I Love Winnipeg

The Weakerthans, led by John K Samson, hail from Winnipeg and they have a song called "One Great City." It's a tongue in cheek "I Hate Winnipeg" jab at a city they probably adore and at the same time dislike for various reasons like the wrecking ball felling old heritage buildings and hassles with the evening commute.

I went to this fair city to see for myself and mostly to see Tony. I came away loving Winnipeg. I missed the mosquitoes as they had already sprayed for West Nile Virus the month before. I missed July's humidity, it was warm but bearable for my August week's stay here in Manitoba. I missed the rain too. Just lovely sunny blue sky white puffy clouds weather while I was in town.

I got to meet a dear internet connection, Jeff, and even appear on his University of Manitoba radio station, though I remained silent, after all, it was my first time. Jeff spun a lot of tunes I wanted to hear like Neal Casal, Shannon Lyon, Mark Browning/OX, Leeroy Stagger and NQ Arbuckle with Carolyn Mark and I got to meet Terry and Kristi who co-host with him this show called "Steel Belted Free Range Radio." Check it out Thursdays: Http://umfm.com Or check out Jeff Sundays at the same location for his "Tell The Band To Go Home" radio show. Both are awesome and I tune in faithfully on the internet weekly for most shows. What a thrill to be in studio for an actual hour and a half show. I felt like I had "arrived!" Thanks, guys, for welcoming me to your great city!

Jeff introduced me to some really cool kids, Joe, Jenn and Buddy and we ate pasta with them and Kristi at Sorrento's near University of Winnipeg. Delicioso.

I took to the streets of Winnipeg and played tourist for four days ... 61 beautifully-painted "Bears on Broadway," the many tree-lined streets, The Legislature, The CN Station, The Forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, the two bridges I walked over daily to get around, The funky Provencher Bridge leading to heritage St Boniface and downtown and The Norwood leading to our groovy hotel and downtown and places like Osborne Village and "Little Italy." The latter two provided nifty lunches and dinners on sidewalk patios. Corydon Avenue has the coolest candy shoppe called "Sugar Mountain." Tony and I saw sweets we hadn't seen since we were kids. Munched on some the next few days on car trips.

Checked out John K Samson's publishing place and I felt honoured and humbled being in the office he works at for his "daytime job." He was on tour with The Weakerthans at the moment in Ottawa. Busy dude.

Bought a bunch of discs in Osborne Village that are hard to find other places and I felt like a kid in a candy shop discovering and selecting them.

Checked out "The Exchange" downtown, the business section where old buildings still exist or have been re-vamped. Discovered a really cool huge record shop there on McDermot Street, a lovely arts and cultural neighbourhood.

Also visited the world-famous intersection at Portage and Main Streets which is supposed to be one of the windiest places anywheres. I made the mistake of stepping into the street there to try to go around the corner and I could feel something breathing on me that was approaching from behind me. I was running in traffic! I had to jump onto a curb barricade wall to escape it. I felt pretty foolish but trendy as well, as this was a famous intersection and I was making my mark there. I climbed over the three foot sustaining wall and discovered the only way to get to other locations from Portage and Main was to go underground.

Assiniboine Park has amazing Leo Mol sculptures and an English Garden. The park is huge and Tony and I saw only a portion of it. Leo Mol created bronze animals and humans and every one of them deserved more than a cursory glance. Beautiful detailed pieces of work. Nudes, historic men, deer, grinning pig with piglets, a bull, several series of bears and cubs and an awesome Moses. I must look Leo Mol up and study him more, he is brilliant.

Tony and I ate across the street from our Norwood Hotel a couple times at "Pasquale's Bistro" and the pasta was awesome. Allison was our server, great name! She drew us a map how to get to "Little Italy" to eat another time as this night when we had tried, we had run into too many obstacles like one-way streets and fire trucks ... we almost "hated" Winnipeg for the way-too-many one way streets. Hard city to navigate in a car, as "a newbie,"maybe it's on purpose! I must admit I really enJOYed my walking times.

At our hotel breakfast Sunday morning, we heard a small "boom." Our server told us they were imploding the Olgivy Flour Mill building off Main Street today.

Found Tim a really cool djembe drum, in a very large music store lovingly named "Mother's Place." A drummer from Ghana helped us select the right one, although he was really only there shopping for djembes of his own. His name is "Coffieman" and he teaches drums and dance in Winnipeg. Thanks, Coffieman!

Sunsets in that big Manitoba sky were huge and magnificent. I shall reflect on them often.

Tim gave me his pet mascot "David the Goat" (a few inches tall) to show around Winnipeg as David has been around the world to Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Great Britain, Scotland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and around most of Canada. David posed with the "Bears on Broadway" and in and at The Legislature and on bridges and signs, dinner tables and neighbourhoods everywheres. He was big fun for me. I posed him on a railing by some posters at University of Manitoba radio station, UMFM, and he remained there overnight accidentally. I freaked when I found out the next morning he was no longer in my purse. Thanks, Jeff, for retrieving and taking care of David for me and Tim. David would next pose for pictures in the Brandon, Manitoba countryside on Tony's and my next little journey.

After four days in Winnipeg, Tony and I went west to Brandon and to two days of outlying towns with names like Souris, Boissevain, Killarney, Roblin, Russell, Birtle and Virden.

Manitoba has miles and miles of golden hay bales, cornfields, sunflowers, fields of lavender, canola and grain, dotted with occasional green oases where farmhouses, barns and outbuildings lie. Crop circles and row patterns abound. Grain elevators here and there. Combines and other "Mad Max" working machines in the fields kicking up dust. Trucks trailing dust on the back roads stretching off into endless horizons. The song by The Who "I Can See For Miles (and Miles and Miles)" had new meaning for us on this Prairie road trip. Trains, so many trains, miles and miles of trains. "I Like Trains" as Fred Eaglesmith sings. No wonder Clive Holden did a book and recorded a disc about "Trains of Winnipeg." Amazing countryside. "Wide loads" coming down the highway toward us on lonely stretches of road made us inch over towards the shoulder occasionally, what a curious sight and with no accompanying vehicle telling us of the oversized unit.

Animals we viewed, alive and dead ... porcupines, raccoons, deer and snakes were roadkills, and living ... gophers, small ducks in those beautiful dark blue ponds, geese, crow, heron, hawk, red-winged blackbirds, kingfishers. Lots of cows, horses, sheep grazing by the roadside fences or sitting down in the sun. The occasional baby animal nursing from its mother cow or horse.

Saw several decaying old barns and outbuildings, shacks. I wish I could have pulled over and taken their last picture.

The small towns were small. Each had a tourist attraction like Souris and its historic suspension bridge over the river. Boissevain with its giant turtle sculpted to greet you and fields of fluttering white butterflies like in a Disney movie. Killarney's old stores and beautiful lake. Roblin's drive-in which filled at noon with all the town's workers and amazingly all got served within minutes of their arrival. I discovered and rescued a huge green caterpillar from a sidewalk in Russell and placed him in some greenery, happy eating, big fella! He was the exact replica of the cover of the kids' storybook "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." Birtle had a grain elevator on top of a high hill in the distance, commanding view. Each town had a funky old theatre, one was called "The Avalon."

Never saw "downtown" Brandon, but stayed there two nights in a motel by Canada 1 Highway. I swam in the warm pool and checked emails on the room's computer and caught "Rock Star: INXS" one night and voted online for my favorite ... go, Marty, go! You ROCK! Truckers pulled in for a few hours shut-eye in their cabs behind the gas station and 24 hour restaurant across the street from us. We could see them arriving and leaving as we ate wonderful meals at "Albert's Bistro," owned by a dude whose other restaurant had burned down, so he rebuilt. Doing famously nowadays for sure. Tony got ribs and beef (Alberta must love him) and I got chicken pasta and prawns.

Came home yesterday. The Winnipeg flight was delayed one and half hours as we sat in the plane on the tarmac with a "red alert" strobe light telling us noone takes off till the sudden thunderstorm stops.

I met interesting travelling companions each trip heading east and west. It made the plane rides short and fun. I hardly had time for my book nor tunes, chatting was happening instead. Hey to Anne the actress in the new series "Falcon Beach," Cindy a fellow alt country music aficionado, Micheline the young mother on a solo business trip, the family of six from South West Australia and a heli-logger from Grand Prairie, Alberta who works on the northern tip of Vancouver Island every second week.

Missed my Calgary connection, retrieved Tim's djembe and my bag and checked in again for a later flight. Ate sizzling shrimp at Montana's and sipped a yummy strawberry Margarita.

Passed some time reading another wonderful Maria Flook book.

Eventually got on a plane to Vancouver and enJOYed its welcoming city lights. Soon was on a plane home to Victoria. Tim picked me up 'round midnight, that was two a.m. Winnipeg time.

Came home to greet a delighted Cal and Tim opened the beautiful-sounding djembe.

Home, sweet home. I loved Winnipeg. Now it's awesome to be home again.

Hope you all are enJOYing the last week of August, hope summer lasts into October this year ...

Allison