Lovely Lake of the Woods

Kenora, Canada

I’m so fortunate that one of the friends I have known since Kindergarten had been reading my blog and saw that I was passing her way. Susan and her husband Doug have a beautiful home located on the Winnipeg River, which flows from Lake Winnipeg, north of the Whiteshell area in eastern Manitoba into the Lake of the Woods in Ontario. Susan graciously invited me to stop in for a visit and enjoy their hospitality overnight. I quickly accepted to allow us to catch up after several years.

While enjoying a beverage on the porch before dinner, a juvenile bald eagle entertained us by trying a landing on the roof not 10 feet from where we sat but took off immediately. We were able to see junior and Mom or Dad come and go from the nest all evening and Susan reports Junior has been back to visit other days since.

Susan and Doug already had plans for a few friends to join them for brunch the next day and I gladly delayed my departure to meet the interesting group and enjoy some more of Susan’s fabulous cooking, and baking. (the frittata was particularly delicious!) Always lovely to meet people from different backgrounds and vocations to hear their perspective of the world.

After the late start on Thursday, I headed off to Winnipeg, where I was born and lived for the first 25 years of my life. I rolled into the West Winnipeg KOA (nothing to write home about) just in time to get cleaned up and head into town to have dinner with brother Rae, and 4 cousins and a couple of their significant others. One of cousins, Ken, I hadn’t seen for so many years I’m not sure when the last time was and for another, Gary, it had been since our family reunion in 2007, so it was so great to see them and everyone else. We had dinner at Muddy Waters at the Forks. The steak sandwiches and hamburgers looked great, but those of us who had the pickerel were disappointed. It was rather bland and dry with too much breading.

Ottawanians should not read further because I’m going to rant again about the great job another city has done of using their waterways (and by inference the lousy job Ottawa has done). The Forks, not surprisingly located at the forks of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers (and designated a National Historic Site because of it’s cultural and historical significance as a meeting place), has been developed in the last several years and includes a public market, a public meeting space for events and an ice rink in the winter, a skateboard park, hotel, restaurants with outdoor patios along the river, a riverwalk that in the winter turns into one of the longest ice rinks in the world (according to Guinness Book of World Records in 2008), a toboggan run, a AAA baseball diamond in the summer, and several museums, including the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Water taxis bring residents from other parts of the city along the rivers, and there is a terraced area for enjoying the sun and view of the river.

After dinner it was back to my house on wheels for the night just west of Winnipeg. The West Winnipeg KOA is not one of the better ones I’ve stayed in. It does appear the owners are trying to improve the grounds, but after quite a bit of rain the whole place was pretty waterlogged. The washrooms and showers are only just adequate and because of the restaurant in the same building have a food smell, but they are at least clean.

Sorry no pictures to accompany the blog today. Too busy and on the move.