BRANDON MANITOBA

Brandon is Manitoba's second largest city with a population of about 43,000. It is known as the Wheat city because of all the grains that grow in the area. It is situated on the Assiniboine River, and is a very clean and pleasant city. The air museum was actually the training center for British fighter pilots during WWII. The trainees came from all over the British commonwealth including India and Malta. US troops also trained and served with the Canadians until we entered into the war. Also some continued to serve and retire from the Canadian Air Force, it was very interesting.
The gardens were beautiful and really benefited from the recent stretch of warm weather. It had been in the 70's (around 20 degrees C) until our arrival in Canada 2 days ago, now in the 40's & 50's

A KIND OF UNIQUE WIND SOCK
COMMONWEALTH AIR TRAINING PLAN MUSEUM

WW II TRAINING AIRCRAFT AND TURRET

THE RIVER DISCOVERY CENTER - HOME OF DUCKS UNLIMITED, CANADA

ELEANOR KIDD MEMORIAL GARDENS. THIS IS PROBABLY THE LAST DAY FOR THIS FLOWER AS WE ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FROST TONIGHT

CHAINSAW CARVINGS MADE FROM BROKEN TREES

BEAUTIFUL HANGING BASKETS

OUR WAGONMASTER COUPLE TERRY & BARRY SERVING US A LITE SNACK THAT THEY PREPARED

INTERNATIONAL PEACE GARDEN, BOISSEVAIN, MANITOBA

When we left Rugby our first stop was the International Peace Gardens on the US, Canada border. It was established in 1931 to celebrate peaceful coexistence between both countries, and is managed by a board of directors from both countries.



View is looking down the border to the peace towers and chapel

The peace towers The bell tower

The chapel is the only building that is actually built on the border with half in the US and half in Canada. It was found out after it was built that it is illegal for a building to be in two countries. Therefore a special law was passed by both countries for an exception.

These pieces of steel are from the World Trade Center towers and presently stored in this location. A design is almost complete for a permanent memorial and completion should be soon.

We arrived in Boissevain, MB and had a lunch followed by a horse and Wagon tour of the towns murals. The local people are very proud of their flowers and cleanliness of their town. All the flowers, public gardens and parks are maintained by volunteers.

Old stone church Sod prairie house

The talking turtle

Murals of the town

When you enlarge the mural on the grain elevator can you see the silhouette of mother earth??

POLAR BEAR MIGRATION, RENDEZVOUS IN RUGBY

On Tuesday, September 22nd, the group started to rendezvous in Rugby, North Dakota. The official first day of the trip was Saturday . We were one of the first ones to arrive so as paper work and rig inspections got done there was time to tour the area. NO! the above Polar Bear is not alive, it is stuffed and we viewed it in a museum. Rugby is the geographical center of North America - who knew?? It is a small town and the people were very welcoming, even though they got strange looks on their faces when we explained that we were heading north to view Polar bear. I think most thought that if they couldn't shoot them, why would they want to see them. Also, due to the frequent sightings of the Northern Lights, there is a monument to that as well. As per our previous post this is the great plains area and a local museum has brought a lot of the early buildings to one place. I particularly like the early log cabin. In the next post we will have a sod house as well. However I don't think I would care to have lived in either one during those times. There just happened to be a winery nearby so even though we needed to reduce our quantity of alcohol to cross the border we did some tasting as well as bought a couple of bottles. As you can see it is a very small winery and they have mostly fruit wines but they did have several grape wines that were pretty good.

Our first afternoon social. We were fortunate for these first days as the temperatures were unseasonably warm, high 70's

You know we can't pass a winery.

Interesting use of a piano This is it.

Marker at geographical center of North America

THE PRAIRIE MUSEUM

Does anyone need a monkey wrench?

A typical early prairie one room school. When you click on the school interior picture there two figures they both are not dummies. The one under the flag is smarter than the other one. She is Linda Reimer a retired school teacher our friend from Buffalo, New York that we met on our Mexico trip.

Nice old church

The log house

Northern Lights Tower

THE PLAINS OF SASKATCHEWAN

So, since we had to "fill in our map" we took a detour into Saskatchewan. We drove to Regina which is the capitol of SK - just another city; what is neat is that it appears almost out of no where in an otherwise flat terrain. We went out to dinner at a very nice restaurant that featured local foods. I had wild boar (almost like pork but a bit stronger in flavor and tougher than pork) and Ken had bison and steelhead trout. Steelhead is pink in color and similar to a mild salmon and bison is very similar to beef but with less fat.


We also took a side trip to Moose Jaw. We thought the name was interesting but never found out why it was named that. What we did find out is that there is a connection between Moose Jaw and prohibition. Apparently, Al Capone, etc. were frequent visitors to the city to purchase bootlegged liquor for sale in the US.

Welcome to Moose Jaw, SK

Early transportation, from the western transportation museum Moose Jaw, SK

Regina, Saskatchewan

The prairie from our motorhome at sunrise. We are on the outskirts of Regina.

Flat, flat and more flat

Fields of sunflowers. They were past their prime and wwould have been a beautiful sight a few weeks ago.

All along the route we took from Minot, ND to Regina, SK there was nothing but fields of all kinds of grain. Each town had a grain elevator or seed storage as seen here; most were marked with the name of the town and you could buy commemorative magnets wth their names.?????????

Prairie Dogs, Look close, They are all over the place on the prairies