It’s officially been one year since I’ve left Manitoba. I know I’m not alone in saying that I miss travelling; I miss trying new food, staying in hotels, walking around new cities…

I’m not quite sure where to begin with this year in review. It doesn’t help that I am nearly three weeks late in publishing it; like 2020, 2021 seems to already be passing by in a strange vacuum of time. I wake up, I don’t really do anything, and then it’s dark outside. I don’t do anything, and yet time goes by and I’m always tired.

What a great way to start a review, eh? I’m sure you’re just chomping at the bit to read more!

As I’ve made pretty clear in the past couple of years, I love Winnipeg. Born and raised here, I moved away at 18 only to return at 33. For the past three years, I’ve fallen harder for this prairie city than I ever thought possible. One of the reasons I love it so much? The unbelievable wealth of local makers. This year, more than ever before, I’m trying to support local businesses. With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a guide of the best local Winnipeg gifts for Christmas and beyond.

Do you remember, back in March, when we all thought this would last two weeks?

The snow was melting in Winnipeg, I had a new boyfriend, I was almost overwhelmed with freelancing work, I was going to the gym regularly and loving it.

“Two weeks without seeing my family and friends, two weeks without going to restaurants, two weeks without going to the gym?” I panicked.

Oh, how innocent and naive I was. How blissfully, ignorantly unaware.

As someone who likes to see as much as possible when I travel, I often try to fit a couple of locations in per trip. One of the things I find myself researching the most is how to get from A to B. When I travelled for a month through the Balkans last year, I researched this a lot. One of the routes I researched quite heavily was how to get to Kotor from Dubrovnik, two cities I was very excited to visit.

In the end, I travelled the other way round, from Kotor to Dubrovnik, but the ways to get there remain the same. Because the Balkan countries are so small, it makes it easy to travel between them; I found this to be the case with Montenegro and Croatia.

When I moved home to Winnipeg nearly three years ago, I was overjoyed to find out that there had been an influx of breweries in the city. As someone who absolutely loves beer, the abundance of breweries in Winnipeg has made for many an enjoyable evening (and in some cases, an enjoyable afternoon).

Whether you’re after hoppy IPAs, unique ingredients in your stout, or just a simple lager for a hot day, there’s a Winnipeg brewery for you. I’ve made it a point to sample as many varieties of beer as possible over the past year so that this article would be up to date and accurate. You’re… welcome?