We started the day at our normal time and I walked to Timmy’s to get coffee and breakfast. After eating in our room, we headed north to Gimli. The smoke that we had been able to avoid for the last couple of days, had made its way to Manitoba and we could smell it today.
We arrived mid-morning in Gimli and went straight to the Viking statue. We parked the car on the Main Street and walked towards the statue, deciding to stop at the New Icelandic Heritage Museum first. I picked up a Viking keychain in the gift shop for my daughter and then we decided to explore the museum. For a small town, it was a nice museum and we learned quite a bit about about what the Icelandic settlers had to weather when they first arrived at the end of the 1800’s.
We then took a picture of the world’s largest viking and I also attempted to take a picture of Lake Winnipeg. Because of the smoke hanging in the air, I was barely even able to show that there was a lake in the background – I have posted it here nonetheless.
Next up on our itinerary, was lunch. We ended up going to Beach Boy Restaurant, which boasts the best pickerel in town. Mum had the pickerel dinner and I had a pickerel burger with fries & gravy. Yes, I had fish…and I loved it.
After lunch, we found a local quilt shop for Mum and then we popped into the Gimli Glider Museum. We were running short of time, and Mum wasn’t as interested as I was, so I just bought a pin from the gift shop. Then I grabbed a coffee from Robin’s Donuts – a coffee chain that I haven’t seen for years – and we drove the hour back to Winnipeg.
After an hour rest at the hotel, we walked down Broadway towards the train station. We made a brief stop in the Fort Garry Hotel (another railway hotel in the Château style) and then continued across the street to the station. Mum had visited Winnipeg before when she was on the train, so that was the easiest place for her to orient herself.
We walked through the station and along a path behind the station until we reached the Red River. We didn’t have time to visit the Human Rights Museum, but I took a picture of the building, as well as the bronze statue of Gandhi just outside the museum.
We then crossed the pedestrian bridge over the Red River, to St. Boniface.
Our first stop was the St. Boniface Cathedral. We walked around the grounds of the St. Boniface Heritage Garden, reading about the nuns and other members of the church who helped establish both an education system and a hospital in the early 1800’s.
After the garden, we wandered around the cemetery and found Louis Riel‘s grave. In school, I learned about the Red River Rebellion and how Riel was found guilty of treason, but here, he is a folk hero. No matter how people felt about him at the time, he is still considered the Father of Manitoba.
The cathedral itself, is a facade of the 1906 cathedral, which was destroyed by fire in 1968. They have built a new church inside these walls, but not with the same grandeur as it previously had. The rose window, that adorned the front of the cathedral, is now just an empty circle, through which you can see the sky. At six o’clock, the bells rang out, echoing inside the stone walls. It was beautiful and alluded to what it would have been like fifty years ago, before the cathedral was destroyed.
Just behind the cathedral is Université de Saint-Boniface – another gorgeous building. I have to admit that living on the west coast, I don’t get to see architecture like this very much anymore, and I miss it.
By this time, Mum was getting a bit peckish, so we stopped for a snack before crossing back over the river to Winnipeg. As we crossed over the bridge, I took another picture of the museum, but this time from another angle. The sun was just dipping behind the building and it glowed pink through the glass.
We arrived back at the hotel and decided to stay in for dinner. Mum had a meal of leftovers – served to her in bed, by me. I went down to the café in the hotel’s lobby and had a bowl of french onion soup while I typed up my blog.
Tomorrow, we are visiting the Mint on our way out of town and will be driving to Regina.
Thank you for sharing our adventures and I will talk to you soon.
L