Winnipeg is an old city with different communities. The city was named after the lake, which was named Winnipeg because of its muddy waters. Winni in the Cree language means "water," and peg means "mud." The mud is caused by the fine silt that's eroded from the banks of the rivers that feed into the lake. Two of the rivers are the Red River and the Assiniboine River.
The Red River is the only river (in the country? in the continent? in the world?) that flows northward. It originates from the same area as the Mississippi River, except one flows north and the other flows south.
The Red River and the Assiniboine River meet up in the middle of Winnipeg in an area called "The Forks." One of the railroad companies used to have warehouses in that area, but after they moved to another part of the city, the warehouses were converted to a shopping area, a children's museum, and a hotel.
Our bus crossed a bridge that had a Salisbury House restaurant right in the middle of it. East of the Red River was the St. Boniface community, which is called the "French Quarter." There are more French-speaking people in Manitoba than in Quebec, but they're scattered all over. Here, the signs still have both English and French versions, but the French version comes first. There's even a school where they not only teach French, but "restricted French," which means if you want to speak English, you'd have to go outside in the sidewalk.
We stopped at the St. Boniface Cathedral, on whose grounds was the grave of Louis Riel, who is considered the "Father of Manitoba." He was a governor of the province when he was very young, but he rebelled against some laws and was charged with treason. On the advice of some official, he ran off to the US. He taught school in Montana. But, several years later, rebels in Manitoba convinced him to come back and lead an insurgence, where he died. However, while he was governor, he came up with "ten rules" that citizens were supposed to follow, and those ten rules were used verbatim as the seed of the province's constitution, so that's how he earned his title as "Father of Manitoba." But some people still did not like him, including the artist who rendered his sculpture that now stands in St. Boniface. That's why the body of the sculpture was "hideous." (The bus driver's words, not mine.)
Well, Manitoba also has its wealthy section. We drove through an area called Wellington Crescent with its large mansions and elm-lined avenues. I don't know how much those houses go for, but the owner of one of the homes pays $10K/year (or is it per month?).We also drove around the Parliament and stopped briefly for pictures. A sculpture of Queen Victoria sits in the front. She used to face the building and "ruled" over parliament that way, but they decided to turn her around, because, well, the "golden boy" at the top of the dome, running with a flame on one hand and a sheath of wheat on the other arm, didn't have any clothes on, and it just didn't seem proper for a queen to be looking at that. (I swear that's what the bus driver said.)
We went to two gardens. One was the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, where a sculpture of a boy and a boot stands at the entrance. Apparently, that boy used to stand in another part of the city, and some people wanted him here at this garden. Other people objected; they wanted a Queen Victoria bust at the front of the garden. Then one day, the boy disappeared. It was several years later when they found him half-buried near the garden. So they eventually put him at the entrance and Queen Victoria ended up in the back of the garden.
The second garden was the Assiniboine Park, but we were running late, so we only went to the Conservatory for a washroom break, then we drove around a bit. I read online that there was a sculpture of Winnie-the-Pooh in that park, and the driver said that it was in the zoo section. But we didn't have time for the zoo.
We also drove through the section of the city were there were 20 blocks of officially recognized historic buildings. Among those buildings was the Hotel Fort Garry, which is the oldest operational hotel in the city.
Our bus driver dropped us off right in front of the paddlewheel. Unfortunately, the cruise was boring. The sights that the guide pointed out were mostly hidden behind the trees along the river. The water, as I've mentioned, is muddy. And the speed limit is only 9 km/hour so there was no wake or waves to watch. It was a whole lot breezier and cooler than yesterday though. The only good things we got to see is the Salisbury House close up and the water line on the tree trunks. The water level gets so high sometimes that the houses by the banks of the river get flooded.
We got back to the dock at 3pm, so I decided to go back to Assiniboine Park Zoo to take a look at the Winnie-the-Pooh statue and the other animals. The only animal that the bus driver mentioned was the white black bear. Yup, a black bear that's white. Apparently, black bears go through a white phase. The bus driver said he hadn't been to the zoo for a while so he doesn't know if the bear is still white. Well, he is, with a tan stripe down his back. His roommate is a black black bear, and I'm sure the roommate has a severe case of color envy. I mean, imagine if everybody only came around to gush about your roomie and ignored you altogether. How would YOU feel?
The funniest animals were the pink flamingos inside the tropical display in an aviary of sorts. They were fighting each other for rights to the water, when there was enough room for everyone. Who knew flamingos were very territorial? There was another flamingo display outdoors (these were more orange, or maybe it's just the sunlight), and they were very territorial too.
I had to ask a concession vendor where Winnie-the-Pooh is. It turns out that he was right by the entrance, just off to the side. Well, the story is that there was a real bear that was adopted by a lieutenant and he named the bear (a girl bear) Winnie, after Winnipeg, his hometown. When he was deployed in France, he left Winnie to the London Zoo, where she was adored by zoo visitors, including A. A. Milne and his son Christopher. And Winnie-the-Pooh, the fictional character, was based on Winnie, the lieutenant's bear.It looks like there's a large Filipino community in the area. I saw a "Pinoy Body Works" and a "Tawagin Restaurant" as I was driving around. I saw a couple that looked Filipino on the cruise, and I overheard a family of four speak in Tagalog at the zoo.
French lesson of the day: Arret ici means "stop here."
More pics here.
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