July 21 On the road to Winnipeg

When we started the day, we thought there would be nothing but a long, boring drive.  This was somewhat true; the only pictures we took along the road were attempting to show how hard the wind was blowing.  Fortunately, it was a tail wind coming from just about straight behind us, so we got better gas mileage and we didn’t get blown around.

At one point, we both needed a potty break and saw a sign with a green circle with an I in it that Canada uses to mark all the tourist information places.  Nearly all of these had washrooms, to use the proper term, so we headed off the Trans-Canada toward the town of Broadview.  The “I” signs led us to a complex of small buildings that claimed to be a museum.  There was an outhouse for our use.  Inside the men’s room was a sign that Jim thought was rather pretentious.

We decided we could stand to walk among the smaller buildings and get a bit of exercise.  We first went into the one-room school house.  Many of the desks were like the ones we had used in elementary school.  They had a lot of pictures from old schools in the area and a lot of the books that they had used.

Jim always enjoys train stuff, so we poked our head in the old train station.  He was happy to see a Model 28 Teletype that had been used to send messages up and down the rail line.  He had lots of experience with the Model 35, the successor to the 28, in the early and middle 1970s.  They were really workhorse machines.

There was also a former post office to poke through.  None of these buildings had anyone in them.  We assume the Canadian prairie is relatively crime free.  We decided we might as well go in the “main building” – a very long Quonset hut.   When we entered, one of the teenage girls said “Come and enjoy our museum, we are having Kids’ Day”.  The local kids were designing and building a model of the town circa 1905 from sheets of paper and miscellaneous scraps.

The museum had a wonderful collection of mostly everyday items, most from the late eighteen hundreds through the mid nineteen hundreds.  Ardith especially liked the collection of wedding dresses.  There were wedding photos showing them “in action”.

Jim enjoyed seeing the old stoves, because the blue one was the same as he inherited, except his has black trim.  Jim’s mother’s mother’s mother had been given the stove from a “rich lady” for whom she did domestic work in Philadelphia.

There were probably a few thousand items in the museum, both large and small.  They were well organized and reasonably well labeled, but not professionally curated.

One sad piece was a wreath made to commemorate 3 young sisters who died on the same day in 1886.  It included a piece woven of human hair.

A fun thing was the explanation of the Saturday night bath ritual.  The reason for this was that it was difficult obtaining enough water, so the labor fell on Saturday.  Everyone on the family took a bath in the same water, starting with the youngest child and ending with parents.  The water was then used to soak especially soiled clothes.

There was still more to see outside, including a lot of farm equipment and a sod house.

Jim changed his mind about the claim to being the “finest little museum on the Prairies” as pretentious.  It was quite fine for non-professional museum – a special treat in a long drive.

When we checked into our hotel in Winnipeg, we were informed that we were (again) upgraded to a suite.  This was two adjoining rooms, one set up as a bedroom, the other had couches, a desk, TV, refrigerator and microwave.

Dinner was at an especially yummy German restaurant.  The atmosphere there invoked our memories of Germany, but without being a caricature.

Jim started with Blätterteigpastetchen, something hard to pronounce, but very easy to eat.  It is veal and mushrooms in a puff pastry, topped with fresh asparagus.  That was followed by a plate called Schinkenteller Westphalen Art - thin slices of dried, cured ham and dried salami, with silver onions, pickles and pumpernickel bread.Ardith enjoyed Baroness Schnitzel - veal topped with mushrooms in a cream sauce and fresh asparagus with hollandaise sauce with pommes croquettes and veggies.