Snowmobiles + Drag Queens: Valentine’s Day in Manitoba

Valentine’s Day is for sweethearts, right? Or maybe not. If the thought of flowers, chocolates and candlelit dinners makes you retch, then we may just have a solution. Remember Love Hearts candy with sentiments like Kiss Me and Let’s Cuddle? One Winnipeg bakery has given that idea a little twist, creating cookies that may look like Love Hearts but send a message that’s slightly evil. Order your dozen cookies for Cakeology Cakes for only $13. Then you can let the gal in the next cubicle know what you really think of her.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2011 ON AOL TRAVEL CANADA

We do things a little different in the country out this way. For example, if you feel like treating your sweetie to a really wild ride, then you should head out to Dauphin (about 300 km northwest of Winnipeg) for the Sweetheart Snowmobile Derby on Feb. 13. You can do the 50 km ride or, if you butt can handle it, the 80 km cruise. Get playing cards along the way at designated stops, make your best poker hand, win some prizes and end up at Smitty’s for beef on a bun.

Back in Winnipeg, perhaps you’re craving a little culture. Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mendelssohn are waiting to entertain you with songs of love at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Romantic Rendezvous on Feb. 12. I hear there will be excerpts from the opera too.

If you’re idea of Valentine’s Day includes aerial acrobats, drag queens, impersonators, living statues, body painters, card readers, body builders, jugglers and stilt walkers, then I know you’ll be heading to Winnipeg Mardi Gras, Feb. 11 and 12. Not surprisingly, admission is restricted to those who at some point have celebrated an 18th birthday. The Bourbon Street Band promised to zydeco you all night. And if you get puckish, there are freshly shucked oysters, peel-and-eat shrimp, melt-in-your-mouth alligator, Louisiana crab cakes and southern fried Cajun pickle spears, of course. Admission is $16. See you there, cher. www.winnipegmardigras.com