Warroad and Winnepeg
The welcoming "happy hour" in Warroad. It was cold, especially
since we had not yet acclimated to cold weather. Our rally masters were
Rick and Janyce Hansen, of Merrified, MN. Maybe they were already
acclimated to the cold since they live in northern Minnesota.
After a day in Warroad spent touring the Marvin Windows factory
(surprise - it was interesting) and poking around town, we headed north
to Winnepeg to meet up with Mountain Outin' Tours, the company
organizing the trip to Churchill. Our Roadtrek group was joined
in Winnepeg by others going to Churchill to make a full tour of 32
people. The tour leader had arranged for some touring in Winnepeg and
the surroundings before hopping on to the train to Churchill.
First stop was a tour of the Parliament building in Winnepeg led by Dr.
Frank Albo (shown here in the black coat), an architectural historian
who has spent ten years studying the building. It was not your usual
government building tour; he told a fascinating story of how Roman,
Greek, and Egyptian symbolism is incorporated in the building.
The Museum for Human Rights, which had just opened in September, is the
only new national Canadian museum outside Ottawa. We didn't go in, but
I put it on my list of things to see if we get back in this area.
The Mennonite Heritage Museum in Steinbach, Manitoba, had closed for
the season but reopened just for us. The outdoor museum focuses on the
history of the mennonites who migrated to this area from Europe in 1874.
This fully working windmill in the Mennonite Heritage Museum was
constructed by Dutch craftsmen after an earlier windmill was destroyed
by fire set by vandals.
That evening we had dinner at a home in Grunthal, Manitoba. It was a
great meal of good, solid home cooking and entertainment was provided
by local musicians.
Our hostess invited this "Mountie" to come and chat with us about the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He is in his full dress uniform, which
is only worn n special occasions.
On the Train to Churchill