Manitoba, Saskatchewan and now Alberta

Winnipeg I’m sure is a lovely city, when the sun comes out. It was a dreary, overcast day when we visited and the historic district had buildings dating back to 1895. The area reminded me Cornhill in London on a wet day. The Forks historic site presents the 6,000 year history of human presence and activity at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Due to heavy rains and snowmelt, the rivers had burst their banks, and all the walkways were under at least 6’ of water, so we didn't get to see it at its best. Assiniboine Park was lovely with recently planted flowers now in bloom.

Mark found a small chair to rest in while I took some photos

The sculpture garden was nice and had lots of bears at play:

We also visited the Royal Canadian Mint, where coins are made for half of the countries in the world, including Australia and New Zealand. They also had a gold bar weighing 23lb and an armed security guard right behind it!

  

We continued across the prairies to Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan

These grain elevators are in every town along the railway line on the prairies. Most have been revised and silos added to them and in other areas, they are new and huge! We also had another time zone change. We’re now on Mountain time which seems quite bizarre as we’re still on the prairies. Apparently it’s not really Mountain time, its just that Saskatchewan doesn't practice daylight saving! Moose Jaw is also known as Little Chicago as during Prohibition in the US, alcohol was produced here and smuggled across the border by ‘bootleggers’ working for Al Capone. We did a tour of the tunnels, Capone’s office, bedroom and the local ‘club’ where he used to conduct business.

Moose Jaw is also home to the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, flying CT-114 Tutor aircraft. We spent the afternoon at the History of Transportation museum, which now includes the Snowbirds exhibit which was previously at the air-force base.

Canada is on the move! This is the first official week of summer and we’ve seen more caravans (travel trailers), 5^th wheels and motorhomes in the last few days than we have in the last two months. Many people will be making a long weekend of it in order to celebrate Canada Day (July 1^st) which is a national holiday. Most of the campgrounds are fully booked so we were lucky to find a spot in a provincial park 33kms out of Moose Jaw.

On the move again and another day, another province, as we cross into Alberta for an overnight stop at Medicine Hat, before continuing our journey to Calgary.