Winnipeg: Like Silent Hill, But Harder to Navigate

Okay. Winnipeg, atmospherically, is a strange and frightening town; we've previously established that it's basically Silent Hill. I would like to think that this much is common knowledge by now, but I believe I'll take this opportunity to really hammer at the point for a while.

Today was quite a miserable day for weather in and around Winnipeg, you see. You might have already
heard something along those lines today. But Winnipeggers are a notoriously tough, if stubborn and somewhat foolhardy, bunch -- which is why the Royal Canadian Mounted Police eventually had to step in and politely request that we geniuses of high standing please stop trying to drive on the god damn highways before we get ourselves killed.

Now, let me tie that back together. Do you remember the early scenes of the original Silent Hill, when the story begins with a car crash and then the viewer's initial introduction to the town is comprised entirely of frighteningly poor visibility and completely unusable roads?

The Province of Manitoba helpfully maintains a Road and Traveller Information Map online, which will let you check the highway conditions and plan a safe route ahead of time for your long-distance travels. Yellow diamonds on the map indicate "Caution", red triangles indicate "Travel Not Advised" -- which, considering the usual expectations around here, is a threat to be taken seriously -- and red circles indicate "Closed", because somebody didn't pick up on the Travel Not Advised part.

So here was what the government highway conditions looked like this afternoon.



Welcome to Winnipeg. I don't know how you got in here, but you're definitely not getting back out.