Every Day Is Special: Manitoba

Showing posts with label Manitoba. Show all posts

February 20 - Canadian Holidays!

Posted on February 20, 2017

You might already know that Canada does not have states, but instead has ten provinces and three territories. (The territories have legislatures, but they do not have as many powers or responsibilities as do the provinces.)

These various units do not celebrate all the same holidays.

Today Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Ontario celebrate Family Day.

Today is Islander Day on Prince Edward Island.

And today is Louis Riel Day in Manitoba.

Here are some ways in which Canadians are celebrating:

Playing ice hockey, going skating or skiing or snowboarding, or doing some other winter sport with their families.

Going to a winter festival.

Eating beavertails and pancakes with maple syrup....And when I say "eating beavertails," I assume people mean this kind (not real tails from beaver!) ...

...not this kind (actual tails from real beaver!).

Learning about Louis Riel and / or the Métis people, who are people of mixed Indigenous (from three particular aboriginal peoples of Canada) and European ancestry. Riel was a controversial politician who represented the Métis people.

Check out the ten provinces (which cover the southernmost part of Canada) and the three territories (the sparsely inhabited northernmost part of Canada):

Here is just one gorgeous taste from each of the provinces and territories:

British Columbia

Alberta

Sasketchewan

Manitoba

Ontario

Quebec

New Brunswick

Nova Scotia

Prince Edward Island

Newfoundland and Labrador

Nunavut

Northwest Territories

Yukon

Also on this date:

Presidents' Day

Anniversary of the First Woman in Antarctica

Photographer Ansel Adams's birthd ay

Big Day in 1872

Actor Sidney Poitier's birthday

Frederick Douglass Day

Anniversary of the pawning of certain Norwegian islands

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

June 7 – Anniversary of the End of a Manitoba Voyage

Posted on June 7, 2015

Do you know what the “mouth” of a river is?

It's one end of the river – the end that is “downstream” – the part where the river flows into a lake, reservoir, ocean, or maybe just another river.

That is the opposite end from the “headwaters,” the source of the river, which is often an underground stream or a melting glacier but is sometimes a lake or a marsh.

On this date in 1800, famed explorer David Thompson reached the mouth of the Saskatchewan River, in what is now Manitoba, Canada. The river empties into Lake Winnipeg.

Many Americans don't know much about Canada, especially the central provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These two provinces are largely prairie, and of course a few lakes.

And when I say “a few lakes,” I mean over 110,000 lakes in Manitoba alone, including the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the entire world, Lake Winnipeg.

I don't know if you noticed that I referred to David Thompson as a “famed” explorer. He is widely known by Canadians, but not so much by citizens of the U.S. Thompson surveyed huge swaths of land and traveled miles of rivers; he filled in gaps of knowledge about almost two million square miles of Canada!

This map shows Thompson's exploratory routes.

Here are some cool things to see in Manitoba:

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has interactive exhibits and a Tower of Hope.

The interior of the Manitoba legislative building features hieroglyphics, free-masonic symbols, and numeric codes – but in a pretty subtle way. A tour guide is helpful to point out such things as a bust of Medusa, the repeated use of the numbers “666” and “13,” and Egyptian sphinxes!