Birds Hill Lake

Our day began in discovery and enlightenment before ending in disillusionment.

The morning would see us at the Canadian Indigenous Residential School Museum in Portage la Prairies, the exhibits housed in a former residential school. No one available to take us on a tour but the displays were nevertheless haunting. A scar on our national identity.

In Winnipeg, The Leaf is a conservatory on steroids, gorgeous architecture housing all manner of exotic plants, and the surrounding gardens also impressive.

It took a bit of a doing to get down to the Forks where the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is situated in downtown Winnipeg. Again, outside and inside, the architecture is stunning. As we toured the museum over the course of about 3 hours (think Holocaust, residential schools, Japanese-Canadian internment, etc), thieves were stealing Coleen’s new bike off our rack (jimmy-ing the lock and slashing the tire hold downs) but leaving my 35+ year cycle untouched. The next day we trawled the Internet ocean searching for a used bike … and Kijiji came through. A few steps down from Coleen’s Kona, but hopefully less attractive to the discerning felon crowd.Read more