The Road Goes On…

Category: Manitoba

  • Morden, MB to St. Claude, MB

    We left the Morden campground in the morning and headed for Hwy 2 which we felt had some more promising sightseeing. Our first stop was St. Claude which our guide sheet said had the largest tobacco pipe at 19 feet long.

    The Gaol museum didn’t open for another 30 minutes so we thought we’d visit The Dairy Museum of Manitoba and come back later. Little did we know that wasn’t going to happen today!

    The dairy museum features exhibits that explain how dairy farming, milk production and cream separation was done over the years. It starts with the global cow.

    Our amazing guide, Robert, was extremely knowledgable and spent many hours showing us the artifacts and additional exhibits on the history of the town, the school, businesses and railway station.

    While we were in the school, we learned that Robert had also been a teacher and Ruth talked about having worked with the Hutterite teachers in Manitoba during her Goethe time. One of Ruth’s old contacts turned out to be a close friend of Robert’s and her colony was only 15 minutes away. Robert said he would see whether he could arrange a visit that evening.

    Prior to visiting the Hutterite colony, Robert gave us a tour of the church in St. Claude. It is a very modern style church was many angles and hidden windows. Certainly not to be missed.

    The drive to the Hutterite colony featured exciting weather with a torrential downpour and hail but we made it to a warm Hutterite home with tea, cake and wonderful conversation.

  • St. Malo, MB to Morden, MB

    The morning started with a trip to the St. Malo Farmer’s Market. Not too many farmers present but quite a number of crafts.

    On the way out of the arena we came across a really neat sign encouraging parents to just let their kids play hockey and enjoy themselves.

    Altona was our next stop to see The World’s Largest Painting on an Easel at 23.3 meters (76.5 feet) tall, a likeness of Van Gogh’s sunflowers which matched Ruth’s T-shirt well.

    The Gallery in the Park is a 1902 home that is now an art gallery and featured a special exhibition on Mennonite clocks, most of which had been made in what is now the Ukraine over a 100 years go.

    Some tell stories of the persecution that the Mennonites endured in Russia and serve as witnesses to history.

    The clocks were prized possessions and were carefully packed and transported to their new homes since they are the Heartbeat of Home.

    The ticking pendulums and chiming bells of Mennonite clocks have served as the background soundscape in Mennonite homes for centuries.

    The gallery exhibited work by three other artists and has a wonderful sculpture garden outside.

    In Morden we visited the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre and saw ‘Bruce’, a huge 15 meter (43 foot) mosasaur and his girlfriend ‘Suzie’.

    It was a very educational exhibition and we learned a lot about continental shifts, prehistoric animals, how fossils are formed and how they are excavated and preserved.

    Dinner was at Moment in Thyme Neighbourhood Grill where we had a wonderful pita dinner.

    After that we headed to the municipal campground where we are spending the night.

  • Rushing River Provincial Park, ON to St. Malo, MB

    We finally made it to Manitoba and had a great experience at the Manitoba Visitor Information Center where we received many good suggestions on what to see and do along with a sizeable package of brochures.

    Our first stop was at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach where we learned about the history of the Mennonites starting with their beginnings in various European countries and their migrations to avoid persecution.

    There were two major periods of Mennonite migration to Manitoba, the first in 1874 and the second starting in the 1924. Life wasn’t always easy but they had greater freedoms and rights in Canada.

    The heritage village features a number of building including stores, a blacksmith shop, a print shop and the Livery Barn building which now houses a restaurant where one can enjoy pierogi, sausage, borscht, coleslaw and rhubarb cake. Tasty!

    A special exhibition consisting of posters telling the stories of families who left their home countries to start new lives in Canada was put on by graphic arts and photography students at a local high school under the guidance of their teacher. It told stories of some of the original Mennonite immigrants as well as stories of more recent arrivals from countries such as the Philippines. Touching stories and very worthwhile seeing and reading.

    It was now time to find a place to stay for the night. The tourist information agent had suggested a provincial campground in St. Malo which turned out to be a hidden gem. The Manitoba provincial campgrounds are much cheaper than the Ontario ones – $19.50 for an electric site vs $44 for a non-electric in Ontario. The St. Malo surrounds a reservoir and has swimming and boating possibilities. Great beaches and lots of sites available. In the evening the Canada Geese had swimming lessons.

    The early evening light at the beach was stunning as was the ice cream from the nearby stand. I think we might be the only vehicle with Ontario plates.

  • Canada 2017 Trip Summary

    Coming home gave us the feeling as though we are living between two worlds. Before we enter back into our everyday life with all its responsibilities we look back on six weeks of excitement and adventure. We’re happy we wrote the blog so that we don’t forget all the things we saw and experienced.

    What worked well:

    Roadtrek 190 Popular: We love our Roadtrek! It is small enough to go virtually anywhere and has everything you need – kitchen, bathroom, fridge, furnace, air conditioning, etc.

    InReach Explorer+ Satellite Communicator: We bought one of these units to be able to communicate with friends and in case of emergency in areas where there is no cellular service. It worked like a charm and has the ability now to request weather reports as well.

    Public Mobile: We were travelling through areas where our cellular provider (Freedom Mobile) doesn’t have their own network so instead of paying roaming charges we chose to get a Public Mobile pay-as-you-go subscription with 6GB of data for the 6 weeks we were on the road. Public Mobile uses the TELUS network which covers western Canada very well.

    Freedom Mobile’s Unlimited US Roaming. We’ve been Freedom Mobile customers for a number of years now and their price just can’t be beat. For $15 a month we had unlimited voice calling, texting and 1GB of data for the days we were in Alaska. This allowed us to keep in touch and look up things on the road.

    Good Sam Membership: This RV club membership cost $25 a year and give you 10% discount at member campsites.  It definitely paid for itself.

    Garmin GPS: We love our Garmin nuvi 2689LMT GPS system.

    Allstays Camp and RV App: We use this app on our iPads all the time to look for campgrounds. It shows the location of campgrounds and gives information about their rating, facilities and distance from your current location.

    Visitor Centres: These are always a source of great information and have invaluable knowledge of local conditions and opportunities.

    Here’s a map of the entire trip. This is an image grab from Google Earth as it wasn’t possible to use the entire GPS track on a live map.

  • Falcon Lake, MB to Ignace, ON

    On our trip we’ve been woken by Pepsi, trains, a guy driving around the parking lot honking his horn but now it was a rooster’s turn. We got up and had a shower. Martin got to go first to check out the facilities and came back with a big smile and said the shower was very clean. Not more was revealed but he did suggest taking a camera.

    We left this kind of awkward campground as soon as possible and drove to Falcon Lake where we had camped on our outbound trip and stopped for gas, groceries and the dump station. Now we were ready to make it to Ontario.

    We stopped at a beautiful rest stop at a lake and made grilled cheese sandwiches which were served in the skillet on the picnic table outside.

    We drove to the Sandbar Lake Provincial Park where we spent the night and are looking forward to a swim in the morning.

  • Moose Jaw, SK to Falcon Lake, MB

    The Walmart parking lot was a busy place. At least 20 campers, some looking like they were there for the long haul, and hundreds of seagulls.

    Now we were ready for the Tunnels of Moose Jaw adventure where history comes alive. We took two of the tours of the underground network of tunnels of the thriving Moose Jaw of the late 19th and early 20th century. We visited the secret city of Chinese living beneath the streets of Moose Jaw and learned about the difficult life of Chinese immigrants working in a laundromat. Then we became bootleggers in Al Capone’s empire and almost got caught for seeing and knowing too much. We truly enjoyed these two staged and interactive tours and highly recommend them to anyone visiting Moose Jaw.

    We were not permitted to take pictures on the tour, so you’ll have to come and take it yourself!

    After so much fun we had lunch across the street and briefly explored the historic downtown area.

    Al Capone was definitely following us…

    We thought it better to quickly leave town before we beginner bootleggers got caught and shot so we raced all the way to close to Falcon Lake in Manitoba and hid in a secret campground off the highway.

  • The Narrows, MB to Manitou Beach, SK

    Our campsite was part of a larger “Resort” complex which included a small store with more liquor than food and a defunct gas station.

    We left after a wholesome steel-cut oatmeal breakfast and continued on our route of less travelled and less repaired highways towards Saskatchewan. Along the way we passed endless fields of bright yellow canola, grain elevators and a few quirky town mascots such as the one found at Gilbert Plains.

    We reached our goal of Little Manitou Lake which we had discovered on our 2008 cross-Canada trip. Little Manitou Lake has a very high mineral and salt content which is said to have healing powers. We visited the spa/pool and spent quite some time in the salty, slightly brownish waters of various temperatures. Ruth found that her mosquito bites were no longer itchy after being in the water.

    Our campground is in walking distance from the spa and is a beautifully treed park. We had a lovely BBQ hamburger dinner sitting outside listening to the wind rustle through the trees.

  • Falcon Lake, MB to The Narrows, MB

    We started the morning by having a huge Ukrainian and Canadian breakfast at the Falcon Lake restaurant. This was our first breakfast out – what a treat! Ukrainian breakfast includes pierogies, kielbasa, eggs and toast.

    Well fed and with a clean van we were ready to embark on the day’s adventure. Today that would be Gimli, Manitoba on the west side of Lake Winnipeg. We took historic Hwy 1, a narrow and hilly two lane highway with a speed limit of 100 km/h and somewhat reminiscent of a younger version of Route 66. It took us to Hwy 9 which led us to Gimli, a town that was celebrating the 34th anniversary of the Gimli Glider incident. On July 23, 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel on its way from Montreal to Edmonton and had to make a emergency landing without power on an abandoned runway at the airport. Captain Robert Pearson successfully landed the jet without any serious injuries to the passengers and crew.

    A permanent exhibit was officially opened today with artifacts and background information. Captain Robert Pearson was in attendance, gave a detailed account of the events, cut the ribbon officially opening the museum and signing autographs. Federal and local politicians, some the crew and passengers from the flight, and a representative of the company that manufactured the ram air turbine (RAT) which allowed the hydraulic systems to continue to operate after a shutdown of both engines were in attendance.

    While Martin visited the museum, Ruth strolled along the seawall with Pepsi and did some street photography.

    After Gimli we drove to The Narrows, an area where Lake Manitoba becomes narrow and checked into our secluded campground for the evening.

  • North Bay, ON to Falcon Lake, MB

    We woke up to some rain and after breakfast planned the day’s route. Pepsi had her say but got bored pretty quickly and left for some interesting activities.

    Our lunch site was right at picnic area adjacent to a waterfall. We took some time to enjoy the scenery and photograph.

    We just made it back into the van when it started to rain. And that rain was just the tip of the iceberg of what was to come. The downpour was so bad that we couldn’t see the road anymore and had to pull into a rest area where we were pelted with hail. Once that stopped we continued on our way only to get hit with a second rain storm and another stop by the side of the road.

    We crossed the Manitoba border, stopped at the visitor’s center and raced the 14kms to the Falcon Lake campground to get the last electric campsite.

    The “resort” at the complex featured Wayne Morris, a magician and hypnotist from Alberta who was performing that night. The venue where the performance took place was filled with pool tables, slot machines, a dance floor and bar. The only dinner choice was chicken fingers and fries. The show was informative, classy and worthwhile and it was too bad that so few people showed up for it.

    On our way back to the campsite we peeked into the bakery to see what breakfast options are available and talked to our camp neighbours about their tractor trailer, trailer and Smart car combination.

  • Canada 2017 Overview