Visiting Manitoba

A TransCanada Roadtrip

I was a little annoyed that the welcome center at the border had been closed for what appeared to be years, if the weeds growing through the cracks in the asphalt was any indication, and I was super annoyed that the provincial parks required day-use passes to be bought either at a gas station/convenience store or online and printed out. In the 21st century it seemed that they couldn’t implement an online license plate system but had to be printed out. I suppose I could have gone to a gas station but that was really inconvient and to top it off several online forums suggested that many gas stations stopped selling the passes anyways.

This inconvenience is perhaps further reinforced by Whiteshell provincial park being right along the east boarder where the highway enters.

Without a pass I limited my time in the provincial parks to quick stops just to check out what was going on. After driving through Whiteshell I tried eating at a highly rated restaurant out of a food truck but when I asked about dairy-free food the owners clammed up and refused to serve me so I was left to figure something else out. Across the road was a park that had pelicans so that was cool.

I stopped at Grand Beach, a popular weekend getaway a few hours north of Winnipeg but didn’t stay long and instead camped for free on a sand spit. The next day I went to Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site. Whereas in the Maritimes all of the historic sites had to do with cod fishing, I was somewhat caught off guard to be thurst into the fur trade. The site was however very informative and gave me some good insight into the Hudsons Bay Company but it also raised further questions.

Though the history of the grounds was interesting, it was actually the facade of the welcome centre that caught my eye. This isn’t the first Parks Canada building I’ve really liked and I hope to get drawings of them somehow, I just need to figure out how…

An exiciting pullout east of Winnipeg is the Centre of Canada monument that’s definately worth a photo.

Winnipeg was pretty nice, with a fun food market in a renovated warehouse building and the Museum of Human Rights, an interesting architectural project with an equally important content. The museum was quite large, much larger than I expected, and by the end I was pretty exhaused.

By contrast, the Manitoba Art Gallery was quite small and although it had an interesting facade that reminded me of the Contemporary Art Gallery in Athens, the gallery was quite small and somewhat underwhelming.

When I left Winnipeg, I entered the parries and the vast flat lands of the middle continent. The distance between points of interest continued to be far but with audio books and some good music I had a fun time. I thought I’d see a lot of endless trains and grain silos but that didn’t end up being the case and I’m not sure why. I suppose I just wasn’t driving in the right places.

The one provincial park where I risked a ticket was the Spirit Sands where there are some massive sand dunes amongst thickets of bush. It was hot and humid and a little muggy but otherwise wonderful.

I was told that there was a choice between Whiteshell and Riding Mountain to make a National Park of Canada. They chose the latter because it was more central and accessible to people. I thought there’d be more to it than federally reserving a plot of land for people to enjoy but apparently not.

I did see several black bears, small by west coast standards, and a heard of bison that are kept within an enclosure that one can drive around.

Although I didn’t see that much in Manitoba, I thought it was a pretty nice place. I think I went at a good time in early summer when there’s a breeze to keep things cool, there weren’t too many bugs, and people with kids hadn’t yet gone on vacation. On the other hand, I’m not sure what else there really would be to see or do. I did a bunch of research beforehand and I didn’t come up with much so I felt like I covered the province pretty well short of going to Churchill.