Sunday, May 27, 2018

Two Hours of The Forks Winnipeg, Manitoba

The city of Winnipeg has a few gems to it and it is not just the people. People are actually quite willing to talk, share a smile and even the big wave when you let them get in front of you in traffic. Of course there are always exceptions. So today my wife, our five-year old and myself decided to go check out The Forks. The Forks is named because of the two converging rivers, the Assiniboine and the Red River.

The Forks used to have free parking but no more. We paid 4 dollars for two hours. At the parking lot we met a family from North Dakota who had not been there before. So they asked what its all about. We told them to get away the hell away from us. What do we look like, tourist guides? No of course we didn't do that. We gave them a quick description and told them about the river walk-way and the Museum of Human Rights. They said they were going to go for a boat ride on the river. We then walked towards the river. There is a small free parking lot by the main building close to the river. There was a guy putting a canoe on his truck. I went over and asked him a whole lot of questions about his canoe. He made it himself and  it took about 60 hours of work. It was a cedar canoe and it was nicely built.

Cedar canoe build by this man from Fort Rouge. 

There was a lot going on at the Forks. There was a banquet being set up for 1200 people along the river. It is a fund raiser for the Architecture community. They raise money to help young people get into the industry.
Banquet set up along the river

May is Asian Heritage Month. The television network Omni was hosting an event at the Forks.
OMNI TV
A lot of color, beautiful people celebrating and demonstrating some of their dance moves for people. I took a few pictures. I admit I may have been guilty of the bad thinking regarding Asian Fetish. We know the movie has perpetuated this myth of "Yellow Fever". I have been watching a lot of Korean shows on Netflix these days. The stories are fun, engaging and I enjoy them. It has nothing to do with the fact, Women are beautiful. Also you know who is extremely handsome?  Waris Ahluwalia was cast in the Beeba Boys. A film by the great Deepa Mehta.  I watched the movie on HBO Canada.  The men and the women are striking. Anyway, the Forks was busy. 




My wife decided to take our five year old on a boat ride. I am not a fan of the owner of Splash Dash Tour Boats. In my opinion the owner is a jerk. But I could be wrong. The Queen of England took a boat ride when she came to Winnipeg. The boat broke down. How fun is that? I mean what would be the odds right?

So the ride was really good. Its nice being on the river. Haven't been on the water for a long time now. Funny as kids growing up in the Reserve, we were on the River all the time. Its not like that much in our community.


The thing about going out and seeing what goes on in a city, you  get to see how amazing and interesting people are.

We saw this tattooed up older guy on a unicycle jumping rock to rock. What a talent. We saw this older guy, covered in tattoos, just enjoying the sights. Another fellow had a stubby beer bottle tattoo on his arm?

Mom's with tattoos walking around with babies and small children. Buskers playing musical instruments  like a saxophone. We listened to Phillip Natividad playing his Ukuklele and covering What a Wonderful World.




City News 







Louie Reil, Mb Legislative view from River

Speaking of Hollywood promoting stereotypes. Have you seen the movie Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood? The young actress Ahney Hera uses the line about Asian Fetish in one scene where some young guys are harassing her. It is a movie filled with Asian characters and a good old American codger. Anyways, just thought of this movie. I am torn between boycotting Clint Eastwood and watching his movies.  Indian Horse is one of his new ones.

I know I didn't do justice in showing you the two hours at the Forks. The day was nice and there was a host of other things to see but we only had two hours. A chance to get our girl an ice cream cone and back home.

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