A Week in Canada - Winnipeg to The International Peace Garden, Part 3 - Other Sights

Our circuitous route across Manitoba brought us near several communities that have constructed roadside attractions worthy of mention at Roadside America, one of our favorite travel guides.  We were happy to discover that in addition to the U.S., Canada is well-covered by this website. 

As mentioned in a previous post, we did not follow a straight line from Winnipeg to the Peace Garden.

 

We made minor detours to see these memorable attractions:

Gladstone.

Taking advantage of the town name of "glad stone," the residents have crated a "happy rock."

 

  

 

Sand Hills - Epinette - Spruce Woods

Not far away from Gladstone, on highway 5, we passed the Sand Hills gaming casino and came to a bit of desert.  A series of hiking trails is located at Epinette Creek.  This is more sand dune than desert since it seems to support a good deal of vegetation.  The hiking here gets good reviews with apparently few direct encounters with the resident bears.  The unique vegetation in the area is worth a look, as well as a possible stop at Spruce Woods Provincial Park.

  

  

Glenboro

A few miles further along on highway 5 in this "desert area" is the town of Glenboro which is home to Sara, the camel.

  

 

Dunrea

After photos with Sara, we headed for the town of Dunrea.  Definitely a small town, Dunrea acts as home to a very large Canadian goose named Cabrea.  Cabrea is mounted on a turntable so that she can point either north or south along with the appropriate migratory flocks of other geese that pass overhead.

  

Farmland on the Prairie

Along this part of our journey, we encountered a wide variety of agricultural crops as we headed south toward our destination at the Peace Garden.

Boissevain

Boissevain is about 15 miles north of the U.S/Canadian line but claims status as a border city.  It celebrates its location near the turtle mountains with an appropriate monument, named Tommy the Turtle.

 

  

 

 More photos at this Flickr album, of course.

A Week in Canada - Winnipeg to The International Peace Garden, Part 2 - Souris

Our next major stop on the way to the International Peace Garden, was Souris, Manitoba.

Souris lies about 160 miles west of Winnipeg.  It is home to the famous Swinging Bridge and also is the home of Canadian hockey coach, Andy Murray.

 

The swinging bridge apparently isn't as interesting as it was in days of yore, having been replaced by a more modern and "less swinging" version.

 

Remnants of the old bridge remain for inspection and inspiration.

 

The present bridge has sturdy cables for suspension

 

Linda and I both crossed the Souris river without concern.  (We are shown at opposite ends in these photos.)

 

Meanwhile, a jet ski plied the waters of the river providing great fun for the occupants.

  

 

   

A Week in Canada - Winnipeg to The International Peace Garden, Part 1

Our next major stop after Winnipeg was the International Peace Garden on the Canadian U.S. border. 

 

Ever since the slogan first appeared in 1956, I have been fascinated by the nickname, "PEACE GARDEN STATE" on North Dakota license plates.  Recently demoted in size and now relegated to a tiny corner of the plate in favor of a buffalo, it's still there.  What is a Peace Garden?  I would finally learn.

It's less than two hundred miles from Winnipeg to the International Peace Garden on the U.S.-Canadian border, but it took us just about 24 hours to make the trip.  We found several things we wanted to stop and see along the way and didn't exactly follow a straight line.

 Fifty miles west of Winnipeg along the Assiniboine River lies the town of Portage la Prairie, population about 13,000.  Fur traders and others heading for Lake Manitoba, about twenty miles north of the town, would have to take out their boats and portage across the prairie here - hence the name.  Just outside of town, we came upon the Fort la Reine Museum, a replica of the original fort built here in 1738 to support exploration and the fur trade.

The five-acre Fort la Reine Museum and Pioneer Village contains an eclectic gathering of historic collections ranging from a military museum to the largest collection of Case farm equipment along with several prairie homes spanning about two centuries.

The well-furnished Paul House, dating from 1879, is likely typical of many 19th century homestead houses throughout Minnesota as well as Manitoba.  Home to a family of twelve it provided cozy comfort during the harsh prairie winters.

The 1922 Case house is notable since it was a "catalog" house.  Just as Sears Roebuck offered catalog houses during the 1910s and 1920s, Canadian department store Eatons of Totonto had a large catalog operation selling into the vast western prairie.  (The Case house is actually an Aladdin plan, not an Eatons.)  That is the Case home on the far right of this photo.

 

Out on the porch, I was intrigued by this gasoline powered lawn mower.  Offered in the Eaton's catalog for $119 in 1955, that was the equivalent of almost $1400!  No small investment.  The green colored handle reminded me of a neighbor's similar mower when I was growing up in Portland, Oregon.  Nat Davis lived just three houses away and had the only power mower in our area of Northeast Portland during the 1950s.  His was purely green, so I altered the color on this mower for use in a future blog on homes in the Foxchase neighborhood of Portland. 

 

An earlier house, typical of the area is the Assiniboine tipi.  The museum puts it in place each spring and then takes it down in September.

 

Also, nearby is this small Ukranian church from 1939.

 

The war museum, recently moved onto the Fort la Reine property, offers a view of WWI and WWII from the Canadian perspective.

 

Portage La Prairie served as a training base for 5,000 airmen during World War II so there is considerable emphasis on pilot training in the exhibit.

 

We skipped the Case agricultural exhibit which would likely be of great interest to anyone with a farm background and then returned to the highway.  We had scouted out one more stop in the area, however.  Portage La Prairie boasts the largest Coca-Cola can in the world and we had to stop for that. 

 More photos on this Flickr Album.