Wed., 10/13/10 - On the Train and at Thompson, MB
This morning we watched the sun rise while we ate breakfast. We have a friendly young wait staff on this trip and seem to be the only group using the sleeper cars and dining car.
The scenery has changed from the taiga of marsh and low brush willows and krummholz white spruce in Churchill to boreal forest with white and black spruce and larch trees (deciduous fir trees). There are still many “puddles” or ponds holding fresh water above the permafrost. We are still looking for some moose.
We arrived in Thompson at 2:45 PM and shuttled back to our RV. We rested, took showers, and went out to dinner with the group.
Thurs., 10/14/10 – Thompson to Grand Rapids, MB
We had a short (207 miles), easy drive today but had to hitch up and dump and get water in a wet snow. We did not leave Thompson until 10:40. There was a long wait to get “café mochas” at Tim Hortons, which is like Manitoba’s version of Dunkin Donuts. They do an incredible business.
We parked for the night (dry camping again) in an area beside the road across from an Esso gas station. It is a step down from Wal-Mart parking lots!
At 4 PM we toured the Grand Rapids hydroelectric plant. We looked at the turbines, penstocks, and then went up to the dam and looked at the forebay behind the dam (Saskatchewan River) and the tailrace that empties into Lake Winnipeg and helps control its water level.
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Tailrace - Empties into Lake Winnipeg
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Forebay - Saskatchewan River |
Tonight we opted to eat in our rig instead of trying a local Chinese place that was about the only other option. It is good to be snug in our own home on wheels once again.
Fri., 10/15/10 - Grand Rapids to Winnipeg, MB
We drove on south to Winnipeg and arrived at the Assiniboia Downs Race Track and Exhibition Place. We lined up and parked in a double row in a parking lot. We do have electricity but have to drive to get fresh water and to another place to dump tanks. We hope to make it to Sioux Falls before needing water, etc.
It was a very windy drive with a head wind most of the way - very hard on gas mileage! We did see wildlife though - one ptarmigan by the side of the road.
From Thompson to Grand Rapids the landscape was all flat with many water “puddles” and all spruce forest much of which has been logged and replanted. Today we passed into areas of deciduous trees and then some cattle and some hay fields and more houses. It is still a very empty, flat province.
We settled in and then went to get gas and another Tim Horton’s café mocha. Hortons is conveniently at our corner. I took a nap and then walked around the area. The exhibition area is quite large with a hall, a barn, a café, an outdoor stage, and many animal pens and a rodeo arena. They hold a “stampede” here and many other events. At the racetrack, OTB was taking place upstairs in the grandstands and on the first floor an antiques show/sale was set up for the weekend. Down stairs was a cafeteria open on weekends. A brand new “iceplex” was across from our parking area. There were four ice rinks, all occupied with practice sessions. A bus dropped off a team of teenage boys, which must be one of the scheduled games for the evening. I was impressed that teams arrive dressed neatly in suits and ties!
At 9 AM we boarded a motor coach (not a school bus!) and began a tour of Winnipeg with our local guide, Marian. The first stop was at the Assiniboine Park, which contains a sculpture park and gardens. On display were several bronze sculptures by master sculptor, Dr. Leo Mol, of nude young women and polar bears and a statue of Tom Lamb who operated an outpost and then got into airplanes for deliveries and ended up establishing Tom Airlines that serves the Manitoba towns.
Polar Bears - Sculpture by Leo Mol |
Tom Lamb starting an engine in the old way - Sculpture by Leo Mol |
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In the gardens many flowers were still blooming since Winnipeg had not had a hard frost yet (but we had a really hard one that night). It was nice to see colorful flowers after all the days in sub-Arctic tundra and spruce forests and fields of drying sunflowers and combined corn. The topiary of the Lake of Manitoba monster, Manipogo, was very cute.
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Topiary version of Manipogo
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A pair of white buffalo (on left)
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We drove past the zoo where they have a pair of white (not albino) buffalo. These are considered by several Native American and First Nations cultures to be sacred and of great spiritual importance. The next stop after driving though some residential areas and along the river was at the Nunavut Gallery. The proprietor showed us how the carvings are created by native artists out of soapstone and serpentine. There were some lovely carvings and paintings in the shop. Driving around town we noticed many trees in yards and lining the streets that had a band around the trunk. These are elm trees and the way they fight the Dutch elm disease is to put fiberglass and then aluminum around the trunk about 8 feet up and apply a sticky stuff to the metal. It is supposed to trap the insect bearing the disease. We stopped at the provincial legislature building. It is made of fossilized limestone blocks (Tyndall Stone) created in this area when this was an inland sea in the tropics. We toured the inside - the dome, the bison guarding the central staircase, fossils in the limestone walls, the legislative chamber, etc. Outside we looked at the “Golden Boy” on the top of the dome. He was cast in Europe in 1918 and was placed aboard a ship and then the ship became a transport ship for troops. The Golden Boy sailed around Europe for several years before he arrived in Canada.
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Parliament building - legislative chamber
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Fossil in limestone wall (Tyndall Stone) |
Symbol of Manitoba guarding the main staircase and gallery |
Golden boy atop the capitol dome
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Back on the bus we drove through St. Boniface, which is the French Quarter of Winnipeg. The schools here teach in French and street signs are in French. It is still a bilingual area. The Catholic Cathedral in St. Boniface was also quite interesting. When it burned to the ground in the 1960’s, they rebuilt a very modern church inside the pieces of remaining stone walls, preserving the original walls in the process.
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St. Boniface Cathedral - front facade
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St. Boniface Cathedral - front facade from the "inside" |
St. Boniface Cathedral - front facade from the "inside"
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Model of original church |
We crossed a very interesting cable bridge with a separate pedestrian way and a café over the water and entered the Forks Area. The old stable buildings are now a huge food court and boutique shops at the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers. We ate Greek gyros, got mochas, and walked around the park with Marian. There is a unique central circle with extended iron poles in the area where aboriginal groups met and made camp for thousands of years. When you stand in the center circle at certain days of the year and look through the two loops on a pole it lines up to a planet or star. Very clever. The rivers freeze in wither and people skate and play shinny (pick up hockey games). The city provides the warming huts. In the past there have been devastating floods along the Red River. There is now a huge ditch that diverts the water around Winnipeg and runs all the way up to the Hudson Bay. The high water mark on the band shell at the Forks is well over 12 feet high.
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The Forks - confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers
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The Forks - confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers |
Aboriginal meeting place preserved in the Forks area |
Confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers
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Our last stop was at the Manitoba Museum. (Pictures were allowed but very difficult to take because of the light - or lack of it.) We split into two groups and had a museum guide give us an excellent tour of the entire museum. He gave us an orientation and then took us through the Arctic/Sub-Arctic zone, the Boreal Forest, Mixed woodlands, Grasslands, and then an urban section with mockups of a drug store, theater, dentist office, etc. A replica of the ship, Nonsuch, the first Hudson Bay ship that made it here from England into the Hudson Bay to avoid the French traders in the St. Lawrence River, is displayed. The history of the Hudson Bay Company was another section with many artifacts. We ended at the beginning with the early history of the area including the world’s largest Trilobite. Our guide was excellent and gave us some definitions to remember:
Inukshuk = in the place of a person;
Mad as a Hatter = people who processed beaver pelts into hat felt breathed noxious fumes that made them go berserk;
Big Wig = The English man who put up the money to start the Hudson Bay Co. wore a huge, black, curly wig;
Hand me downs = a store that sold used items - buckets, rakes, brooms, boots, etc, - hung them from the eaves out of reach outside the store and they had to be handed down to a customer.
This was another wonderful museum.
Back at the RV we got a half hour nap and then boarded the bus to go to our farewell dinner at a German restaurant. The food at our buffet was wonderful - six salads, wienerschnitzel, sausage, spaetzles, two stews, mashed potatoes and gravy of course, sauerkraut and cooked red cabbage. The dessert table offered 10 different German pastries - strudels, lemon squares, etc.
Sun., 10/17/10 – Winnipeg, MB to Sioux Falls, SD - Red Barn (GS) in Tea, SD
We awoke to Winnipeg's first frost - a very hard, window scraping affair. At 7 AM we joined our group one last time and shared a continental breakfast - Tim Horton donuts, juice, yogurt, coffee and hot chocolate. We said our goodbyes and drove out at 8:15.
We passed through US customs quickly. An Agriculture inspector looked in our refrigerator to check for alcohol and fresh produce. He looked in two cabinets and cleared us to leave.
We drove south through the North Dakota flat farm fields and then some rolling hills in South Dakota and more fields of corn, soybeans, and sunflowers. Pheasant hunting season began today in North Dakota but all we saw were about 20 turkeys.
We parked for the night at the Red Barn RV Park in Tea, SD. Originally the village was named Byron but when they applied for a post office the authorities said there were already several towns called Byron so submit 10 short names and the authorities would choose one. The residents could only come up with nine and opted for a tea break. Someone added Tea to the list and that was the choice of the postal authority in 1902.
Mon., 10/18/10 – Sioux Falls, SD to North Platte, NE
We got a late start - 9:30 - but arrived in North Platte at the Holiday Travel Park at 5:30. On the drive today we took back roads to Grand Island, NE and then got on I-80 heading west. We saw three different bunches of turkeys. I don’t think they know Thanksgiving is coming. We also saw a few deer feeding in the cornfields. We watched many fields being combined. ‘Tis the season!
There just happens to be a Whisky Creek Steakhouse near our campground. It is my favorite for their special Flatiron steak. Of course we ate there. Our steaks were tender and juicy and lean and cooked just right.
Tues., 10/19/10 – Grand Island, NE to Estes Park, CO
We arrived home about 2 PM and parked and unloaded the camper.
It was another wonderful adventure seeing the polar bears and the aurora, the land was very different and the stops along the way were interesting, especially Winnipeg, but it is great to be back home.
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