Winnipeg, Manitoba -- halfway!

1,439 miles -- halfway to Vermont!

Winnipeg was established at the confluence of two rivers, the Assiniboine and the Red River of the North, at a crossroads of canoe routes travelled by First Nations people.   The downtown area is now known as "The Forks".  

During the winter, these rivers are frozen over, and the area becomes a place for civic celebrations of ice & snow.  Glacier Winter Park includes a skating rink, skating trails, a Snowboard Fun Park with a variety of rails, table tops, jumps and fun-boxes, areas for pick-up hockey games, a toboggan hill, & resting couches made entirely of snow.  Plenty of fun for Winnipeggers!

The official title for Winnipeg is "Gateway to the West", but locals have come up with more playful nicknames of "Winterpeg" or "The Peg".

Metis symbol with Bison
 by Bouvette

Many French and British fur trappers married First Nations women, and their mixed-race children hunted, traded, and lived in this area. They gradually developed into a distinct ethnic group known as the Métis because of their mingled culture.  It always seemed to me that this is the ideal way that two peoples should be able to encounter each other and share the best of each culture: European & American, Earthling & Extraterrestrial, etc.

When Canada was granted independence from the United Kingdom, Eastern Anglo-Canadians prepared to govern the whole country, but the Métis people in this region set up their own provisional government in what was called Red River Rebellion.  The resolution of the conflict resulted in The Manitoba Act of 1870, which made Manitoba the fifth province of the Canadian Confederation and gave it provincial self-rule.

Winnipeg today has a significant and increasing Aboriginal population, with both the highest percentage of Aboriginal peoples (11.7%) for any major Canadian city, and the highest total number of Aboriginals (76,055) for any single non-reserve municipality.  Winnipeg also has the highest Métis population in both percentage (6.3%) and numbers (41,005).  I’d like to learn more about this intriguing culture.

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

I was pleased to learn that Winnipeg has built a Museum for Human Rights.  It is a strange modern building, but it looked to me like comforting arms wrapping around a child.   The architect’s description, though, is full of roots in the earth, ice, clouds, stone, sweet grass, sky, as “the abstract ephemeral wings of a white dove embrace a mythic stone mountain.”  Too ephemeral for my taste, so I’m just left with a weird building for a great cause.  The museum was created to memorialize “key milestones in human rights achievements, both in Canada and throughout the world; current debates about human rights; and events where Canada showed a betrayal of or a commitment to human rights.”  Unfortunately,  the history  of the museum seems to be full of inter-ethnic rivalries and competition over whose group has suffered more than others.   I’d be interested to see this museum for myself. But its creation may be causing more strife for people who have suffered too much already.

Métis Symbol with Bison by Métis artist Bouvette: http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/?section=&global=1&q=bouvette

Arctic Glacier Winter Park info:  http://www.theforks.com/winterpark

skating image & commentary:  http://travelbrigade.com/2015/02/15/the-best-of-winter-at-festival-du-voyageur-in-winnipeg/

winter sundown image:  http://blog.independentjewellers.com/tag/winter/