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Our Motto: Home is, where our RV is.
Travel Journal September 2009
Area of operation
Travel Journal September 2009 (begins in Dauphin, Manitoba)
- On the first of September Chuck met the first Americans that we had seen since arriving in Canada in July. They
were a couple from Ohio (near Cincinnati) who were on the way back from Alaska in a van with a tent.
That afternoon we visited the Dauphin Rail Museum and the Fort Dauphin Museum (see photos). For supper, we
had grilled steak on an open campfire.
Lobo ran out of thyroid medication so we had to find a Vet clinic to get refills. We hoped that we would be able
to get only refills without having to go through the extensive lab work. We found a small clinic and they called
New Mexico and had the previous lab reports faxed to them, thereby saving us a lot of money. Afterwards we
drove to Rainbow Beach Provincial Park on Dauphin Lake where we took a long walk with Lobo.
The following day we left Vermillion Park in Dauphin and drove south, stopping along the way for a picnic lunch in
Riding Mountain National Park. Later that afternoon we arrived at Minnedosa Beach Campground. We were lucky
to get a campsite since it was Thursday before the Labour Day weekend. The following day the campground
began to fill up. It was so full and hectic during the day that we left and went shopping in Brandon. While there
we visited the campground and seeing that it was somewhat full, but not a recreational campground, we inquired
about the following week. We were able to get a reservation, but there would be a three day interval where we
would either have to extend in Minnedosa or go to another campground. (We later discovered a much nicer
campground in Brandon but that was a few days after arriving there.)
It had been some time since we had been in a city with a shopping center. So we then went shopping where Renée
discovered three different brands of German coffee! On the way back to Minnedosa we took a different route,
driving through Carberry and Neepawa. In Neepawa we found a full service campground with lots of empty sites
so we decided to spend the three days after Minnedosa in Neepawa.
Back in Minnedosa the campground began to clear out on Monday afternoon. The beautiful weather held out until
the campers left and that evening the stormy weather began and it became much cooler.
On Tuesday we drove to Clear Lake at Riding Mountain National Park and had our obligatory picnic on the lake
(see photos). Then we strolled through the shops in Wasagaming where we had a long conversation with a lady
who owned the shop next to a log cabin Movie Theater which she also owned and which was designated a National
Heritage Building in 1995. Although it was closed for the season, we received a tour of the theater (see photos).
On the return trip to Minnedosa we were about a mile from the campground when a Royal Canadian police cruiser
drove by in the opposite direction. As he went by us, he suddenly turned on his flashing lights, did a U-turn and
pulled us over. We sat waiting for some time wondering what was wrong as he sat behind us on the radio. After
about five minutes he got out of the car, walked to the driver’s side and asked if we had a radar detector. Chuck
replied in the affirmative and he informed us that radar detectors are illegal in Manitoba. He asked to see it and
then asked us to turn it off. He then became very friendly, realizing that since detectors are legal in most of the
US, we would not have known about the prohibition. We informed him that we knew they were not allowed in the
Yukon but we were unaware of the prohibition in Manitoba. He told us he had only recently received the signal
detection apparatus in his cruiser and it thoroughly confused him when it first began to sound off, since he had
never encountered one before. As with most Canadians we found him to be very friendly and polite; wanting to
talk with us. We sat there for some time talking about all sorts of things until he finally wished us a good journey
and left.
On Wednesday we visited the Bison Park and museum next to the campground (see photos) and then on Thursday
we left Minnedosa and moved to Neepawa. We had been told to visit the cemetery in Neepawa since it was
unusually well kept and considered a tourist attraction (see photos).
Canada is not known for its deserts but in Spruce Woods Provincial Park south of Neepawa is an ecological rarity
(Spirit Sands) with sand dunes almost 100 feet high. We took a horse drawn wagon to visit the dunes (see
photos). As we arrived in the parking lot, a young Indian couple with small children approached us and asked if we
had a coat hanger or something that could be used to open a car door. The woman had driven there, took her
baby out of the car seat, placed her keys in the baby seat, placed the baby seat on the rear seat and locked the
car.
We didn’t have anything to help them with but a lady arrived with a coat hanger. We sat at a nearby park bench
and ate our lunch while waiting for the wagon ride, since we had arrived over an hour before the tour was to
begin. After finishing lunch Chuck walked over to see if they had made any progress on the car door. They had
been working on it for almost an hour. They had straightened the coat hanger and were attempting to push the
button on the remote that was in the car seat. Chuck asked if they had attempted to go down the side of the
glass past the rubber seal to unlock the door. The man said that he had heard of such a thing but had no idea how
to do that. Chuck asked him for the hanger. Since the two of them had been messing with it for the better part
of an hour, he gladly gave it up. Chuck took it, formed a hook on the end, ran it down in the car door, pulled up on
it and opened the door. The whole procedure took less than thirty seconds. The man was at first speechless
then wanted to shake hands and said “Thanks, Mister, uh what’s your name?”
The ride with the horse drawn wagon took about an hour and a half and we saw a lot of the park, not only the sand
dunes (see photos).
The next day we moved to our reserved spot in Brandon. During the following week we toured the city of
Brandon; went to the air museum where we had an excellent guided tour; visited the park on the Assiniboine River
(see photos) where we found another campground that was much nicer and more secluded than ours; and went
shopping. In one of the stores, a woman walked up to Renée and asked how our travels were going. It was the
lady from the gift shop in Wasagaming next to the log cabin movie theater. What are the chances of meeting
someone again that you had met only once in a town 50 miles away?
The Western Canadian Music Awards were being held in Brandon and we attended the Classical concert featuring
works by Rachmaninoff, J. S. Bach, Johannes Brahms as well as current Canadian composers. One of the winning
composers, T. Patrick Carrabré, happened to be sitting three seats from us in the same aisle!
On Sunday we left Brandon and drove to Île des Chênes, south of Winnipeg where we stayed at a campground
that accepted Passport America with a 50% discount. The $105 we saved almost paid for a three year
subscription to Passport America which we joined before we arrived there.
On Monday morning we began our tour of Winnipeg with a visit to the Western Canadian Aviation Museum where
we finally caught up with the Vickers Vedette “Flying Boat” (please click) that we had heard about in northern
Manitoba, but had received false information as to where it was located. That is why we first went to the air
museum in Brandon.
The next seven days were very intensive with visits in Winnipeg to China Town, the French Quarter, Saint
Boniface Cathedral/cemetery/Catholic University, the Legislative Building for the Province of Manitoba (Security
was light and we were able to register on entry and walk the halls.), “The Forks” (please click), Union Station,
Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Cathedral and Museum, Upper Fort Garry (please click),
Fort Gibraltar (please click), the Canadian Mint and downtown Winnipeg with a boat tour on the Assiniboine and
Red rivers (see photos). We also visited the Manitoba Electrical Museum but the photos we took did not turn out
very well. Photography was not permitted in the Winnipeg Art Gallery but many of the exhibits can be seen on
the following Internet sites:
Inuit Sculptures and Art:
http://www.inuitartalive.ca/index_e.php?p=96
Joe Fafards Exposition:
http://www.joefafard.com/joefafard_en.htm (Cursor on the small picture on the right will display the larger, full
image on the left. There are two pages of thumbnails.)
In the Eurofix gallery was a collection of old masters and in another gallery was a large collection of Yousuf
Karsh’s (please click) black and white portraits of notable people (please click). Among many others, also his
famous 1941 portrait of Winston Churchill (please click).
On September 28th we left the Winnipeg area (Île des Chênes) and drove the short distance to Steinbach,
Manitoba where we planned to spend two nights and visit the Mennonite Heritage Village (please click and see
photos).
We also noticed that this area appears to have a large number of recent immigrants from Germany. Manitoba has
a birthrate of less than two per couple so they are seeking immigrants with exploitable skills. For example, one
of Canada’s largest window fabrication plants is in Steinbach and is actively seeking German workers.
We left Steinbach on the 30th , heading toward Sprague, where we had the addresses of two campgrounds from
the webpage of ParksandCampgrounds.com. Upon arriving in Sprague we found that the town has no campgrounds
and the nearest place to camp was Moose Lake Provincial Park which was 20 miles away. Upon arriving at Moose
Lake, we discovered a beautiful lake. The campground facilities had been turned off but free entry and free
camping without hookups was permitted. We were the only campers in that area of the campground, with a few
others about a half mile away. What a beautiful place to spend our last few days in Canada (see photos)!
To be continued…
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Upper Fort Garry, circa 1878