Escape from Ontario

Today we finally made it out of the great Province of Ontario. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed every minute travelling through this place, but making it into Manitoba finally gave the trip a sense of achievement. To this point I was simply travelling to new places in provinces I've already been to or lived in, in most cases it was just revisiting old haunts. However by passing over into Manitoba I have now officially travelled the furthest west I have ever been, and I'm going to be moving further every day. I have to say it is very exciting!

Before we left Thunder Bay we got a few shots of the 'sleeping giant'. Basically in the bay of the city there is a large island with a rock formation that sort of looks like a person laying on their back. As far as I know it related to a native legend that there was a giant person who lay sleeping in the harbour waiting for something to happen. What that is I don't know, there was no information about it at the park we took the pictures at. As the Old Woman rock formation, it's a little harder to see in a picture but I think if you look closely you can make it out.

When I saw this the first time, I couldn't help but imagine it rising over the bay and obliterating everything with laser beam eyes.

After we left Thunder Bay we had a long 8 hour drive ahead of us. A little less than yesterday but it was still long enough to wear on you after a while. The drive was also much of the same sort of Canadian Shield territory, lots of trees and even more rocks. The lakes spiced it up every once and a while, but as I said I was glad when we finally made it into Manitoba.

We took a break in Kenora to take a picture of 'Huskie the Muskie' a 12m tall muskellunge that celebrates the great fishing you can apparently take part in the Lake of the Woods that Kenora is the accessway to. These stops to see these statues in Canadian 'bigness' are really fun little side trips that help break up the monotony of driving. It only takes a few minutes out of the trip and you get to see a little bit of Canadiana throughout the trip. Unfortunately we missed a few along the way up that we hope to catch on the way down.

Fortunately not all muskellunge's are this big, otherwise they would create the new world order

After Kenora it was a short trip over to Manitoba from that small town in Ontario. I have to say though, the landscape sure did change. At first it was a transition over from single black spruce forests to mixed forests, but then all of a sudden all the forests disappeared, and was replaced by flatness, flatness as far as the eye can see. However, the old B&B keeper in Sydney warned us that we'll think Manitoba is flat, and then we'll get to Saskatchewan you'll be knocked flat. Well, it was quite flat in Manitoba but at least there were some trees so we'll see. We were able to see downtown Winnipeg from about 30km away.

This is the best support I can find for the flat earth society

Once we got into Winnipeg and checked into the hotel we made our way downtown to get something to eat. We ended up at the "River Forks National Historic Site", which is a great example of urban renewal. Basically what happened is that Winnipeg was a great big site for CN Rail, they had a big rail yard where they serviced all their trains. In the 80's when CN withdrew from many of these sites it was left vacant, an eyesore of industrial facilities in the middle of Winnipeg. So at some point they ripped up all the tracks that weren't in use, and converted most of the buildings into restaurants and boutiques. It was a really nice area that gave a great view where the Red and Assiniboine rivers converge, although they are very swollen right now.

This just goes to show that anything can be turned into anything else.

The park area had a plaza that went right down to the river, unfortunately right now about half of it was under water. I don't know if the water has gone down any further downstream of the assiniboine, but in Winnipeg it was still quite high. Although the locals didn't seem phased by it very much, they likely see the same thing happen every year.

That place where you see the tree branch is a handrail that goes down into the water. Another picture I have as another handrail past that which is almost completely submerged. I figure the water must be at least 15 feet past the banks.

That wasn't even the craziest part. They had a line further up the plaza that showed how high the water flooded in the great 1997 Red River Flooding. It's similar to the one in Moncton for the Saxby gale, except this one happened within the last 15 years, rather than the last 115. No offense Moncton but this was a bit more impressive.

I'm surprised there is anyone left in Winnipeg, if I was around during 1997 I would have packed my bags and left immediately.

After walking around the park grounds, we moved up the downtown area to find the Legislature. Now I haven't taken pictures of all of them, but I can say at some point I've seen the Legislative Assemblies of every Province I've been in so far, and I don't mean to let that reputation down. So here in all it's sunset glory, is the Manitoba Legislative Assembly. We tried to find the statue of Louis Riel, but it turns out it was on the side that we didn't look at, of course.

It's where the laws are born. Also it looks like we stole it from some poor American state, but I guess that was the style at the time.

The sun was setting and I don't really know what kind of place downtown Winnipeg morphs into after dark but I didn't stick around to find out. We were going to do some stuff in Winnipeg before we left but after doing some research while writing this I don't see that happening. We were going to do a tour of the Mint, but they're not open Monday for some reason, and then Louis Riel's house isn't open until May 22nd. So it looks like we'll be setting out from the city tomorrow morning without delay. Perhaps we may have time to stop on on our way back.