Tuesday, May 18th
Into the Great Plains
At the hundredth meridian,
At the hundredth meridian,
At the hundredth meridian,
Where the great plains begin.— The Tragically Hip, At the Hundredth Meridian
The one thing that Kenora lacks, is a lakeside board walk. The weather still is beautiful and a run would be in order. But I refrain from running on the side walk. As I take off, I stumble across central Kenora, which is a lot less pretty than the lakeside. It has pretty bits, though: the library, churches, some big white building in a park on top of a hill, the proud brick building of the former post office, now city hall.
Further west, we come across the formerly independent community of Keewatin, now part of Kenora. Its main attraction is a big boat shop with a huge display of new boats.
Half an hour west on the Trans-Canada and we leave Ontario and cross into Friendly Manitoba, as the license plates claim. Unlike Ontario, Manitoba can do without all the rule signs on its border. It has a sign showing the symbol for the provincial attractions, a star swooping about. It starts off with one right away, Whiteshell Provincial Park. It covers the part of the mountain and lake landscape of northern Ontario that reaches across the border.
I turn off the T.C.H. and choose a highway leading in a more north-westerly direction instead. At its turn-off, I find a petrol station. The litre regular is just below a dollar. It used to be around 1.05 in Ontario and up to as much as 1.15 in Newfoundland. If I keep going west long enough, I may eventually get paid for fuelling.
As it turns out, this highway used to be the Trans-Canada before its new southern routing was finished in 1962. Now it is designated as Historic Route 1 or rather Provincial Trunk Highway 44. Through the park it is a narrow road, or so says the warning sign, but once you have seen roads in Ireland, nothing else is really narrow any more.
I make a short rest stop at the trail head of the Bear Lake Trail. It leads, unsurprisingly, to Bear Lake about five kilometres away. It also has been classified as ‘impassable.’ The note goes on saying that ‘If you decide to hike anyway, proceed at your own risk and use precaution. Hip waders or a scuba suit would be beneficial.’ Since I have neither (nor precaution, for that matter), I return to the car.
In a lake by the roadside I spot two ducks, or possibly geese; in any case, waterfowl. A little further on, just outside the town of Rennie, is the Alfred Hole Goose Sanctuary. Several geese (I presume) are grazing by the road. Some have even brought their little ones, still in their yellow duckling coat. Rennie itself has a motel and a General Store plus some residential buildings.
Soon thereafter we enter the Great Plains, better known as the Prairies in Canada. The landscape gets rather flat, which may be a bit of an understatement. The roads get wide and straight. This made surveying the country a lot easier. This has been done by a thing called the Dominion Land Survey. It splits the land into townships of six by six miles each. They are then numbered south to north by township numbers, starting at the forty-ninth parallel (for most of this area the border with the US), and in east-west direction by ranges, based, at least in Manitoba on something called the Prime Meridian, which, for whatever reason, runs along 97°27′28.41″ West. Each township is split into thirty six sections, each one square mile in size. You can see this system in action when you fly over the prairies. Or when you drive over it, as roads tend to run along township borders.
A sign by the road advertises the town of Pinawa, inviting travellers to ‘discover the secret.’ I rather stick to my road and look up the secret in the Internets later, but there is no definite mention. It may have to do with a nuclear research station that used to be situated in town.
And there we are: Blue skies (a sign announced 26 Celsius) and a road that goes straight all the way to the horizon, possibly beyond. Grass and then trees well into spring on both sides of the road. There are quite a few birds by the roadside. They are all black with a red shoulder, or whatever the respective body part is named in birds. How do you google that?
It seems that back when this was still route one, it used to have two separate lanes. The northern lane now is a service road leading to residencies. Only near intersections branches the road out again into the two-lane arrangement.
Beausejour is the first prairie town I come across. It has a very wide main street with all the shops alongside. A sign points to the local RCMP station. Which may merit a bit of explanation. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, or, colloquially, the Mounties, is first of all Canada’s federal police. However, all provinces and territories except for Ontario and Quebec have asked the RCMP to kindly also be their provincial police force. Furthermore, the RCMP serves as the local police for some municipalities.
The origin lies in the North-West Mounted Police, a paramilitary force established in the nineteenth century to stop the Americans from doing whatever they very well pleased in the vast north-western parts of the continent. It did so very successful during the Klondike gold rush, which, mostly thanks to the Mounties, was apparently a rather civilized enterprise compared to the rushes further south. Eventually, it was merged with the Dominion Police and became a more regular police force. But it has kept its red dress uniforms based on British uniforms of the nineteenth century and its fierce reputation gained during its time as a frontier force.
Which is probably enough for today’s history lessons.
A place called Lockport actually has both, a lock on the Red River and a little fishing port. It also has the Lockport Motel, a General Store, an A&W, and some residential buildings. The lock is part of the St. Andrews Lock and Dam and during this time of the year is not in operation. Nearby is an establishment called Skinner’s which seems to be foremost an eatery but also has a big waterslide in its garden.
Further on is Fort Garry National Historic Site. There are some cars parked in the parking lot, but I decide that I rather press on. Instead, I have a quick look at Winnipeg Beach. It is, as the name suggests, a beach resort town on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, which incidentally is a good fifty kilometres north of Winnipeg the city. Winnipeg Beach consists mostly of summer homes and is now almost deserted. However, the weather is extremely nice and some people have come north anyway. The waters of Lake Winnipeg are very brown and murky, which may be a seasonal thing. But I wouldn’t really want to bath in that.
The next community is Gimli, centre of what is also known as New Iceland. Gimli and the townships west of here form the largest Icelandic community outside of Iceland. The town has five churches, or so a sign announces. Workers are busy painting the curb along the intersections yellow.
It is best known for the Gimli Glider, which isn’t a Lord of the Rings reference but the name the media has given an to an Air Canada jet that ran out of fuel nearby one fine July day in 1983 and made a successful glide into Gimli Airport while a sports car race was in full swing at parts of the former airforce base.
I go a bit further north and then turn westwards onto highway 68. It takes me across New Iceland, through the town of Arborg, which is a bustling farming community and over to Lake Manitoba. It crosses the towns of Poplarville—King Buck Inn and a tiny little white church—and Eriksdale—a bank and Big Al’s, whatever his business may be. The sky is riddled with contrail leading either from north-east to south-west or north-west to south-east. Apparently, some rather busy intercontinental routes cross Manitoba. Here and there is a wooden barn with its roof fallen in in the middle, which looks a bit like it has folded.
Around Lake Manitoba, the area starts growing proper forests again. It begins with only small trees but closer to the lake there are fully grown birches. The country is used less for farming but more for cattleing. The first signs of the lake are large swamps. The road crosses the lake at The Narrows (also known as Lake Manitoba Narrows), which is essentially a petrol station and a bridge. This lake is properly blue and not murky at all. After the lake, the landscape returns to its tree and grass mixture.
Although the road looks very bendy on the map, it isn’t. In point of fact, each and every one of its bends can be clearly identified on the 1:540,000 scale map. It really is a straight road with the occasional curve thrown it. Strangely enough, the kilometres go by more quickly than on the mountain roads in Ontario, even though the speed difference is a mere ten kilometres an hour.
The village of Eddystone consists of a large store for used trucks. After that follow Ste. Rose du Lac which is indeed a bilingual. There are some French pockets in Manitoba as well, even though the second most strong ethnic group is the Germans.
On a construction site, the flagman actually comes to the car and explains the procedure. They really are friendly in Manitoba. He even apologizes ‘for being a nuisance today.’
By way of some more beaches, this time on Dauphin Lake, I finally reach the town of Dauphin. I find several motels and check into one. Then I go hunt for the local liquor store. And indeed, they do have an, albeit small selection of Canadian craft beers in bottles.
Beer of the day: Cannery Brewing’s Maple Stout (they didn’t have any Manitoban beer, so one from B.C. has to do. It tastes distinctly of maple, which isn’t anyone’s thing, but one gets used to it. Nice colour, though.)