Saturday, November 1, 2008

Winnipeg, Manitoba...Center of Canada

This might be Winnipeg's best claim to fame...it is pretty much in the center of Canada. Now I am sure there are some really nice areas, but downtown might not be one of them. No one is out on the streets at night. Not really an inviting city.

We tried to track down some of Jim's cousins but without any success. Of course, he is trying to remember what he can about them, and what he heard over the years, so it's not surprising they might not still be in Winnipeg.

We bought tickets to see Bill Cosby and the Centennial Centre is a great venue. The show was really good. It's hard to believe someone can talk non-stop for an hour and 45 minutes and make it seem effortless. After the show, we headed to an Indian restaurant that we saw in the bible. It was very good and we taste-tested a few tiny desserts. Holy moly...they like their sugar!

We went to the gym this morning and then headed to the Royal Canadian Mint for a tour. That was really interesting. In an attempt to move some government activities out of Ottawa in the Trudeau era, the mint was built in Winnipeg due to its location in the center of Canada. It's a beautiful building....


Here is Jim hoisting a 28 pound gold brick (400 ounces) worth about $310,000. The brick is under the watchful eye of a security guard and it is chained, so even if you could put it in your pocket, it would be hard to get away with it!

Here I am with Murphy the Mountie....

A new coin issue...

All the coins in circulation are made here and special issue coins are made in Ottawa. What we didn't know was that Canada gets contracts to make coins for other countries so that was really interesting.

Tomorrow we are heading to Killarney where Jim's grandfather lived for most of his life. There were five children: Bill, who lived in Noranda for most of his life; Raymond, Jim's father; Hermann, who lived in Michigan; Margaret, who married a Clements (these are the cousins we are hoping to find); and Kathleen (who married a Forsyth) and lived in Saskatchewan. The Clements bought a farm next to the family farm, and hopefully we are going to be able to find some relatives there....

No comments: