Moominmama's Adventures

  In which Moominmama explores the grand metropolis of Winnipeg and finds farm equipment with personality... Winnipeg is the capital city of the province of Manitoba -- and proud of it. An early explorer gave the town's center the name of "The Forks," after arriving where the Red River forks from the Assiniboine River. The name is still used today, but the Cree name "Winnipeg" also refers to this intersection, as it translates to "mixed waters," according to my tour guide. The Red River has a rusty color, and the Assiniboine is more green;  the two colors "mix" at the fork. For native people, trappers and early settlers, this intersection made Winnipeg a commercial center with materials traveling by boat from far afield until railroads and highways took over. This is the heart of Winnipeg, and a nifty restoration project took two old stables and converted them into a hipster market with local food and drink, shops and plenty of seating inside...

  Wherein Moominmama visits the Cypress Hills and the crucible that shaped the Royal Canadian Mounted Police... Moominmama underestimated the surprise of the Cypress Hills, a unique feature of the Saskatchewan plains.  I'd been warned Saskatchewan would be flat, so that came as no surprise. The vibrant green and gold colors did come as a surprise. Verdant grasslands, fields of wheat and sunny rapeseed, with ghostly hands brushing their surfaces in the wind. Giant rolls of blond hay and the multi-pronged machinery of modern farming lurching like pterodactyls along dirt roads. An enormous clear blue sky. Captivating -- and not at all boring as I'd been warned.  But I assumed the highest peak of Saskatchewan would be more like the rumpled hills of South Dakota, not requiring a climb up switchbacks to hills of lodgepole pine. I was headed to Fort Walsh, a place I'd read about in a book by Western writer Wallace Stegner, who spent part of his formative years in the area. The C...

  In which Moominmama seeks out more glaciers and avoids bears... Lake Louise was originally called the Lake of Little Fishes by the area's first inhabitants because the cold, slightly cloudy water did not provide much of a catch. The water's green hue led the first western visitors to name it Emerald Lake, until the region's Governor General,  a British appointee, renamed it after his wife Louise, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. The Queen in the meantime lent her name to the glacier that overhangs the lake. "So the Queen is still looking out for her daughter," said our bus driver, who offered tissues to anyone moved to tears. The hiking trails around Lake Louise have a touch of the Swiss Alps to them. Swiss mountain guides were brought here by the Canadian Pacific Railway at the turn of the century when they realized the tourism potential of the area newly accessible by transcontinental rail. And the Swiss built not only trails but two chalet-style teahous...