1ajs
Jul 21, 2008, 6:09 AM
From Saturdays National Post. link:
http://www.nationalpost.com/
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j251/dawnd_01/Autumn%202007/winter%202007/Summer%202008/New%20Summer%202008/winnipegfromNationalPost-BrentBella.jpg
Square Peg? No way
Karen Burshtein, National Post Published: Friday, July 18, 2008
Related Topics
Winnipeg's Esplanade Riel Pedestrian Bridge links the Forks to Saint Boniface.Brent BellamyWinnipeg's Esplanade Riel Pedestrian Bridge links the Forks to Saint Boniface.
The current trend for "staycations," about of Euro ennui and all the noise about director Guy Maddin's myth-making movie about our shared native city created a perfect storm of reasons for me to spend the summer in Winnipeg.
I could do worse. Possibly only Montrealers can rival Winnipeggers for basking in every nanosecond of summertime. After a winter shovelling snow, eight or nine days that constitute spring here and the annual descent of the tent caterpillars, this city is more then ready to party.
Winnipeg's summer sizzle includes excellent festivals, sun that shines with astonishing brightness and some of the best white silica sand beaches right outside our doorstep. (Grand Beach, an hour and change away, named one of the top beaches in Canada by Canadian Geographic, could be confused with Miami during Spring Break: It's wall-to-wall bikinied teens.)
Everyone knows that, culturally, Winnipeg is no Chekhovian outpost. Indeed, the surfeit of creative juice and disproportionate number of success stories here (this generation's notables include artists Marcel Dzama, Sarah Anne Johnston, writer Miriam Toewes and the aforementioned Maddin) has long had Torontonians scratching their heads. Is there something in the water?
In fact, it's probably more to do with the city's geographic isolation and all those long winter nights. They feed the imagination and create a kind of Twin Peaks quirkiness that even on a flash visit the visitor picks up on.
Here's how I would spend a weekend in Winnipeg:
DAY 1
Check in at the Inn at the Forks (75 Forks Market Rd., innforks.com, packages from $189 a night), a boutique hotel with an earthy-elements-meets-Star Trek design. Spend the morning exploring the Forks (theforks.com), where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet. The Forks has been a meeting place for 6,000 years, first for Aboriginals, then for fur traders, railway workers and immigrants. Today, the beautifully designed Forks complex has tons to offer. The Oodena Celebration Circle, a natural amphitheatre on the site of a 3,000-year-old aboriginal meeting place, is a naked-eye observatory where armature markers point to different constellations at different points of the year. At night, special lighting creates a "teepee" over the amphitheatre, turning it into one of the most ethereal places on-site.
The Forks also boasts a skateboard park that Tony Hawk called "one of the best in the world" after he came for one of his secret park tours. The plaza-like space is featured in Hawk's Secret Skatepark Tour 5 video. The on-site Manitoba Children's Museum (childrensmuseum.com) is a perennial favourite, with interactive displays. You can also shop and eat at the Forks market.
Walk through the site to the striking Esplanade Riel Bridge, which spans the Red River. For lunch, have a cheeseburger, or cheese "nip," as it's called at the poshest branch of
Winnipeg's legendary burger joint, Salisbury House, which is incorporated right into the bridge.
Cross the bridge into Saint Boniface. Winnipeg's quartier français is celebrating its 100th anniversary and special events are taking place throughout the summer. New from the Saint Boniface tourism office, Tourisme Riel (219 rue Provencher; tourismeriel.com), are self-guided GPS and geocaching tours of the historic quarter. A must-stop: Saint Boniface Cathedral (190 ave. de la Cathédrale). The original basilica built in the early 1900s was destroyed in a fire in 1968. The remaining façade was incorporated into the new basilica, designed by local modernist architect Etienne Gaboury. (Gaboury also designed the controversial sculpture of Metis leader Louis Riel, a naked anguished bronze figure that stands on the grounds of the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface.) Don't miss the production In Riel's Footsteps in the cathedral cemetery, which celebrates Riel's life with costumed characters rising from the grave. (Go to tourismeriel.com for exact times.)
If you've unearthed all the clues on the Saint Boniface geocaching tour, you've earned a patisserie. Try the très parisien Le Croissant (276 ave. Tache).
In the evening, your options are cultural or sporting and they are many. Through July 27, the free-for-all known as the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival (winnipegfringe.com) brings in 141 troupes from across the globe in an attempt to unseat Edmonton as the best fringe festival this side of Edinburgh. The event is centred around Old Market Square. There are 11 proper theatre venues and 11 BYOVs (bring your own venues), including one at Aqua Books (274 Garry St.) and one at the upstairs space at the great vintage clothing store Ragpickers (216 McDermot Ave.) in the Exchange District.
Otherwise, you can watch the Goldeyes play ball at Canwest Park (1 Portage Ave. E.) while dining at glass-lined Asian fusion bistro Hu's on First, which sits above the third-base line.
Back at the Forks there is plenty to do in the evening. On Thursdays, dance instructors teach tango, country, swing or ballroom steps as part of the Dancing Under the Canopy series. Sundays are reserved for salsa. The Currents restaurant at Inn at the Forks is the place to go for superb modern Canadian fare, with an emphasis on indigenous products such as pickerel, wild rice and bison.
DAY 2
Take the Splash Dash Water Taxi two stops from the Forks to the Exchange District. Start your tour of this nationally recognized neighbourhood at the new Costume Museum of Canada, (109 Pacific Ave., costumemuseum.com) whose frequently changing exhibits showcase its archive of 65,000 items of fashion. Spend the rest of the morning exploring the well-preserved turn-of-the-20th-century Chicago-style architecture. These warehouses were the seat of much of the city's manufacturing industry. (Winnipeg, the joke goes, is Cree for wholesale.) For years, the buildings were out of commission, as if they were just waiting for the loft crowd to descend on them, which happened right on schedule in the late '80s. Today they also house boutiques and the small galleries that first showed Marcel Dzama and his fellow Royal Art Lodgers before they became international art world darlings. (Notable is the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 286 McDermot Ave.) The new Red River College campus (2055 Notre Dame Ave.) is also worth a look. It's a great example of beautifully designed sustainable architecture that melds seamlessly into its surroundings.
After walking all morning, you might want to indulge in a spa treatment. Head to Hammam at the Ten Spa on the top floor of the old Fort Garry Hotel (222 Broadway) for the scrub of your life. The hammam is an authentic reproduction of a Turkish bathhouse, if incongruously situated on the Canadian prairie.
Come late afternoon, pack the mosquito spray and head to verdant, expansive Assiniboine Park. Check out the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, the wonderful conservation-minded zoo and the English garden. From July 23 to 25, at 7:30 p.m., the Royal Winnipeg Ballet presents free outdoor performances as part of its Ballet in the Park series.
Finish your evening dolce vita style by venturing to Little Italy. Grab a gelato and do the Corydon Avenue Passegiata. You might even find Guy Maddin discussing key moments in Italian neo-realism over espresso with friends.
DAY 3
I can only imagine the look on the faces of Winnipeg expats when they read that the old Occidental Hotel is now the spot for Sunday brunch. When Talia Syrie opened the Tallest Poppy restaurant (631 Main St.) in the tired hotel she did much to revitalize a sorry strip of Main Street, once one of the meanest streets in the Peg. Next to the Tallest Poppy, the Edge Gallery and a beautifully designed architecture office in a former bathhouse and Chinese travel agency have contributed to the new look and feel of North Main.
The food at the Tallest Poppy could be described as nouveau-baba; naturally raised and locally sourced ingredients are used in Syrie's grandmother's recipes of North End classics, including thick slices of moist challah.
If, as they say, engineering is the new architecture, you might also want to take a look at the Red River Floodway, known locally as Duff's Ditch, after Manitoba premier Duff Roblin, whose government initiated construction of the damage-diverting waterway in the mid-'60s. This month it was named one of the world's Top 16 engineering marvels since biblical times by the International Association of Macro Engineering societies, making the list along with the Eiffel Tower, the Chunnel and the first man on the moon.
http://www.nationalpost.com/
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j251/dawnd_01/Autumn%202007/winter%202007/Summer%202008/New%20Summer%202008/winnipegfromNationalPost-BrentBella.jpg
Square Peg? No way
Karen Burshtein, National Post Published: Friday, July 18, 2008
Related Topics
Winnipeg's Esplanade Riel Pedestrian Bridge links the Forks to Saint Boniface.Brent BellamyWinnipeg's Esplanade Riel Pedestrian Bridge links the Forks to Saint Boniface.
The current trend for "staycations," about of Euro ennui and all the noise about director Guy Maddin's myth-making movie about our shared native city created a perfect storm of reasons for me to spend the summer in Winnipeg.
I could do worse. Possibly only Montrealers can rival Winnipeggers for basking in every nanosecond of summertime. After a winter shovelling snow, eight or nine days that constitute spring here and the annual descent of the tent caterpillars, this city is more then ready to party.
Winnipeg's summer sizzle includes excellent festivals, sun that shines with astonishing brightness and some of the best white silica sand beaches right outside our doorstep. (Grand Beach, an hour and change away, named one of the top beaches in Canada by Canadian Geographic, could be confused with Miami during Spring Break: It's wall-to-wall bikinied teens.)
Everyone knows that, culturally, Winnipeg is no Chekhovian outpost. Indeed, the surfeit of creative juice and disproportionate number of success stories here (this generation's notables include artists Marcel Dzama, Sarah Anne Johnston, writer Miriam Toewes and the aforementioned Maddin) has long had Torontonians scratching their heads. Is there something in the water?
In fact, it's probably more to do with the city's geographic isolation and all those long winter nights. They feed the imagination and create a kind of Twin Peaks quirkiness that even on a flash visit the visitor picks up on.
Here's how I would spend a weekend in Winnipeg:
DAY 1
Check in at the Inn at the Forks (75 Forks Market Rd., innforks.com, packages from $189 a night), a boutique hotel with an earthy-elements-meets-Star Trek design. Spend the morning exploring the Forks (theforks.com), where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet. The Forks has been a meeting place for 6,000 years, first for Aboriginals, then for fur traders, railway workers and immigrants. Today, the beautifully designed Forks complex has tons to offer. The Oodena Celebration Circle, a natural amphitheatre on the site of a 3,000-year-old aboriginal meeting place, is a naked-eye observatory where armature markers point to different constellations at different points of the year. At night, special lighting creates a "teepee" over the amphitheatre, turning it into one of the most ethereal places on-site.
The Forks also boasts a skateboard park that Tony Hawk called "one of the best in the world" after he came for one of his secret park tours. The plaza-like space is featured in Hawk's Secret Skatepark Tour 5 video. The on-site Manitoba Children's Museum (childrensmuseum.com) is a perennial favourite, with interactive displays. You can also shop and eat at the Forks market.
Walk through the site to the striking Esplanade Riel Bridge, which spans the Red River. For lunch, have a cheeseburger, or cheese "nip," as it's called at the poshest branch of
Winnipeg's legendary burger joint, Salisbury House, which is incorporated right into the bridge.
Cross the bridge into Saint Boniface. Winnipeg's quartier français is celebrating its 100th anniversary and special events are taking place throughout the summer. New from the Saint Boniface tourism office, Tourisme Riel (219 rue Provencher; tourismeriel.com), are self-guided GPS and geocaching tours of the historic quarter. A must-stop: Saint Boniface Cathedral (190 ave. de la Cathédrale). The original basilica built in the early 1900s was destroyed in a fire in 1968. The remaining façade was incorporated into the new basilica, designed by local modernist architect Etienne Gaboury. (Gaboury also designed the controversial sculpture of Metis leader Louis Riel, a naked anguished bronze figure that stands on the grounds of the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface.) Don't miss the production In Riel's Footsteps in the cathedral cemetery, which celebrates Riel's life with costumed characters rising from the grave. (Go to tourismeriel.com for exact times.)
If you've unearthed all the clues on the Saint Boniface geocaching tour, you've earned a patisserie. Try the très parisien Le Croissant (276 ave. Tache).
In the evening, your options are cultural or sporting and they are many. Through July 27, the free-for-all known as the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival (winnipegfringe.com) brings in 141 troupes from across the globe in an attempt to unseat Edmonton as the best fringe festival this side of Edinburgh. The event is centred around Old Market Square. There are 11 proper theatre venues and 11 BYOVs (bring your own venues), including one at Aqua Books (274 Garry St.) and one at the upstairs space at the great vintage clothing store Ragpickers (216 McDermot Ave.) in the Exchange District.
Otherwise, you can watch the Goldeyes play ball at Canwest Park (1 Portage Ave. E.) while dining at glass-lined Asian fusion bistro Hu's on First, which sits above the third-base line.
Back at the Forks there is plenty to do in the evening. On Thursdays, dance instructors teach tango, country, swing or ballroom steps as part of the Dancing Under the Canopy series. Sundays are reserved for salsa. The Currents restaurant at Inn at the Forks is the place to go for superb modern Canadian fare, with an emphasis on indigenous products such as pickerel, wild rice and bison.
DAY 2
Take the Splash Dash Water Taxi two stops from the Forks to the Exchange District. Start your tour of this nationally recognized neighbourhood at the new Costume Museum of Canada, (109 Pacific Ave., costumemuseum.com) whose frequently changing exhibits showcase its archive of 65,000 items of fashion. Spend the rest of the morning exploring the well-preserved turn-of-the-20th-century Chicago-style architecture. These warehouses were the seat of much of the city's manufacturing industry. (Winnipeg, the joke goes, is Cree for wholesale.) For years, the buildings were out of commission, as if they were just waiting for the loft crowd to descend on them, which happened right on schedule in the late '80s. Today they also house boutiques and the small galleries that first showed Marcel Dzama and his fellow Royal Art Lodgers before they became international art world darlings. (Notable is the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, 286 McDermot Ave.) The new Red River College campus (2055 Notre Dame Ave.) is also worth a look. It's a great example of beautifully designed sustainable architecture that melds seamlessly into its surroundings.
After walking all morning, you might want to indulge in a spa treatment. Head to Hammam at the Ten Spa on the top floor of the old Fort Garry Hotel (222 Broadway) for the scrub of your life. The hammam is an authentic reproduction of a Turkish bathhouse, if incongruously situated on the Canadian prairie.
Come late afternoon, pack the mosquito spray and head to verdant, expansive Assiniboine Park. Check out the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, the wonderful conservation-minded zoo and the English garden. From July 23 to 25, at 7:30 p.m., the Royal Winnipeg Ballet presents free outdoor performances as part of its Ballet in the Park series.
Finish your evening dolce vita style by venturing to Little Italy. Grab a gelato and do the Corydon Avenue Passegiata. You might even find Guy Maddin discussing key moments in Italian neo-realism over espresso with friends.
DAY 3
I can only imagine the look on the faces of Winnipeg expats when they read that the old Occidental Hotel is now the spot for Sunday brunch. When Talia Syrie opened the Tallest Poppy restaurant (631 Main St.) in the tired hotel she did much to revitalize a sorry strip of Main Street, once one of the meanest streets in the Peg. Next to the Tallest Poppy, the Edge Gallery and a beautifully designed architecture office in a former bathhouse and Chinese travel agency have contributed to the new look and feel of North Main.
The food at the Tallest Poppy could be described as nouveau-baba; naturally raised and locally sourced ingredients are used in Syrie's grandmother's recipes of North End classics, including thick slices of moist challah.
If, as they say, engineering is the new architecture, you might also want to take a look at the Red River Floodway, known locally as Duff's Ditch, after Manitoba premier Duff Roblin, whose government initiated construction of the damage-diverting waterway in the mid-'60s. This month it was named one of the world's Top 16 engineering marvels since biblical times by the International Association of Macro Engineering societies, making the list along with the Eiffel Tower, the Chunnel and the first man on the moon.
