moved to Edmonton, will never be back except to visit. Her Facebook is a constant stream of all the cool things she's doing in Alberta - concerts, snowboarding, skydiving, camping, working, and so on. She's a dental hygienist and has done a little modelling. She does get homesick from time to time and I don't think any of her friends is actually from Alberta, but she loves her life there.
Finally, I have one relative in Vancouver - a cousin whose parents are from Newfoundland but who was born and raised in Ajax, Ontario. She is a lot like my cousin in Edmonton - always on the hills, always doing things. She's probably the one who finds it easiest to live in the West. My uncle, her father, visited this past summer and I asked if she'd ever come to see us in St. John's again. He laughed and said, "My love, I'll never get her in Toronto again, let alone here."
Overall I love the people of the West, I have a great affection for many of the cities and cultural traits (marijuana tolerance in B.C., for example; though I don't smoke it, I think it's stupid that it's illegal) and, of course, the climate of much of B.C.. I absolutely hate the conservative influence on federal politics, which I subconsciously blame on Alberta even though Harper is Ontarian and they voted Conservative in large numbers as well.
I hate the influence oil sands culture is having on St. John's. The influx of obnoxious douchebags (all Newfoundlanders, by the way) with their baseball caps, white necklaces, skin-tight shirts, work boots, and big Alberta trucks is irritating on so many levels. I prefer skeets. I resent losing so many of our people. It bothers me that "Fort Mac is the second-largest city in Newfoundland", as people say. I want us to grow and prosper here.
I can't relate, really, to living away from the ocean. What the prairies inspire in those who live there... I just can't connect to it. But I do see the beauty. I can remember watching trucks roar down dirt roads through fields of flax flowers at sunset. There's a romance in it - but it's just completely foreign to me.
If Canada was some fantasy novel, the prairies and the Rock would definitely be two completely different people. Dwarves and Hobbits, or whatever else. But it was nice to experience. I wish I had known going in that it would have an end and I'd eventually be back home where I belong... I could have enjoyed it more then, I bet.
Anyhow, yeah... mostly positive.
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Just melting some butter for the popcorn.
Haha the Ship!!! (Ship & Anchor) You're right that's what it's called. It's like a staple of visiting Calgary. Communal beer-hall tables, awesome atmosphere, great service, great food (and beer of course), and a totally positive atmosphere. A new place called National opened up next door to it last year, it is similar but with a much more refined urban vibe to it, a bit more posh. Great food and people as well though. 
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