Winnipeg

Tuesday, Lawrence took me back to Winnipeg for a bit of a tour. We started at the Manitoba museum, which had some pretty nice dioramas including a full-sized replica of the 1600′s ship Nonsuch that you could walk around on (the whole thing reminded me of Thief: Deadly Shadows). Then we went to the Forks, the slightly touristy area where the two major rivers of Winnipeg meet, and walked along the partially flooded bank of Red River to Manitoba’s ridiculously extravagant legislative building.

Unfortunately we missed a guided tour about all the masonic traits of the building, but we took a quick walk around by ourselves and found a painted star on the floor where if you stand there and speak, every surface of the room is designed to reflect the sound right back at you to sinister effect.

From there, we went back to the Forks, bought some candy at a store inside an old train car(!), I bought some stuff for my parents, and we had mediocre dinner at a pub because the great Italian place downstairs was full of people. After a trip to a burned-down cathedral where a new church has been built inside the old stone walls (which looked quite striking, photos will be added later), we took a short walk around the French quarter, and then picked up some stuff for the house on the way home.

If it’s acceptable to pass judgment on the town based on a one day trip, I’d say that Winnipeg is a very nice city. It seems not a lot larger than Peterborough, but it has a bit more of a large city mentality because it’s a provincial capital – ie. it actually has a few skyscrapers. Compared to Toronto, it’s a tiny and far less interesting town, but it has more space and much more pleasant air – it’s actually a nicer place to be.

The city tour set me up nicely for a more nature-oriented Wednesday. After a nice breakfast and a few hours of feeble attempts to help Larry’s family around the house in preparation for his mother-in-law’s wake tomorrow (I really want to help, but I’m terrified of all the spiders in the old boxes), Larry and I took the canoe out on the river that runs right past his house. We went about half an hour up the river and then back again, with the intention of going in the other direction across the lake to the beach. Unfortunately the wind on the lake was pretty bad, so we returned to the house after around an hour out. It was super fun to get to canoe again though, which I haven’t done in 8-9 years by my estimation, and it was great to get some sun and some exercise.

Instead of taking the canoe up the river to the beach, we jumped into the car with Lawrence’s fiance Winter and her cousin Jennifer and drove there. Another first-in-a-while for me, as it’s been far too long since I’ve had a good swim. Around Copenhagen, we have a nice selection of beaches, but it’s all salt water, and I’m not a fan of swimming in the sea. This was my first chance in quite a while to dip into a beautiful clean fresh water lake, and there was much water-based frolicking.

To finish off the day, we got changed and went directly from the beach out to a farm near Larry’s house to have dinner with some friends of the family. The farm is roughly 35,000 acres, and I got an introduction to one of the enormous combine harvesters, feeling a little like a small boy in awe of all the massive farm equipment. The barbeque dinner was great, and we stayed for a while for drinks and conversation.

I gotta say I wasn’t expecting a proper country vacation when I decided to come over here, but that was mostly from lack of research. It’s pretty clear that Manitoba is mainly farm country, and I’m easily getting the dose of nature that I was hoping to get out of Canada. It may not make for very interesting reading, but it sure has been very pleasant so far. Here’s hoping I won’t feel like too much of an interloper at the wake tomorrow.