A Week in Canada - Arborg on the Icelandic River

About thirty miles northwest of Gimli lies the town of Arborg, population about 1300, on the Icelandic River.  We wanted to visit the Arborg & District Multicultural Heritage Village on the edge of town.

The heritage village contains a number of older structures relocated and preserved from Arborg and the surrounding area.

  

The Brandson house with its flower bed was a favorite.

  

The property also hosts the first of 53 barn quilts on the Interlake Barn Quilt Trail. (see What Is a Barn Quilt here)

  

There were very few visitors to the heritage village while we were there since almost everyone in the area was "downtown" at the annual Arborg street festival.

We toured several buildings and especially enjoyed talking with the docent sitting inside the garage; he was the son of the original garage owner who is at the right in this photo standing by the 1936 Pontiac pickup truck.  Now retired, himself, he talked with us about teaching computer programming in the local high school.

  

We took only an abbreviated look around town which had two of its main streets closed off for the festival.  Unfortunately, we did not discover the highlight of the town, its "World's Largest Curling Rock!"

Departing Arborg, we stopped at the remnants of Geyser on the Icelandic River.  There is not much left here beyond a monument with maps of the early homesteads and remembrances of Johann Magnus Bjarnason, teacher and Icelandic-Canadian novelist.

Leaving the area behind, we headed south back toward Winnipeg with one more stop planned for the day, dinner in Selkirk.