Let’s be honest: Winnipeg is not the prettiest or most exciting city we have ever seen. In fact the areas that surround downtown are quite ugly and boring, mostly because it’s so flat that there is nothing to catch the eye…. It all looks the same. But the center itself is built around “the Forks” - the intersection of the Red River and the Assiniboine River - no I don’t know why “forks is plural since there is only one fork…. And indeed, in French, it’s called “La Fourche” - singular…. I have googled this question without success- but it is quite pretty. First, the river itself and its banks are pretty, and nicely developed as parks. Secondly, their is more urban planning there, and the tall buildings and striking bridges do add some structure.
In particular, the architecture of the human rights museum (surrounded by a prairie garden), and the dramatic foot bridge across the Red River are indeed quite nice.
We took that foot bridge to go to the St Boniface area of town - It used to be an independent city and the old city Hall now houses the tourist center- where everyone speaks French first. They will answer questions in English too - but French is indeed the main language of that area.
The schools are French, and St Boniface University is still the only French language university in Western Canada. People speak French in the streets (although the little children in the school playground were speaking English to each other- the school itself is French speaking). While I could communicate with the people at the tourism office, their French is much more accented than in Quebec City or Montreal - probably closer to Northern Quebec.
The cathedral - which was destroyed by fire twice, the latest time was 1968, still has some of the original walls built in 1832. It is the first catholic cathedral of western Canada,
and it’s cemetery houses the remains of several important leaders of Manitoba (it’s founder Louis Riel and important Cree leader Chief One Arrow). Interesting historical note: Riel was responsible for negotiating the terms under which Manitoba became a Canadian province. But when he helped the Métis nation fight the government, he was prosecuted - and executed- as a traitor. Side note: the Métis nation - as the name indicates- is formed by ancestors of French men and native women. They developed their own culture and are now specifically recognized by the Canadian government - there are about 500,000 in Canada, and several pockets of them in Montana. I somehow had never known about this and find it fascinating.
After this stroll through history, we went back across the bridge to the English speaking part of town and had lunch in the old “Forks Market”, which is now a fancy retail/restaurant place. We had very good Sri Lanka food.
We were hoping to go on a boat ride on the Red River and indeed, the signs, website and phone answering machine all said the boats were going - but they were not….. oh well…. So instead I took a walk along the river to downtown, while Joe cooled his heels in the park (quite literally, it was a bit chilly!).
Other than the river front, there is not much to see downtown…. There are a few interesting buildings, but there is very little urban planning, so they are mixed in with a lot of ugly ones…. There is a lot of construction happening, so I think that the city is trying to remedy some of that.
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Can’t say Winnipeg is a city I’d go back to again and again…. But I’m glad we saw it!
This evening, we got to meet the group of people with whom we will be travelling to the lodge, as well as get a presentation as to what to expect I’m VERY excited!!!
In the mean time, here are a few more images of from downtown Winnipeg
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