Winnipeg day two

 Wednesday March 4

This morning’s plan was to visit the Art Museum, one wing of which holds a vast Inuit art collection. 

But first, we were curious about the building behind our hotel. It fills the rest of the city block and has ornate bas-relief decorations and neo-Grecian statuary on the exterior of the bottom four floors, while the 25 upper floors look to be three apartment building towers on top of the old. One of the apartment buildings has a revolving restaurant at the top. We walked the perimeter hoping for an historical marker, to no avail. So we went in, and found an elegant, gold-leaf ceilinged hallway. One of the offices was the city planning department— surely they would know the history of the building. They did not. But being Canadian, they were very helpful and took us to the landlord’s office in pursuit of information. At the landlord’s office, we met the HR director who knew at least a little of the history… it seems the building dates from about the same time as our hotel and was always a residential building. 

When we finally made it to the art gallery, we were very impressed with the extent of the Inuit art collection. The two-story foyer is dominated by a clear glass “visible vault”, arranged in columns and rows of artifacts. A kiosk allows you to look up the source of each artifact. Seeing the map of the Inuit communities across Canada was especially meaningful given our time in Nunavut last fall. 

There were two special exhibits: one by Omalluq, a female artist from Baffin Island, and the other a sculptor from the Northwest Territory, Abraham Anghik Ruben. Omalluq’s drawings reflected everyday life and the legends of the Shamans. The Ruben pieces depicted a mixture of Norse (Odin, Thor, Loki, etc) and Inuit legends. The pieces were beautiful, complex, and sometimes confusing! Most of the pieces are soapstone and quite large, some up to five feet tall. 

Our other activity for the day was to pick up our “gear” for Churchill. NatHab has parkas, snow pants, mittens, hats, sleeves and insulated snow boots for us to borrow. We will be quite the sight when fully garbed! 

We met the rest of our group for dinner; several are from Florida or California and the coldest they’ve ever been was walking in Winnipeg today— this will be interesting!

Pictured: outside and inside of Fort Garry Place, the glass elevator to the revolving restaurant, the visual vault, several Ruben pieces: Thor, Beowulf, Amergin’s Prayer (and ancient Irish legend), Sedna (the Inuit goddess of the sea).