Winnipeg 1

I'm only now getting around to making a couple of posts on Winnipeg where I arrived earlier this week on Tuesday. Yesterday's posts were out of sequence time-wise. Until the conference began later on Wednesday, I walked with several colleagues around the city taking in the sights. It has possibly 60% of Manitoba's population of a little over 1 million people, which makes a little smaller than most of Australia's capital cities and twice the size of Canberra.

Canberra, however, is a spring chicken compared with Winnipeg, which was first settled in 1738 at The Forks, where a fort was built. The Forks marks the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers - the latter a French name because the original European participants were French fur traders. The Red river, pictured here entering on the left, comes from the USA down south, while the latter comes from Saskatchewan to the west (or right in the picture). The remains of the fort are shown in the second picture.

By the way, if the water looks high and fast flower the reason is simple. The Assiniboine was in flood as the attached pictures show.

Close to the Forks were two interesting features. One is a kind of astronomical obervatory where you stand in the middle and curved pipes direct you to a position in the sky (on a clear night). The nearby walls have a guide to the heavens you're supposed to be watching!

The second is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights ... the first such national facility outside of Ottawa. It will contain a variety of exhibits and one known for certain is a memorial to the Holocaust. It's no small building as you can see and highly sculptured in the modern style.

AS