Winnipeg

 Tuesday, March 3rd

Today was a travel day, New York to Minneapolis to Winnipeg. We don’t join our group for the trip to Churchill till tomorrow afternoon, so we spent a few hours exploring downtown Winnipeg. Our hotel, the Fort Garry, is a classic chateau-style “railroad hotel” built between 1911 and 1913. The central train station is a block away, also built in 1911. 

Winnipeg sits at The Forks, the confluence of the Red and the Assiniboine rivers, an important trading location for the First Nations and Europeans as well.  We visited a museum dedicated to the various treaties that enshrined the rights of the local nations to continue to live on their land. The posters suggested a more equitable stance than many of the US - Native American treaties. 

Winnipeg is sometimes nicknamed “winterpeg” for the long cold winter, but today was a lovely sunny 20 F. (This is unseasonably warm, of course, and Churchill will be much colder.) We walked along the frozen Red River. One side of the river was cleared as a walkway while the other lane was for skaters. It was fun to watch moms with baby strollers, fathers with small children (who can hang onto a sort of “walker” to keep them steady) and working people with their briefcases all skating. 

We also spent a couple of hours at the excellent Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The different exhibition halls covered everything from the philosophical basis for human rights, to famous issues around the world over the centuries, to the specific challenges Canada has faced at different times. Some of the exhibitions were quite grim, but all were well done and thought-provoking.

Pictured: Winnipeg from the air, Fort Garry Hotel exterior and ballroom detail, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Red River walkers and skaters.