Wonderful Winnipeg, MB

Entry into Canada almost went without a hitch. The officer interviewing us at the border was polite, but when he heard we were carrying eggs from the U.S., he denied entry. He smiled, directed us to another officer who helped us do a U-turn, suggested we dump the eggs in the nearest trash bin, and said he’d see us again shortly. The officer on the U.S. side told us Canada was concern about the eggs transmitting an avian flu virus. MFI subsequently did some online research and discovered the concern was unfounded, as the virus was only transmitted by contact between live birds. We dumped our eggs and in less than 10 minutes were headed north on MB 75.

As usual when visiting larger cities, we camped on the outskirts of Winnipeg. The park was dated but met our needs. The location provided quick access to downtown yet was also close to the perimeter highway ring. Our only complaint was the extremely wet and muddy condition of park roads after rainfall. Three weeks later, we still had mud on our tires.

Wherever we stop, I google “Things to do in…” What kept appearing on the lists I reviewed for Winnipeg was a downtown site called “The Forks.” The name originated from the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers at the city center. The rivers have been key transportation corridors to western Canada, where the prairies meet the woodlands, for over 7.5 millennia (verified by archaeological investigations and finds). Early in this period indigenous First Nation peoples used the land at the river’s fork for meeting, fishing, trading, and settling. These peoples included the Algonquin, Anishinaabeg, Ojibwa, Cree, Dene, Red River Métis, and Dakota. With the western expansion of white settlers and the railroad, the lands were eventually taken from First Nation peoples. Today, The Forks is a mixed-use integration of green park space, recreation areas, and commercial operations attracting 4 million visitors annually, employing 1,200 daily, and contributing $126 million a year to the local economy without any reliance on government funding.

We spent the better part of a day walking through the parks, making note of the availble museums, enjoying the artwork, shopping, and chilling along the river front. The first sculpture which caught our eyes was the 2014 work of Ai Weiwei called “Forever Bicycles.” It was assembled into a monolith from 1,254 chrome bikes. Weiwei explained his inspiration came from the brand of bicycles which flooded the streets of China during his boyhood, but which remained unaffordable to the masses. From a distance, the sculpture appeared to go out of focus and move in the sunlight.

We strolled through The Forks Park and took photos of the various sculptures and structures, which celebrated the long history of the site and comprised what is now a National Historic Site.

We window shopped at a number of retail stores on our way to The Forks Market, canvassed the market, and ended up eating lunch with a cup of coffee from a shop with a unique name. I qualify for the first part of the name and have some knowledge about the second.

We eventually ended up on the river front with an IPA and watched the coming and goings of the commercial cruise boats. Granddaughter Samantha calls them “snack boats,” so I dedicated the short video to her. The boats reminded us of how much we miss the grandkids.

Another recommended “Thing To Do” from the googled list was the Human Rights Museum. We caught views of it while walking through the park and climbing a tower that was part of the market structure. The distinctive building architecture alone attracted us to spend the next day there.

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights was originally the idea and vision of Israel Harold “Izzy” Asper, a Canadian tax lawyer, Manitoba Liberal Party leader, and media magnate (1932-2003). Beginning in 2000, he imagined creating a world-class human rights center in Winnipeg, completed a thorough 3-year feasibility study with museum experts, and established a private charitable organization to help fund and build the museum. Asper died suddenly in late 2003; however, his family and supporters continued with the project. Two weeks after his death, a symbolic ground-breaking occurred at The Forks and an architectural design competition was announced.

The juried competition was one of the largest ever held in Canada. Twenty-one countries submitted 100 designs, and architect Antoine Predock from Albuquerque, NM was selected by the jury panel. Simultaneously, Ralph Applebaum, head of the world’s largest museum design firm was hired to develop the exhibits. Parliament subsequently gave royal assent with unaminous party agreement to create the facility as a national museum and allow, for the first time, museum construction outside of the capitol, Ottawa.

The fact that the designated site was on Treaty 1 First Nation ancestral lands was not overlooked. Before construction, archaeologists, in consultation with indigenous elders, conducted excavations and recovered over 400,000 artifacts. Construction began in early 2009, and in July 2010, Queen Elizabeth II unveiled the museum’s cornerstone. She had hand-picked a stone from Runnymede, the English meadow where in 1215 the Magna Carta was sealed by King John. Building construction was completed in 2012, but the grand opening didn’t occur until 20 September 2014. Ironically, although perhaps unsurprisinygly, several activist groups protested at the opening, claiming their own human rights histories were either inaccurately depicted or excluded from the museum. No good deed goes unpunished.

The day we toured the museum was mostly cloudy and rainy, but this just added positively to our experience and enhanced pictures of the building. From the start, every staff member we encountered was knowledgeable, helpful, polite, and considerate. We’re always suckers for great service regardless of where we are. I particularly liked the unique way patrons were greeted in the main lobby as illustrated in the video below. Of course being in Canada, all signage was in English and French

In all ten galleries, the museum used interactive presentations and multi-media technology to engage us and help bring home the intended messages. And this was certainly the case in the first gallery we visited. By participating in numerous science-like projects, we learned how humans are wired for bias and prejudice and can be negatively influenced accordingly through experiences, words, and media. The projects were fun.

The “Tell us what your think” station occurred after all the science projects. We were asked to complete a card and post it on the board as pictured. On the top of the card we related a personal eperience, from which we could now recognize our bias and prejudicial behavior. On the bottom of the card, we explained how we might have behaved differently based on what we’d learned in the exhibit. For me, this forced some deep introspective thought. Very beneficial and lots of participation!

Before leaving the exhibit, we were asked to take a blue dot and stick it on a board with respect to our age group (Y axis) and level of optimism or pessimism about whether racialized people in Canada would within our lifetime be treated with the same respect as other people (X axis). I found the approximate 50-50 overall results disturbing. We clearly require a lot of hard work ahead and have a long way yet to go.

This first gallery was a very powerful one in my opinion. I felt the techniques used would be well suited for all grades in our school system, the premise being that if children can learn to be racist they can also learn to treat others with respect, fairness, and dignity. While the museum was filled with meaningful phrases and statements on display, I thought this one was particularly poignant and worth sharing.

The second gallery was called “Introduction to Human Rights.” Its most prominent feature was a massive wall-timeline of 100 significant human rights moments, which had occurred throughout history and from around the world. For example, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was on the wall, as well as, the Jewish Holocaust perpetrated by Hilter during WW II. Spent a lot of time reading and following the human rights journey.

The next gallery was “Indigenous Perspectives” of Canada’s First Nation, Métis, and Inuit people. Indigenous responsibilities are rooted in the belief that humans, animals, and the earth are interrelated and deserve a common right of respect. The central feature of the gallery was an enormous basket woven from wood (seen in the center of the picture above). Inside was a 360 degree screen on which stories were shown about indigenous rights and responsibilities as told by representatives of four generations. Next to the theater were displays and artwork providing greater details on and explanation of indigenous beliefs. The 20-feet tall pictured art piece below was called “Trace, clay and steel, 2013-2014” by Rebecca Belmore. It honored the original inhabitants of the land upon which the museum was built. The soil used to make the clay beads was taken from deep below Winnipeg, and many local children and adults who collaborated with Belmore left their hand imprints in the beads.

The last gallery we visited was the largest of the ten and called “Canadian Journeys.” The highlight was a 95′ screen on which pictures explored dozens of Canadian steps and missteps along the nation’s road to achieving greater human rights. The telling of stories was a main feature in each of the galleries, and some of those stories were covered further in a variety of floor stations and niches beneath the screen.

The niche pictured here was particularly touching and honored the indigenous women and girls who have fallen victim to femicide (the murder of women by men). While these native females are only 4.3% of non-rural population settings in Canada, they constitute 16% of the indigenous murders in 2022. Unfortunately, the statistics for all other women are equally skewed. As a result, some experts were pushing for femicide to be added to the Canadian criminal codes. Improvements in community support and gun controls were also seen as positive actions needed.

We spent the rest of our tour admiring the architecture and engineering that went into this fabulous facility. It cost $351 million Canadian to complete. Here are a few statistics in an attempt to bring its size to life for the reader:

The building covered 260,002 SF.
The Exhibit Hall area was 47,000 SF.
The glass Asper Tower pierced the main structure and rose to a height of 328 feet.
The glass shroud for Asper Tower required 335 cut panels.
The interior ramps were faced with backlit alabaster totalling 328,084 feet in length.
The exterior glass shroud called “The Cloud” was made from 1,335 pieces of cut glass, no two being alike.
The framework for “The Cloud” required 5,400 long tons of steel.

The museum was 8 stories tall not including the tower, and the angles and shapes constructed both inside and out were anything but typical. There were occasions while walking inside that MFI said she felt dizzy. Being a registered architect, she also exclaimed more than once, “I’m sure glad I didn’t have to do the design drawings for this place.”

Where the elevators stopped within Asper Tower, we enjoyed these views of the atrium below. Has to be a cool place to work.

After climbing the tower as high as visitor were allowed, we had a 360 degree view of the city.

The Canadian Human Rights Museum is the only one in the world dedicated solely to telling the stories of human rights. Our visit was thought-provoking, soul searching, educational, and inspiring. We highly recommend the museum be added to everyone’s bucket list. You will not be disappointed.

From our truck, Sid Siverado, we kept seeing this beautiful building in the distance while commuting between the RV park and downtown. With a little research, we discovered it was the Royal Canadian Mint and decided to tour the facility. Canada has two mint facilities. The original one, and current mint HQ, is in Ottawa. That facility produces world-renowned collector’s coins, gold and silver bullion, and medals and medallions minted to honor people who’s life efforts result in significant human impacts. The Winnipeg mint was established in 1976 and is a high-tech, high volume manufacturer of all Canadian circulation coins, producing 1 billion coins each year. This facility also does international minting of circulation coins under contracts with foreign countries (eight at the time of our visit).

Our tour group of eight assembled in the building atrium next to the boutique gift shop. Our guide was a vivacious young woman who did a terrific job keeping us in order, explaining the details of the minting process, and entertaining us with interesting anecdotes. She conducted the tour entirely from within a glass-enclosed mezzanine, which allowed us to see the high-tech machines. There was a significant level of pride evident in both her scripted dialogue and the website. The mint recycles aging coins and redistributes them as part of their Environmental and Social Governance programs. The mint recovers valuable alloys from old circulation coins and replaces them with multi-ply steel coins, which are more durable and provide improved security. Some technological milestones the mint has achieved include producing the first color and hologram coins and developing a technique called coloring plasm, which vastly increased the life of colors on coins. As recently as 2017, the mint also produced the first glass-added coin and glow-in-the dark versions. We wanted to purchase enough of the glow-in-the dark coins for the grands; however, the cost was just too high.

In 1987, the mint replaced the $1 CA paper bill with a coin. Wildlife artist Robert-Ralph Carmichael designed a Loon for the relief on the reverse side, and the coin became wildly popularized as The Loonie. Because the savings were so great, the mint replaced the $2 CA bill in 1996 with a bi-metallic coin containing a locking mechanism for the bronze center and nickel circumference. The coin became known as The Toonie, but the name hasn’t become as popular as the one-dollar coin. The savings derived from minting the 11-sided Loonie and the Toonie stemmed largely from the fact each has a circulation lifetime 20 times that of the paper bills they replaced. We did get enough of both for gifting to each of the grands.

Earlier, I mentioned our guide shared anecdotes with the group . Two in particular stuck with me for relating here. The first was the tale of the missing coin die. A one dollar CA silver coin had been minted in Ottawa since 1935; however, it was never intended to replace the paper $1 CA bill. The relief side of this original $1 CA coin used an image called “the voyageur,” a French-Canadian fur trader and indigenous man paddling in a canoe. When the mint did decided to replace the $1 CA bill in 1986 with a new bronze-colored coin, they also decided to use “the voyageur” image again. As was the normal process, the Ottawa mint artists created the new coin dies and shipped them to Winnipeg for manufacture. But they didn’t follow the usual shipping procedure.

The proper procedure was to pack the coin face and reverse dies separately and transport each separately via a secure armored vehicle. In this way, should a theft occur, having only one die side would prevent counterfeiting. Unfortunately, someone decided to save $43.50 CA, combined both dies in one package, and shipped them by local letter courier. The dies never made it to the Winnipeg mint. Oops! The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were contacted, and they believed the stolen dies never even left Ottawa. The solution was to create newly designed dies, so the Ottawa mint decided to replace “the voyageur” with the loon designed by Carmichael. He had submitted his design in 1976 for a $100 CA gold coin, but it was rejected. Now 11 years later, his loon saved the day, and the rest is history…not to mention interesting anecdotal fodder for tours.

The second anecdote bizarrely involved the CA 25 cent coin and how it caused an unspectacular international intelligence incident between Canada and the States. In 2004, the Winnipeg mint created and distributed the world’s first colorized coin. It was the quarter, which had a red poppy centered on the reverse to commemorate Canada’s 117,000 war dead. Because the red color was smudging on coins in the initial distribution, a clear coating was added to solve the problem.

The incident began when U.S. Army contractors with security clearances were travelling in Canada on three occasions between October 2005 and January 2006. The contractors, having never seen a colorized coin before, became suspicious of these “poppy coins,” claiming they may have been planted on them during their business trips. One contractor stated he had placed all of his change in a plastic bag only to find two quarters in a outside coat pocket, while another found one in the cup holder of his rental car. These contractors followed security protocols and filed statements with the U.S. Defense Security Service, an agency within the Department of Defense. In these statements, they described the coins as being “anomalous,” “filled with something manmade that looked like nanotechnology,” and “it appeared to be complex, consisting of several layers of clear but different material, with a wire-like mesh suspended on top.” Someone (nobody knows who because the case was classified) took the contractor statements and prepared a 29-page investigative report. The U.S. Defense Security Service issued a sensational warning about mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, which could monitor the movements of those carrying them.

The warning initially caught the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and their spy services by complete surprise. They were flabbergasted, and the international furor began. Canada investigated whether the warning had any credibility, and it wasn’t long before experts responded defensively. H. Keith Melton, a leading intelligence historian, summed it up saying, “I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn’t give it away or spend it.” When our government was challenged to justify the warning with evidence, the U.S. Defense Security Service admitted the contractor statements had never been properly vetted, and the coins had not been scientifically examined. Sorry, but I have to say it. The whole thing turned out to be nothing but paranoid poppycock.

Cameras and pictures werer not allowed while on the tour, so here are the ones I was permitted to take.