LEFT: Bilingual stop sign in St. Boniface neighborhood, Winnipeg
RIGHT: Lake of the Woods in northern Ontario
The spring semester always seems to drag on at school. When the end of the year finally does come around, it always seems high time for a break. This year I took that break, sneaking northward to Winnipeg for a well-deserved long weekend. It wasn't a real vacation, but it was a pleasant little getaway.
I left early this morning-right around six. Algona is a lot closer to Canada than anywhere else I've lived, but it's still a long ways away. I hoped that by starting early I might be able to make it northward in a long day. So I bought gas and was out of town just as the fast food places opened for the morning.
I drove north of Fairmont, and then to New Ulm, Minnesota, where I stopped briefly for breakfast. I detoured west a bit to the town of Sleepy Eye and then headed north on Minnesota highway #4 for what seemed like forever. The towns here are small, and they are all fifteen miles apart. The scenery is nothing special (very little of southern Minnesota is), and it really was a very boring drive.
After a long, dull morning, I stopped for lunch in the town of Sauk Centre (note the British spelling, even in Minnesota). This is the hometown of Sinclair Lewis, and the setting for his famous book Main Street. There is a monument to him, and the downtown area has been restored to look properly old. The rest of the town is a tourist center aimed at the heavy traffic on Interstate 94. I ate at Pizza Hut. I ordered a personal pan pizza-the kind where they guarantee service in five minutes, or your next one is free. It took over twenty minutes for me to be served, so I made a point of complaining. I did indeed receive a coupon for a free pizza. The trouble is, though, that coupon was only good in Sauk Centre--no other Pizza Hut will accept it. Some guarantee.
Interstate 94 is more or less the boundary between southern and northern Minnesota-that is between the farms and the north woods. It's quite a bit less than halfway across the state (Minnesota really is huge), but it's a definite boundary nonetheless. The interstate angles northwestward from Minneapolis to Fargo, following the edge of the prairies as the edge further and further north. South of the interstate virtually all the land is farmed-corn and beans, mostly, like Iowa. North of the interstate there is very little farming, and what there is is mostly dairy cattle or garden vegetables. It's an abrupt and rather amazing shift, and it's every bit as dramatic everywhere in Minnesota.
I followed U.S. highway #71 north from Sauk Centre, driving through denser and denser forest and more and more touristed areas. I stopped briefly in the town of Wadena at a Pamida discount store. My air conditioner was leaking water inside the car (a habit it has done for three straight summers now), and I wanted a towel to catch the mess before it became a serious problem. That mission accomplished, I continued northward to Park Rapids, where I stopped for fuel. Gas prices have really taken a dramatic plunge in recent years. The last time I was in northern Minnesota, I bought gas in the town of Akeley--just 18 miles east of Park Rapids-for $1.329, which happens to be the highest price I had ever paid to the time, and still is the most I have paid in the U.S.A. Times change, though. Today in Park Rapids I paid $1.039, and I thought that was horrible compared to prices further south.
From Park Rapids, it's just a short drive on to Itasca State Park, home of Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River. According to some old black-and-white photos, I was here as a child. It's definitely not among my childhood memories, though. Since I was in no particular hurry, I paid my entrance fee and saw the park. It's really very interesting. The lake itself is nothing special, except for being one of those places you can say you have been. Let there be no question about those childhood pictures--I HAVE been there now. Besides the lake, though, the whole area is quite beautiful. There is a loop road-barely one lane wide-that winds through the white-barked trees. It's not something to go fast on, and the "hill" signs along it have pictures of bicycles instead of cars or trucks. I spent about an hour driving the road, and I really did enjoy it.
Another half-hour north of Itasca is the city-lette (population 10,000) of Bemidji. My father took summer classes here when I was little, and there are photos of us at some amusement park in Bemidji. I didn't find any amusement park (nor did I try very hard), but I did find the attraction for which Bemidji is probably most famous. The legendary Paul Bunyan, the idealized North Woods logger, is idolized here. There are two massive concrete statues in a park south of town-one of Bunyan and the other of his giant blue ox. There are also black-and-white photos of us as children standing beside the blue ox. The pictures are strange enough; in living color Paul Bunyan is dressed in red and white checks and the ox is BLUE!!!!!
I stopped for coffee at the drive-up window of a Hardees restaurant in Bemidji. It was the strangest such place I have ever seen. As at all "driv-thru"s, I placed my order at a combination menu/microphone. When I reached the service window, though, there was no person. Instead I heard a whooshing noise, and a tray slid down a long diagonal ramp from points unknown deep inside the bowels of the restaurant. When it reached the bottom of the ramp the window opened to reveal that here was a box on the tray. A disembodied electronic voice told me the cost of my coffee. I assumed (correctly, thank goodness) that I should place the money in the box. I did so and waited a moment. Nothing happened. Eventually I realized there was a button on the tray, much like the "dispatch" button at a drive-in bank. I pressed the button, and the tray zipped up the ramp and out of sight. In a moment the disembodied voice thanked me, and again I heard the whoosh. The tray zoomed down the ramp at breakneck speed-how the coffee managed to remain unspilled, I'll never know. I grabbed the coffee. Again an electronic thank-you came from points unknown. I didn't feel it was appropriate to respond to a voice from nowhere, so I just took my change from the box and left.
It took about five minutes from the time I placed my order to the time I drove away. You can't tell me that electronic tray is an improvement in service over having a girl at the window. (They can't be saving on employees, either-SOMEONE has to take the money out of the tray, even if she doesn't have to talk.)
It was nearly six when I got to Bemidji--a most awkward time. Bemidji was the last place of any size before Canada, a logical place to stay and a logical time to stop--and I was getting tired (I had been driving nearly twelve hours). Then again, from here it was only two hours on to Canada--and it wouldn't be TOO late when I got there. I debated with myself for a time and quickly decided the pluses of staying the night in Canada outweighed any tired feeling I had now. So I kept driving north and northeast on U.S. 71.
It is 111 miles from Bemidji to International Falls, and even if I hadn't been tired those would have been the most boring 111 miles of the trip. The highway is relatively new, so it avoids absolutely every town along the way-you occasionally see glimpses of population off to the side of the road. There are virtually no curves, absolutely no hills, and no variety whatsoever in the scenery. It's mostly a good road, but it's an ugly one. A lot of forest roads are pretty; they make you feel a part of the forest. This was just bulldozed through the woods-a massive, 111-mile asphalt gash through the trees. It's a road that just doesn't belong; it makes you feel like an intruder in the woods. Partly because of this I joined the locals in driving VERY fast along it (around the 65-mph limit that is legal only on interstates, but WELL over the 55-mph limit on this road.) It didn't take that long to get to International Falls, but it seemed like forever.
There was a mall at the south end of International Falls, and I stopped there to catch a bite for dinner. A sign told me there was a radio station with "CAN. TRAV. INFO." , so I turned my car radio to that frequency. The local tourist centre, across the river in Fort Frances, played the same tape over and over and over again. It explained customs procedures, Ontario speed limits, things to see and do, local events, etc. It was informative, but also quite repetitive.
I drove on into International Falls proper-one of the dumpiest towns in the Midwest. This is the place that in winter almost always has the honor of being America's coldest place (not counting Alaska). On a summer evening it was brisk, but not cold. Aside from bad weather the place has very little going for it. It's downtown is mostly closed and heavily vandalized. The streets are lined with ugly, run-down homes. A thick smog from the local paper mill (which is actually in Canada) hangs over the place, giving it a smell worse than the industrial district of most major cities. It was 8pm, and I saw teenagers and old men drinking booze on the streets. It was an unpleasant, dirty, scary town. I was very glad to reach the international bridge.
The bridge that connects International Falls, Minnesota, and Fort Frances, Ontario, is one of the major border crossings between the U.S.A. and Canada-if only because virtually everyone in International Falls works at the paper mill in Fort Frances. The locals must have a monthly rate or something, but for tourists, at least, the bridge costs $2.60 per car. For that exorbitant fee (which I made a point of paying in Canadian dollars, which are worth far less than their American counterparts) I got the privilege traveling across a narrow green structure that looked as if it would collapse any minute. In the middle of the bridge, right on the border, there was a construction zone where traffic was reduced to one lane. Fortunately, this time of night there wasn't much to yield to.
Customs was easy. The officer, rather absent-minded, asked "how long have you been in the States" before noticing my American license plate. After he realized my citizenship, he laughed and proceeded quickly with the formalities; I was in Canada.
I quickly drove to the provincial information center, just beyond customs. The radio station mentioned that there was a currency exchange there, but they closed in minutes. I arrived right before closing time and changed $100 at a better rate than I could have gotten at a bank (not to mention no Canadian bank is open weekends). There was a long line at the currency exchange, and almost everyone was local. Directly behind me was a boy in a tuxedo wanting to change Canadian currency to American to use on a date across the border.
I drove through Fort Frances-nothing special as a town, but infinitely nicer than International Falls-and stopped at the Rainbow Motel on the west edge of town. I stayed here two years ago on another weekend escape north of the border. It's really a rather pathetic ma and pa fleabag, but it is the cheapest place in an expensive little town. I paid Can$37.50 for a single room, which converted to US$26.56 on my credit card bill.
After checking in I realized my room was full of mosquitoes. So I quickly bought some insecticide, sprayed the room, and toured the town while I waited for the fumes to settle. I walked through the downtown area-where most stores were closed-and drove out to an Indian reservation on the east edge of town. Then I browsed through Canadian Tire, a bizarre chain that is always huge and packed with nothing anyone would ever want to buy (it's exactly what its name implies-auto parts, hardware, and sporting goods, but housed in mammoth superstores). I stopped in at the local McDonalds, and then headed back to my motel, where I watched a bit of TV and was off to sleep.
I got up fairly early, since there wasn't much to keep me long at the Rainbow Motel. Most of those who stay there are on fishing trips, and I got up about the same time they all did-which gives you some idea of the hour. I walked two blocks to McDonalds to catch an "All-Canadian" Egg McMuffin at the place with a maple leaf in their arches. (McDonalds of Canada is proud to tell you they are entirely run by Canadians and their food is indeed entirely made in Canada-but it is entirely owned by the same Chicago company that runs McD's in the States.) I then threw my bag in the car and took off for points west.
There are two national highways in Ontario, both called the Trans-Canada Highway. The south route of said highway runs through Fort Frances, called Highways 11 and 71 (both of which are numbered to correspond with roads on the other side of the border, in Minnesota). I followed these roads west a few miles through extremely ugly scenery next to the Rainy River.
The woods are very scrubby right in here. I don't know if it's naturally that way or whether that has happened since the place was settled, but very few of the trees are more than about six feet tall. The soil seems both sandy and rocky, and the trees are spaced by scrub grass. Along the highway there are houses-mostly run-down mobile homes with broken windows and unmowed lawns. A lot of them have cows or chickens, and a few have vegetable gardens, but there isn't much real farming up here. The highway is very busy, and people pass even when there is a solid yellow line. I really don't care much for this country.
The only "towns" along here are Indian reservation settlements. Canadians would like to think that they treated their Indians better than did Americans-far less slaughter and re-location. In fact, I have seen government literature saying that "this peculiar problem" was better handled in Canada. Well, whatever the past may have been the situation of Indians today seems quite the same in both countries. Indians are the poorest people on both sides of the border, and Ontario alone has over 100 reservations. There are Indian reservations in every province except Prince Edward Island, and for the most part the entire Northwest Territories could be considered one big reservation. In Ontario, at least, the reservations are all ugly. Virtually all the Indians seem to live in either shacks or mobile homes, most of which do not have plumbing. Most have only one telephone per settlement, and I am told few homes have electricity. The people dress in rags, trash is strewn everywhere, and beat-up cars are parked along the dirt reservation roads. It basically looks like a Third World country right in the middle of Canada, and it's really quite shameful. As in the States, Canadian Indians do not have to live on reservations, but the urban Indians also tend to be poorer than the English, French, Ukranian, Italian, Asian, and African people in the cities.
Forty kilometers (25 miles) west of Fort Frances the road turns north. Quite suddenly the traffic thins out and the scenery gets a lot prettier. For another 175km (over 100 miles) the road follows Lake of the Woods, a beautiful, huge body of water that is the furthest water draining into the Great Lakes. There are resorts all through here, but for the most part they are off in the forest and the highway avoids them. There are beautiful views of woods and water, and it's really a pretty drive. As almost everywhere in Ontario, every twenty kilometers (15 miles) there is a tiny forest green sign showing you are getting closer and closer to the next big town-in this case the city of Kenora. In country as unpopulated as this it is helpful to have those signs to make it seem like you are making progress. All this distance I was listening to "Christian radio for children", one of two stations on the air-the other choice was a CBC opera broadcast.
It was tenish when I got to Kenora, a resort town with about 10,000 people in February and more than twice that in August. The season had just started here, so the town was full but not crowded. I bought gas and picked up some coffee at another McDonalds before weaving through the downtown and out the west-end strip. Then I drove a few more kilometers on Lake of the Woods and was rather suddenly in Manitoba.
The only real way to tell where the border to Manitoba is located is to notice that the road suddenly becomes four-lane their. Although the Trans-Canada is by far the busiest highway in both provinces, only Manitoba chose to four-lane it. (In Ontario, only roads by Toronto get that honor.) The scenery is identical; tall, sturdy forest-exactly what you would expect the North Woods to look like.
I stopped briefly at an information centre just inside Manitoba. Here I picked up some maps and some booklets on Winnipeg and the surrounding area. I leafed through them while using the restroom, trying to find what seemed the most interesting. Then I set out again.
The scenery coming into Winnipeg from the east is very odd. It is just over 100km (a little less than 70 miles) from the border to the city, and there are two VERY distinct looks to the land. As I mentioned before it starts out as rather tall, dense forest-heavy, sturdy woods, but flat. Close to the border this is the native vegetation, just as it is in Ontario. A little ways into the province the trees get slightly smaller, but just as dense. This is a planted forest, a new provincial wildlife preserve. The native vegetation here is not trees, and that becomes apparent immediately at the preserve's boundary. Suddenly, about 45km (30 miles) east of Winnipeg, there are no more trees. The broad median of the highway is prairie grass, and the sides are vast fields. It's a VERY abrupt change-I looked in my rear view mirror and could see only a long line of trees like a wall at the end of the fields. In front of me there were nothing but fields, stretching over 1500km (about 1000 miles) across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta-all the way to the Rockies. They continue southward, too, all the way to Texas. These are the Prairies, the Great American Desert that has become the great American breadbasket.
Almost every distance sign in Manitoba has Winnipeg as its ultimate destination, and all those signs measure to what is called "Perimeter Highway", the beltway that goes almost all the way around the city. Winnipeg has the honor of being the only Canadian city that can be easily avoided. A lot of Canadian highways seem trapped in the 1950s, but Winnipeg has an almost completed, almost four-lane, almost limited access almost bypass. It's by far the best urban highway in Canada, and it must make the truckers overjoyed. I got on and followed the southern bypass.
In one of the travel guides I had gotten at the information centre there was coupon for a special rate at the Grant Motor Inn, a nice-sounding place on Pembina Highway, the main strip running south from downtown Winnipeg-so named because it runs to Pembina, North Dakota, where it becomes Interstate 29. I exited the bypass at Pembina Highway and drove into town past a see of K-Marts, Wendys, Holiday Inns, Shell stations, and Pizza Huts (not to mention "the Bay" stores, Dominion Motor Inns, and PetroCanada stations). Pembina Highway is a minimum of six lanes, and it was packed solid with people headed to the malls for a Saturday excursion. Eventually, only six blocks from downtown, I did spot the Grant Motor Inn on the left, so I pulled a U-turn of questionable legality and headed back.
I drove into their drive and scouted the place a bit, then I drove around the block twice. All this time I was looking for a parking lot. There wasn't one. I don't know if there is valet parking or a separate parking lot hidden somewhere or if you're supposed to take your chances on the busy nearby streets, but I certainly wasn't going to keep my car out of my sight in a place of this size. So I drove on.
The map shows Pembina Highway going through a series of viaducts and dumping out at a six-way intersection right on the edge of downtown-fun! To get to the road I wanted to take downtown I had to move left across five lanes of traffic (with one block's notice), make a U-turn under the viaduct, go right across three lanes of traffic (again with almost no notice), and then exit to go on top of another viaduct. THEN I made it to the six-way intersection. All this mess had the same "Pembina Highway" name. At the six-way intersection one way at a time goes, so traffic on the other five streets is perpetually backed up across all those viaducts. What a loely welcome to the city!!!!!
Finally I ended up on Osborne Street, which for no particular reason re-named itself Memorial Drive after just two blocks. Somehow or other I was indeed just exactly where I wanted to be. Miracles do happen.
I drove through the so-called Warehouse District, which happens to be home to the most exclusive shops, cafes, and art galleries in the city. Most places have this section-it's all old warehouses that have been restored to be classy. They're a bit more pretentious than my taste, so I kept right on driving. At the end of this neighborhood is the original flagship store of Hudson's Bay Company. Steve and I searched for this store last year when we were up here, and when we finally found it, it was closed. I headed straight for its parking ramp, drove up to the fifth level, and finally found a place to stop. Then I walked in and explored.
The Bay, you probably know, is the oldest business establishment on earth. It is over 350 years old and was started as a pioneer fur-trading empire. At one time the company controlled all of western Canada and much of what is now the U.S. For over a hundred years Winnipeg had been the headquarters of the company, and this store was its flagship store. Times change, of course, and today the Bay is almost entirely a retailer, operating huge, ritzy department stores in major cities and cheap discount stores (called Zellers) in smaller towns. At this moment, though, they still operated their old string of trading posts all across the North. I didn't know it at the time, but this very day the company stockholders were voting in Toronto to move the headquarters to that city and sell off all the old trading posts. It truly is the end to the old empire, but I guess these are modern times.
I browsed all through the Bay. It has eight floors, plus a bargain basement, and it made me think that downtown department stores must be the same everywhere on earth (with the exception of Russia, of course). It was EXACTLY like the Corte Ingles and Galerias stores in downtown Madrid, and I've no doubt Macy's in New York or Harrod's in London must be about the same, too. This summer they were re-modeling to include the store as part of a mammoth downtown mall, so there were "Renovation Sales" on every floor. It takes a lot of renovation to get the Bay's prices down to my league, though. I did want a souvenir of the place, though, so I bought a couple of winter shirts, still appropriate in a place where summer really doesn't start until June 21. Then I went back to the parking ramp, paid my ticket, and merged with the downtown congestion.
The Bay is at the corner of Memorial Drive and Portage Avenue, the latter of which is the main drag in Winnipeg. It too was under construction this summer, since this new mall will include a number of pedestrian walkways above and below the street. What is normally eight lanes was reduced to three, one in each direction with a middle one with a light that changed so it could help with the traffic at rush hour. I happened to be on Portage several times over the course of the weekend, and needless to say, the middle lane was ALWAYS designated to go whichever way I wasn't.
I made a wrong turn at the edge of downtown and ended up crossing a rickety old bridge that dumped off on Boulevard Provencher, right in the French quarter. It was interesting, but I wasn't quite planning to see this place yet, so I tried to find my bearings as quickly as possible and eventually made my way back to Saint Mary's High Road, which happens to be part of the through-city route of the Trans-Canada. I followed the Trans-Canada from there back to the east edge of town, which happens to require three different sharp left turns, none of which I was prepared for. Eventually I made it out to the pink pyramid-shaped mint that Steve and I saw last year, and just a few "blocks" (I use the quotation marks because there really aren't any cross streets in this particular area) east of there was the motel I ended up staying at-the Super 8.
The Super 8 is part of the same South Dakota chain that operates motels all over the western U.S. They have a grand total of three Canadian franchises, with five more under construction. Like its American cousins, the Winnipeg Super 8 is the off-white stucco with diagonal wood trim that tries to imitate Elizabethan architecture and fails miserably. It is two floors with LONG hallways and only one entrance, the main lobby. I kept wondering what to do in a fire, but I guess the regulations must not be so strict north of the border. Being on the edge of town, the place caters mostly to truckers. The clerk asked if I was a trucker; apparently if I had lied and said I was, I could have gotten a big discount. As it was the place was quite reasonable, just over US$32 a night, including several taxes. The only real problem was being clear out of town, but at least it was convenient to the beltway, and in many ways that's easier than driving through downtown all the time.
I relaxed for a while in my room and read through the pamphlets from the information centre and a few travel books I brought along. Then, since today was Saturday and all the stores would be closed tomorrow, I headed out to explore the city and buy a few souvenirs (which for me means books and clothing). Oh well, I'll put it in terms my students would use-I did the malls. I really didn't buy much of anything, but I put a lot of miles on my car driving around the beltway from one shopping center to another. Eventually I made my way all around Perimeter Highway.
While out shopping I stopped at a Burger King to get some iced tea. Here I found that Canadians and Americans have a very different idea of what iced tea should be (just as they have different ideas of what coffee is). I paid 95 Canadian cents for something I could not drink. It was a heavy brown, lemon-flavored syrup, with very few ice cubes. Of course, it is possible to have one's tea with lemon and sugar in the States. That is never the way it is automatically served, though. I threw the tea out the car window, drove on to a McDonalds, and bought some coffee. Canadian coffee is different, too. It is always extremely strong and automatically served with cream on the side. At least all I had to dump was the cream, though. The coffee was still good.
I went back to the motel and dawdled a bit. I walked down past the mint to a little shopping centre about a mile from the motel, where I bought supper. On the way back I stopped to read a historical marker commemorating the first road in Manitoba, which ran from the Red River Colony (now Winnipeg) to Northwest Angle, which is now a part of Minnesota that can only be reached via Canada. The road is still there, still in use, and still dirt (not even gravel). It was interesting to see.
Then I thought it would be pretty, so I went for a drive around the city at sunset (10pm). Actually the place was rather ugly at sunset; rather than setting, the sun just seemed to fade and then die. On a weekend the downtown buildings were not lit up, and one business strip looks the same as another at night. It was fun to get out in the fresh night air, though, and I drove all over the city.
When I finally returned to the motel, I sat in bed and watched television for a while. It was now that I heard that Hudson's Bay Company had voted to sell off the northern stores and move to Toronto. The other big news story was that the United Church of Canada was meeting to decide whether to ordain gay people. A French movie with subtitles came on after the news, and I fell asleep with the TV on.
Name a place in or near Winnipeg, and I probably went there today. Sunday is a wonderful time to explore a city, for there is never any traffic to speak of. I toyed with the idea of going to church, but I never could get up the courage to do so. So I was a tourist and saw EVERYTHING there was to see in the area.
I got up early and headed west to find a place for breakfast. I ended up with an Egg McMuffin, as McDonalds was the only thing open on Sunday morning that was really in my price range. Then I went back to the motel, bathed, got my things organized, and set out for the day.
I first headed downtown, which was nearly deserted on Sunday morning. Three types of people-a lot of drunks (by far more numerous than the other groups), sprinkling of tourists, and a handful of student drivers. Apparently the driver's ed people go out driving on Sunday morning in Winnipeg; they were everywhere today. That really does seem quite sensible in a big city. It would give you some experience with city driving, but still ensure you won't hit anything. I walked all over downtown, just getting a feel of the place. In spite of all the drunks, it really felt quite safe. I didn't dawdle, and I didn't keep my wallet in my back pocket, of course, but I'd never invite crime in ANY city. About half of downtown is quite old (1800s), five or six floors, and red brick. The other half is brand new, twenty floors, and cement. The two parts really don't fit together very well, and they seem to be tearing down the old as fast as they can.
After wandering a bit I came to Upper Fort Garry, the place where Winnipeg was founded. Today there are just ruins of this old stone fort, in a tiny park sandwiched between a Petro-Canada station and a Country Kitchen. It really surprised me the place wasn't badly vandalized, but it's in quite nice shape-for ruins. This was where the Hudson's Bay Company first founded the Red River Settlement. They were only on this site for a few years before being flooded out and moving down river (north) to Lower Fort Garry. (Why they are called Fort Garry, I still don't know.)
After seeing the fort I saw the other downtown landmarks-the Anglican and English-speaking Catholic cathedrals (big old brick barns with crosses and statues out front), the provincial Parliament and judicial buildings (not much either), the convention centre (like all convention centers: ultra-modern and surrounded by ritzy hotels), the oldest railroad station in western Canada (one of those enormous concrete temples you'd expect in a big city), and the library (set among beautiful gardens). No, there's not really anything of touristic interest in downtown Winnipeg. It was fun just to walk around, though.
Just east of the parliament buildings is a rather interesting neighborhood. Broadway is a beautiful boulevard that runs from the parliament to the Red River, with a 15-foot median full of tall trees and planted with flowers. Street vendors wander that median, and local people mingle with tourists along it. It reminded me of the nice part of the Ramblas in Barcelona. This is mainly a residential area, with old sand-blasted brick row houses that have to cost a fortune. Every row house has a wrought iron balcony with white-painted wood trim. All the windows are barred with wrought iron and framed in carved white wood, too. The roofs are tiled, like in southern Europe, and the sidewalks are brick with trees in the middle of them in places. It's really a quaint little neighborhood.
From downtown I drove around various neighborhoods of Winnipeg. Much of the city seems fairly poor. More people live in apartments here than in most of Canada, and many of the apartments look like college dormitories-very plain brick structures that aren't very old but have seen their better days. From what I gathered in the papers, on TV, and hearing people talk, there are A LOT of retired people in Winnipeg, and apparently it is they who inhabit these run-down apartments. Most of the individual homes are quite small compared with American homes, but they are all freshly painted with neatly trimmed yards and bright wood fences. ... And there are parks everywhere in Winnipeg.
Winnipeg is a lot like Chicago in its ethnic make-up. That is, there are a lot of ethnic groups, each living in its own separate neighborhood. Just as it makes a world of difference whether one is Irish or Italian in Chicago, so the Winnipegers make a point of emphasizing their own ethnic group. The biggest English-speaking ethnic group, of course, is British-mainly from Scotland. Among the English-speakers, Ukrainian seems to be the next most prominent group. The rest of the Whites include Italians, Greeks, Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians. There are a lot of Indians in Winnipeg, more than I have seen in any other Canadian city. There are also a lot of Asians-mostly from Indochina, the boat people who also came to the United States after the war. The Asians also include a lot of Sikhs and other Indians and Pakistanis. Compared to an American city there aren't a lot of Blacks in Winnipeg (after all, Canada never had slavery). There are a lot there, though-mostly from the West Indies. The only ethnic group that was conspicuously absent was Latin Americans. All of the old people in these ethnic groups are first generation immigrants, and you still hear people speak and see signs in all the different languages (especially Ukrainian) around the city. One leaflet I read described Canada as "a cultural paella rather than a melting pot"-paella being the Spanish dish where various vegetables and meats are mixed, but retain their distinct flavor. Well, maybe. The groups are more distinct than they are in America, but who knows what another hundred years will bring.
The single largest ethnic group in Winnipeg is the French. Over a third of the city is French-speaking, and while that is not a majority, it is the plurality. Most of the French live on the east side of the city, in two neighborhoods known as Saint Boniface and Saint Vital. I drove over to St. Boniface, parked the car, and explored.
The only thing tourists are supposed to see in St. Boniface is the cathedral, western Canada's largest (which stands to reason, considering this is the ONLY Western city with any French population to speak of and there aren't that many English-speaking Catholic Canadians). The original cathedral was an enormous stone building that was gutted by fire twenty years ago. Today you can see its gothic arches and the altar area with no roof over them. They have built a new cathedral adjoining the old one-also of stone, but in rather garish modern architecture that fights with the old. Mass was going on while I was there, so I didn't go inside the new cathedral. I walked through the old one though, and through the adjoining cemetery (including the graves of Indians who were buried by Catholic missionaries in the 1700s).
St. Boniface is a very odd little place. It couldn't look LESS like Europe. The entire neighborhood is somewhat seedy-looking, two-floor wood duplexes, most of which were probably built in the '40s. They are painted in what can only be called "Canadian colors"-pink and turquoise together, for instance. Unlike many Canadian homes, though, they aren't bright. The paint looks old, and the colors are rather dull and grey-looking. There are no New Orleans-style balconies here-just steel screen doors, and sometimes the roof of the garage is used as a deck. All the homes have scruffy little yards around them. There are no gardens, not even flowers in the windows. There are also no grand traffic circles or boulevards-just one business strip surrounded by narrow streets, some of which are unpaved. This seems to be the poorest neighborhood in the city, but it is still very friendly-not tough like American slums.
Everyone here understands English, but they speak French. Every traffic sign and most business signs in this neighborhood are bilingual, and the clerks and waiters speak French first but then English when they realize that is what their customer speaks. The lifestyle seems an odd mixture of French and American. From the trash I saw, it is obvious the people drink wine with their meals, and they sell baguettes of French bread in the stores. All the women I saw were in dresses (but then it was Sunday), and people walked a lot more than in the rest of the city. On the other hand, there are barbecues in back of most of the homes. The people drive enormous American cars, eat at McDonalds, and they shop at stores with American names (K-Mart, Woolco, Sears). It's a very odd mix.
From St. Boniface I drove through some other neighborhoods, including one Ukrainian area north of downtown with those domed Orthodox churches I had seen in Russia. Just beyond this area was the oldest surviving house in Winnipeg. That sounded interesting, so I stopped in. It cost $2.50 to see the place, and it wasn't worth it. The place is just over 100 years old-there are homes in Mt. Pleasant that are far older and far nicer. (I'm not at all sure how old things in Algona are.) Most of the furnishings were donated, and many of them were far newer than the period of the home-depression era furnishings in a pioneer setting. There were two nice guides, but I was the only visitor, which was rather awkward. I stayed just long enough not to be conspicuous and then moved on.
Next I visited Lower Fort Garry, a major national historic site that is the well-preserved headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company. I saw it with Steve last year, so I won't dwell on it now. It was fun to visit again, though.
From there I drove north to the city of Selkirk, a beautiful suburb which I was amazed to find is Canada's largest steel-making center. It is also a fishing resort, and apparently the steel mills have seriously polluted the water and cut into fishing revenues. Selkirk calls itself the trout capital of North America, and at the south end of the beautiful little city there is an enormous (probably 30 feet high) plastic trout. I am glad I've never lived in a place that felt it had to construct one of those awful things along the highway. I walked around Selkirk for about an hour. It really is a lovely little city-very tidy, with larger homes than in the city and beautifully manicured lawns and gardens. There's not really anything to see here, though, so I moved on.
Next on my agenda was Lake Winnipeg (not to offend, but the name means "Smelly Water" and was originally "Winni-PEE" in the Indian language-seriously). This lake is like an enormous footprint across Manitoba. It is one of the world's largest lakes-larger than two of the Great Lakes. It is larger than every lake in the U.S. except Lake Michigan, but in Canada it ranks a poor third. I followed a flood of traffic with weekend escapees from the city north to Grand Beach, a state park at the south end of the lake. From here islands not too far from shore make the lake look relatively small. It goes more than 600 miles northwest from here, though, eventually emptying into the Churchill River and flowing another 300 miles to Hudson Bay. The water is clean and clear, but it is indeed smelly-I'm not really sure why. There were sunbathers and windsurfers all over the beach. I didn't have a swimsuit with me, so I just drove around a bit to catch some good views of the lake. Then I took a hike on a deserted trail used mostly by birdwatchers. It made for a fun afternoon.
To avoid all the traffic going back to the city, I took the long way around through the farm country northeast of Winnipeg. This is a heavily Ukrainian area; all the little towns have their domed churches, and some of the store signs are in Ukrainian only. Eventually I angled back to Selkirk and southward toward the city.
I stopped a few miles south of Selkirk, just outside the Winnipeg beltway, to visit some more historic sites. Saint Andrew's Church was the first Anglican church in the West. It is a brown stone building, built in 1820 and surrounded by an enormous cemetery. For over a century it was THE cathedral for all Anglicans between Toronto and Vancouver. Eventually Anglican cathedrals were built in places like Regina and Edmonton, and in the 1920s the Winnipeg cathedral was moved to a more spacious building downtown. The building is still used as the parish church for Lockport, a little suburb halfway between Winnipeg and Selkirk.
More interesting than the church is its old rectory, which is now a national historic site. William Cockran, the priest who built the church and rectory, ministered to the Inuit in northern Canada-the only Protestant to do so. (Even today most of the northern villages have a trading post and a CATHOLIC church.) It was he who developed the modern Inuit alphabet (which happens to look like nothing more than O's and U's, but somehow makes sense to the Eskimos), and he translated the Bible into Inuit, making Inuit the first non-European language in which a Bible was generally published and distributed. I had never heard of this person before this day, and it was fascinating to visit the place and read about him.
Down the road about a mile from the church and rectory is a place called Red River House, a house that is indeed next to the Red River (not to be confused with the Red River of song fame or the Arctic Red River further north and west). It is apparently historic, but it cost $5 to go in, so I still don't know why it is historic. I toured the formal gardens, which were free and beautiful, and then left.
On the way back into the city I drove past an ultra-modern Ukrainian Orthodox church, still with those domes even in modern architecture. It was across the street from a decaying industrial park, and somehow neither fit in with the other.
I had dinner this evening at that Country Kitchen next to Upper Ft. Garry in downtown Winnipeg. The place was run by a Pakistani family, with women in Moslem clothes. They served the same American menu as every other Country Kitchen, and the food and service were very good. After eating I drove back to the motel. I walked back down to that shopping center for an evening snack and went to bed fairly early.
I got up slowly this morning and dawdled around the motel until after 9am. I ate the complimentary breakfast the motel served (doughnuts and coffee) and watched the morning news on the CBC. Eventually I settled my bill and left.
I wanted to see the Royal Canadian Mint, which Steve and I toured last year. They didn't open until 9:30, and I was among the first there. They had changed the tour since last year, including a new film explaining the history of money-making and what is done at the other Canadian mints. The rest of the tour, looking at the steps in coining money from observation decks, remained unchanged.
It was pouring when I left Winnipeg, and I got soaked just walking from the mint to the parking lot. I think it always rains in Canada in June. The car was dry, though, and it was not difficult driving. I drove south from Winnipeg, stopping in the town of Steinbach.
Steinbach is a heavily German settlement, with Mennonites being the largest single group. The Mennonite International Museum is located here, and I toured it. It was fascinating. Part of the museum building explains the history of the Mennonite people and how they were chased out of country after country in Europe before settling in Canada, the United States, and (of all places) Paraguay. They then have rooms of artifacts used by the pioneer Mennonites in Manitoba. There is also a reconstructed pioneer village to tour, much like the towns on the Old Thresher's grounds in Mt. Pleasant or at Living History Farms. I spent two hours there and really enjoyed it.
I ate lunch at a family restaurant in Steinbach. I forget the name, but it is apparently a Canadian-owned chain with franchises all over western Canada and also in Hawaii. (I guess that's so the Canadians have somewhere to eat in winter, too.) The food and service were very good, and I left refreshed before long.
I angled southeastward to Minnesota. Again the farms gave way rather abruptly to forest, but this time the forest was rather scrubby and rugged again. There is virtually no population here, and the people that do live here are caught in a time warp. I saw no less than four log cabins along the road (and we're not talking modern log homes, we're talking "little house in the big woods"). I saw no electrical wires, and the cabins appeared to have outhouses, so apparently there's no plumbing either. I guess that's one way to get away from it all.
I got to the border at 2pm, and I have never had such a difficult time with customs. The place where I crossed was called Pigeon Creek, a little nothing about 50 miles east of Interstate 29. There is no town on either side of the border-the closest place of size is twenty miles into Minnesota, and that place is closer to another border. I pulled up to the customs station, a little white wood house like so many on small highways. I waited there and waited some more, but no one came out of the building. Finally I shut my car off and was just ready to go inside when a man came out and greeted me by saying, "What the hell is going on here, anyway?" He then proceeded to ask a number of very prying questions, mostly centering on what my job was-what business it is of his what my job is, I'll never know. He didn't believe me when I said that all I had purchased was books and clothes, and he asked me questions about that too. He never did look in the car, nor did he ask to see any identification. I disliked the man and his style, and when I got home I wrote the Customs Service to complain. So far I have gotten three separate replies, each more apologetic than the one before. They do seem to think asking an occupation is okay to do, though, which bothers me.
I drove south through ugly woods through northwest Minnesota. The only real diversion on the drive were Leach Lake and Long Lake Indian Reservations. The scenery here was much prettier, driving beside the lakes. The reservations looked like those in Canada, poor and littered, but at least it was different than elsewhere on the road. Also interesting, the Indians had their own license plates, rather than the standard Minnesota plates. They were red on white, with blue lines in the middle of them. (At first I thought they were Florida plates.) They did say "MN" in tiny letters, but mostly they said "LEECH LAKE INDIAN COOPERATIVE". They had the same sequence of letters and numbers that all Minnesota plates have, just a different appearance. It was really quite odd to see.
Just south of the reservation was Bemidji, where I stopped for supper at a Wendy's outlet. I then drove on to Brainard, which is exactly in the center of Minnesota. I stopped at the Super 8 motel there, curled up in front of the TV, and relaxed for the night.
Not much to say on the last day of the long weekend. All around Brainard there were over-developed tourist resorts. I was glad to get well south of the fishing country and into more "real" places. I drove south to St. Cloud, where I had a late breakfast, and then southward to New Ulm, Fairmont, and Iowa. In the early afternoon I was home in Algona-the end of the weekend escape.
--2004 David M. Burrow
The background music on this page is "You and I", originally by Queen.