Friday, June 3, 2022 Into Canada, Winnipeg, Human Rights Museum

 Friday, June 3

Nice to wake to sunshine and blue skies, even though the temperature is 39 degrees!  This morning we pass more lakes on our way to the Canadian border.  Red Lake is huge (440 square miles) and home to the Chippawa Indians Red Lake Nation.  

As we pass through their reservation, we notice these beautiful buildings(there are two identical ones) in a complex that includes a college and administrative offices.  So cool!!

Very sparsely populated area.  After passing Red Lake we continue through flatter farmland.  Some fields are being plowed and planted, some are fallow. Many grain elevators dot the landscape. And nearly every home you see is surrounded by a wind/snow break of trees.

 We spot a pair of sandhill cranes,  and a little while later a  couple of pairs of trumpeter swans, which are huge (wingspan 6-7 ft!). 

We stop for gas and a break at a small town called Thief River Falls and visit a small park to stretch our legs .

There is a business there called Mattracks - apparently they will put tracks onto any vehicle.  The examples included a jeep, a pickup and this cute little car.  Obviously, they get a lot of snow here!  We have been seeing snowmobile signage on some roads. 

Around noon we enter a corner of North Dakota, and shortly after we arrive at the Canadian Border.  We have brought our passports and our vaccination cards but find out that there is an on-line form which must be filled out as well.  We have to u-turn back into US and complete the form, which we can do on our phone.  Well, mostly.... when we get back into line to enter Canada, the officer there tells us there is another part to complete and he even takes Beth's phone and helps when she runs into problems. It took about 10 minutes, but there was no line and he seemed happy to help (thankfully).

The Manitoba welcome center was closed  (due to COVID)and we ran into a short detour due to road flooding.  They've obviously had lots of rain!  We head into Winnipeg to the Human Rights Museum and find a metered parking lot just across the street.  This city has about 833,000 people and is the capital of Manitoba and the streets are quite busy.  It is noted to be the most diverse city in Canada with people of all kinds of heritage including a significant number of Ukrainians and large concentration of Canadian indigenous people referred to as Metis.

Quite a unique building!  The first floor has an interesting display of a timeline with major world and human rights events going back to pre-Christian times.  

 We watch a 360 degree movie about the indigenous people of Canada, who like our own native Americans, were badly treated, to put it mildly. The next level is specific to Canada, highlighted with individual stories that represent different groups.  

This was a "tree" made of wedding photos of same sex couples.

There were occasional pieces of artwork too.  The piece below represented the disappearance of young indigenous women which is a major concern.

The next level is a more global perspective, highlighting genocides, the holocaust, and other disturbing events around the world.  There was a display that talked about women in Saudi Arabia getting the right to drive, and another about the US Civil Rights battle and Black Lives Matter. 

 The final section  talks about turning points for humanity and encourages individual action and accountability.  It also highlights people who have been made honorary Canadian citizens in recognition of their actions to promote human rights - people like Ghandi and Nelson Mandela.

We went up in the tower which gives a nice view of the surrounding city.  The Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet here, which is an area called The Forks.  

  They begin to close at 5:00 so we leave and head to a Walmart a bit outside the downtown area.  It had a nice treed area along one side and after checking that it was ok, we stopped here for the night.  There were four or five others before too long.  Interesting that the Walmart charges $1 (a loonie coin) for a shopping cart which you get back when you return the cart!

We share a Quiznos sub for dinner and have a quiet night.  Tomorrow we will explore a bit more!