Bonjour from Ontario , Canada July 12, 2010

Hooray, Yukon would like to report about the latest travels.“After leaving Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba we crossed into Ontario and headed south at Kenora through the Lake of the Woods. I got a chance to view miles of beautiful lakes sitting up on the dashboard on the drive to Fort Frances. It got real exciting as JR and I watched Christa drive the motor home for the first time getting us part of the way to Thunder Bay. She even let me help her drive a bit. We spotted a grouse and a red fox while she was driving. JR took over at the steering wheel the rest of the drive to Thunder Bay on the edge of Lake Superior. Boy it sure was a long 525 km (410 miles) on the road that day.

I really had a great time in Thunder Bay at Old Fort William with the two of them enjoying the rendez-vous of the voyageurs arriving at the fort in the year 1886. There were French dancers, fur traders, the North West Company proprietors, trade craftsmen, Indians and rebel rousing with the voyageurs who transport cargo by canoe along the rivers from Montreal and Quebec to the fort.In the gentleman’s quarters I played a game of chest. There was so much to see and do at the fort. Christa was invited to dance with one of the voyageurs. I had fun bouncing around with her dancing to fiddle music. A high point was the grand welcome for the voyageurs coming down river and off loading cargo. The fort greeted them with the firing of the cannons, a welcome with the bagpipes, and toast from the North West Company proprietors. The youngsters at the fort joined in helping bring in the canoe and the cargo with the voyageurs.”
Tune in again for more updates.
Au revoir, Yukon 

                                    Fort William French dancers and fiddlers doing a reel

                                 Voyageurs loading trade goods up river to Fort William

  

Loading the canons to welcome the voyageurs canoe coming down river

                                 Boom... We've spotted the arrival of the voyageurs canoe

 

The birch bark canoe arrives at Fort William with cargo

 

    Bagpiper Sir McKenzie and the Northwest Company arrive

to welcome the voyageurs at the river

"Salute... We honor your long voyage and drink to you.

Welcome. Come dine with us tonight in the gentleman's hall."

 

                                   Fur skins traded from the Ojabawa Indians will be carried back
                         to Montreal by the voyageurs and sold by the North West Fur Company.

  

Ah, yes... We are getting richer with every voyageur canoe that comes

to  our fort. Time to celebrate. Let's go inside and make merry!

The voyageur interpreter asks the young lady to be his dance partner

 

Yukon enjoys himself in Christa's  backpack while the fiddlers play

a lively reel tune. These folks know how to make rivalry with their feet.

Crossing from Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, Manitoba

Sending our warm summer wishes to you. Well, so far we’ve driven 3900 miles from Walnut Creek in the motor home. This is not counting numerous day trips running about separately with the Toad from various base campsites. We took the northern route to Flin Flon located at the central NE border between Saskatchewan and Manitoba. From there we drove south along a scenic one lane highway to The Pas and on to Winnipeg. The prairie journey seemed uneventful to say the least with small town sites few and far in between. Other than some glimpses of a grey fox, deer and her spotted fawn, black crows and a raven, it was all prairie grasslands and boreal forests interspersed with a myriad of lakes, river crossings, and fields of yellow canola for seven hundred miles which eventually found us ready for a change of scenery.

Saskatchewan Prairie Lily at Mud Creek Trail in Prince Alberta National Park
Sightseeing in Winnipeg allowed for time to enjoy St. Boniface Cathedral and St. Boniface Museum in the French Quarter.

Grey Nunns hospital becomes St. Bonniface Museum in Winnipeg

The Forks along the Red River waterfront provided a wonderful open air plaza filled with boutique shops, a covered food market, cafes, and a glass elevator to see the city from high above. Touring The Royal Mint that makes all of Canada’s coins, the Olympic medals which believe it or not have only northwest Indian art designs, and coins for sixty different countries was most interesting.

 

            Several day excursions outside of Winnipeg gave us a chance to explore new sites.
            Selkirk’s Marine Museum of Manitoba historic vessels

Gimli’s New Iceland Heritage Center, breakwater seawall murals and Viking statue honors the largest settlement of Icelanders who arrived in Canada in 1820 for 160 acres of free land per family.

The Steinbach German Mennonite Heritage Village on a 40 acre site.

  Red barn at Steinbach Mennonite Village

       JR grinding wheat at the MennoniteVillage  

 

                                 Mennonite Windmill Tower used as a mill for wheat grinding 

Semlin (A sod roof hut built by Mennonite Russian immigrants in 1890 at Steinbach, Manitoba

Evenings in Winnipeg have brought thunder and lighting bolts, gorgeous sunsets, and music resounding from a bagpiper in camp.

Great Winnipeg sunsets at Travellers RV send us off to Kenora and
Lake of the Woods in Ontario.

Greetings from Saskatchewan

Before leaving Alberta our last stop was a full afternoon visit at the Ukrainian Cultural Village. It has role players between 1890-1930 dressed in traditional Ukrainian costumes representing early pioneer settlement in the eastern central part of the providence. We enjoyed listening to various village folks in some thirty reconstructed buildings share about their trade and livelihood.

 Two gentlemen stopped their wagon pulled by a team of Clydesdale horses and generously gave us a free ride across the town site. 

 

It was fascinating at the village granary to learn about how different wheat brought in on wagons is qualified for value, weighed, and raised up for storage in one of 17 bins by an elevator shaft as high as 77 feet in the air until the train pulls in to receive and send it on farther a way. 


The three styles of Byzantine Orthodox churches in the village were each unique.


The five hour drive from the border town of Lloydminster to Prince Albert National Park was uneventful and rather boring across the green open prairie. JR drove eastward against head winds all the way. Arriving at Beaver Glen Campground in the park before Canada Day on July 1 secured us four nights. Blood-drawing mosquitoes had us pulling out bug spray for the first time on the trip. The good news was we were off the roads during Canada’s big four day holiday.

While at Prince Albert National Park we drove the two main roads and hiked at Lake Waskesiu. Wildlife sightings of a deer challenging the Toad (aka Jeep) head on with its rack, orange prairie lilies, clusters of wild daisies, elk and wolf tracks, exotic ducks at Narrows Lake, black crows, magpies, grouse, sapsuckers,elk, squirrels, a brown bear passing through our campsite, plus dodging mosquitoes and a zillion awful horse flies swarming down upon the Toad made for lots of excitement. 

Canada Day on July 1 found Yukon and us celebrating the Waskesiu townsite festivities with a noontime parade, Cree musicians, ceremonial flag raising , singing of the Canadian national anthem “Oh Canada” and the traditional cake eating for the nation’s 143 birthday.

Alberta’s Elk Island National Park and Edmonton the Capital

At Elk Island National Park we quickly learn from driving the few roads within the park that it is basically a nature conservancy for wildlife. There are lots of trails for hiking around several lakes, marsh lands with beaver ponds, open meadows for bird watching, a bison reserve, and a sandy beach at Lake Astotin for sunbathing and picnicking.

 We covered all the roads within two hours during  early dusk. Beaver huts were out in the marsh ponds.

Relocating for the weekend at Lamont RV Park gave us two full days and nights for camping in order to visit several highlight attractions such as the West Edmonton Mall, Alberta Legislative Building, Government House, and Royal Albert Museum,. We didn’t have to fight rush hour commute traffic which made driving in the big city a little easier for JR.

 We miss the beautiful Canadian Rockies and its wildlife already. East of Jasper National Park it has become wide open green prairie farmland.

The West Edmonton Mall is the largest in North America being eight streets long. It is a mega super covered shopping mall and amusement park all combined into one amazing complex. There are 800 stores and 100 restaurants to chose from. There is a huge NHL ice skating rink, indoor small lake with submarines, golf course, indoor pool… the list of superlatives goes on. We left the mall with an additional wide angle lense for our Nikon camera and a new small pocket sized digital camera for Christa.

As luck has it we got a private tour of the Parliament Building as the first visitors on a Sunday morning.The Alberta Legislature Bldg. completed in 1913 is under two year reconstruction in preparation for its 2013 Centennial. We learned the province was named after Princess Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Elizabeth, whose husband was the premier and wanted to honor her. Their legislators do not have term limits and the provincial premier stays in office until he decides to retire.

 The Government House was the residency of Lt. Governors until 1969. It was build to host government dignitaries. Queen Elizabeth II visited it in 2005. We visited the Royal Alberta Museum for natural history wildlife. Apparently when the queen visited in 2005 she designated the title ' Royal' to the name.

Our last stop tomorrow in Alberta will be at the Ukrainian Village community before crossing into the prairie grassland Province of Saskatchewan.