Mr. Sun finally graced Winnipeg with his presence. And even a bit of warmth. It made a world of difference.
Started the day with an improved attitude and a walking tour of the Exchange District, beginning and ending at Old Market Square, a revitalized brick-paved source of concern and site of funky gatherings and concerts in the middle of downtown ...
(Pittsburghers will find this eerily familiar. In fact, Pittsburghers will find Winnipeg eerily familiar: the architecture, the once-mighty economy that deflated fairly suddenly in the 20th century, the preservation of old stuff, the constant efforts toward revitalization, the name that unfairly makes a great punchline, the green buildings, the strange street "grid." Note to Neil Young fans: I've been to Portage and Main.)
My guide, Veronica, was extremely knowledgeable and genuinely excited about what she was telling us. She pointed out a couple of dry-goods stores that had gone on to unforeseeable new lives (one is green condos, the other houses a co-op of groovy businesses where each employee buys a share and no one is in charge -- I kept hearing Terry Jones saying, "I didn't know we 'ad a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective"), Winnipeg's first auto showroom and a block of old storefronts that's been absorbed into Red River College. That was really amazing. The old exteriors and alleys have been enclosed but mostly left intact. Stairways are made to look like fire escapes. It's all been rehabbed to be green and clean and safe and modern, but there are big patches of old brick walls, woodwork, windows. I've never seen anything like it.
Veronica also showed us the old newspaper row, where Winnipeg once had three competing newspapers in the same block. The conservative paper and the liberal paper were cattycorner across a small intersection. Can you IMAGINE? The local pubs must have hosted some awkward and tension-filled lunch hours, even before the editors came in to haul AWOL reporters away from their libations.
Finally, she took us inside Winnipeg's Pantages theater, a spectacular old burlesque house that's returned to its original lush, slightly gaudy glory. Among the popular acts in the burly-q days were Wilbur the Man Who Grows (with the aid of a trap door in the stage) and Felix the Mind-Reading Duck.
I kid you not.
After the tour, I had a delightful cross-cultural chat with Veronica and her colleague Neil (hey, Veronica, did I spell that right?) aboot dialects, shibboleths and how everyone but yourself talks, no disrespect, kind of funny. Note to Canada: On this trip, I've been hearing less "eh" and more "hey," as in, "You were glad to leave the umbrella home today, hey?" Putting an h in front of "eh" is not fooling anyone, hey?
A short drive took me to the Costume Museum of Canada, which has a really splendid exhibit of wedding dresses through the centuries. The gowns are extremely well-preserved and have interesting explanations of who wore them when and where. You forget that the white wedding dress is a relatively recent custom, and the collection has some really lovely and/or odd frocks in pink, blue and even browns. There's also a very enlightening history of the high heel, which may sound like a visual root canal to men, but you know what I learned? Men used to wear high heels too, and not just in France. Men rode horses in high heels. Again, I kid you not.
I ate lunch at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, whose restaurant, Brio, opens onto the rooftop sculpture garden and makes a mean Caesar salad. The gallery is notable for its extensive collection of Inuit art, something you don't see a lot of down in the States.
I ended my day in Assiniboine Park, a large and beautiful park on the outskirts of town. It has gardens and a cricket ground and a little train and even a zoo, which I took a stroll through. It's a small zoo and a little behind the curve in terms of getting animals out of cages and into realistic habitats, but there's a lot of evidence of vigorous fund-raising, so I'm sure efforts are under way.
The zoo has wandering peacocks making that peculiar meowing sound you always hear in the background of English costume dramas. I've seen loose peacocks before, but today I saw males in full-on fan-erecting mating display mode up close and in person for the first time, and I can only describe it as terrifying. I don't know how the peahens remain calm. The guys snap all those tailfeathers up, and if the female gets at all close to them, they vibrate all the quills simultaneously. The males are literally quivering all over with lust. The quills make a rapid rattling noise that sounds almost exactly like a tabletop electric fan. It's impressive, perhaps beautiful, but somehow profoundly unseemly.
Wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Started the day with an improved attitude and a walking tour of the Exchange District, beginning and ending at Old Market Square, a revitalized brick-paved source of concern and site of funky gatherings and concerts in the middle of downtown ...
(Pittsburghers will find this eerily familiar. In fact, Pittsburghers will find Winnipeg eerily familiar: the architecture, the once-mighty economy that deflated fairly suddenly in the 20th century, the preservation of old stuff, the constant efforts toward revitalization, the name that unfairly makes a great punchline, the green buildings, the strange street "grid." Note to Neil Young fans: I've been to Portage and Main.)
My guide, Veronica, was extremely knowledgeable and genuinely excited about what she was telling us. She pointed out a couple of dry-goods stores that had gone on to unforeseeable new lives (one is green condos, the other houses a co-op of groovy businesses where each employee buys a share and no one is in charge -- I kept hearing Terry Jones saying, "I didn't know we 'ad a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective"), Winnipeg's first auto showroom and a block of old storefronts that's been absorbed into Red River College. That was really amazing. The old exteriors and alleys have been enclosed but mostly left intact. Stairways are made to look like fire escapes. It's all been rehabbed to be green and clean and safe and modern, but there are big patches of old brick walls, woodwork, windows. I've never seen anything like it.
Veronica also showed us the old newspaper row, where Winnipeg once had three competing newspapers in the same block. The conservative paper and the liberal paper were cattycorner across a small intersection. Can you IMAGINE? The local pubs must have hosted some awkward and tension-filled lunch hours, even before the editors came in to haul AWOL reporters away from their libations.
Finally, she took us inside Winnipeg's Pantages theater, a spectacular old burlesque house that's returned to its original lush, slightly gaudy glory. Among the popular acts in the burly-q days were Wilbur the Man Who Grows (with the aid of a trap door in the stage) and Felix the Mind-Reading Duck.
I kid you not.
After the tour, I had a delightful cross-cultural chat with Veronica and her colleague Neil (hey, Veronica, did I spell that right?) aboot dialects, shibboleths and how everyone but yourself talks, no disrespect, kind of funny. Note to Canada: On this trip, I've been hearing less "eh" and more "hey," as in, "You were glad to leave the umbrella home today, hey?" Putting an h in front of "eh" is not fooling anyone, hey?
A short drive took me to the Costume Museum of Canada, which has a really splendid exhibit of wedding dresses through the centuries. The gowns are extremely well-preserved and have interesting explanations of who wore them when and where. You forget that the white wedding dress is a relatively recent custom, and the collection has some really lovely and/or odd frocks in pink, blue and even browns. There's also a very enlightening history of the high heel, which may sound like a visual root canal to men, but you know what I learned? Men used to wear high heels too, and not just in France. Men rode horses in high heels. Again, I kid you not.
I ate lunch at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, whose restaurant, Brio, opens onto the rooftop sculpture garden and makes a mean Caesar salad. The gallery is notable for its extensive collection of Inuit art, something you don't see a lot of down in the States.
I ended my day in Assiniboine Park, a large and beautiful park on the outskirts of town. It has gardens and a cricket ground and a little train and even a zoo, which I took a stroll through. It's a small zoo and a little behind the curve in terms of getting animals out of cages and into realistic habitats, but there's a lot of evidence of vigorous fund-raising, so I'm sure efforts are under way.
The zoo has wandering peacocks making that peculiar meowing sound you always hear in the background of English costume dramas. I've seen loose peacocks before, but today I saw males in full-on fan-erecting mating display mode up close and in person for the first time, and I can only describe it as terrifying. I don't know how the peahens remain calm. The guys snap all those tailfeathers up, and if the female gets at all close to them, they vibrate all the quills simultaneously. The males are literally quivering all over with lust. The quills make a rapid rattling noise that sounds almost exactly like a tabletop electric fan. It's impressive, perhaps beautiful, but somehow profoundly unseemly.
Wouldn't have missed it for the world.
3 comments:
Thanks for putting the photos on the earlier blog entries. What incredible beauty! And to think that it's just north of us. I'm breaking out the passport!
You're too kind ;-) I had a lovely time, I'll be sure to look you up if ever I'm in Pittsburgh! Hope the rest of your travels go well, hey? Perfect!
Hey, Veronica -- do look me up. I'm not sure I'm as good a tour guide as you are, but I can show you Pittsburgh's funky architecture. Also some weird food.
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