Not that the Farmer’s Almanac is necessarily a reliable source for long-term forecasts (it’s predicted that, past about 10 days in the future, weather forecasts get comically untrustworthy) but it has predicted a harsh, long winter for Toronto. If last year’s winter was relatively mild, albeit with bouts of polar vortex, this year’s promises to be a wall-to-wall season of icy extremes.
When the weather’s like that, activities are severely limited, and consequently people tend to stay in their homes and go stir crazy. But not all Toronto activities require warm weather; in fact, some of the most fun things you can do take place indoors, and run throughout the winter.
If you’re looking for a way to stay entertained this winter – or, at the very least, sane – check out the following four indoor activities.
Join an Axe Throwing League
What used to be an outdoor sport, popular at cottages, is now an indoor affair. And an insanely fun one, at that. If you’ve never tried it, the premise is simple: you throw an axe at a wooden plank painted with a target. For some light-hearted competition, you can go axe throwing with your friends, or for the more immersive experience you can join an axe throwing league in Hamilton or Toronto.
Exercise Your Brain at a Trivia Night
It isn’t just general trivia anymore – a number of niche trivia nights have popped up all over town. Do you know an unreasonable amount about Seinfeld? Do you know every single line from the first seven seasons of The Simpsons? Are you a Harry Potter-head, an eighties music fanatic, a Lord of the Rings nerd? There’s a trivia for just about every pop culture phenomenon.
Bring the Green Indoors With Virtual Golf
True tee time may have to wait until May, but until then there’s always indoor golf. Indoor golf may not be quite the same as playing a real, freshly mowed course, but it’s fun for what it is. Generally, indoor golf courses let you rent a lane by the hour, (sometimes less), and rent a club. If you’re tired of playing pool with your buddies, this can be a great change of pace.
Find a Jam Session Group on Meetup
For those unfamiliar, Meetup is a social media site where you can find groups of people with similar interests/hobbies/aspirations. You can find groups, for instance, dedicated to learning French. You can find beer appreciation groups that share tasting notes on local micro-brews. You can find groups centred on interests as diverse as manga, woodworking and poetry. But, if you’re a musician, you have to try one of Meetup’s jam session groups, which lets you noodle around on your instrument with other like-minded musicians.
Whatever you do, don’t spend this winter cooped up indoors, cursing the cold weather. Get out there and make the most of the Toronto winter. It may be lousy outside, but there are plenty of fun, enriching, exhilarating activities to try that don’t require you to freeze yourself to death.
