WAG - Winnipeg Art Gallery

 Winnipeg, MB

WAG

Today we went to The Winnipeg Art Gallery.  It's another museum within the NARM group (The NA stands for North America) so we got in for free.  The building is really cool and their focus is pretty local.  Many of the artists are from Canada and about half of the artists are indigenous.  The museum appears to be rebranding including Qaumajuq in the title.  From the website," Qaumajuq is an innovative new museum, home of the largest public collection of contemporary Inuit art in the world. This first-of-its-kind centre connects to the WAG on all levels, creating a 185,000-square-foot cultural campus in the heart of downtown Winnipeg"

This map shows the different Inuit Communities where the art comes from.

A giant glass vault holds many pieces of art in the entry.  It was a bit hard to see it all but it was very cool.

You can't go in the door, it's just there for the curators.

There is a giant room with Inuit art and there are no labels.  There is a reference book that you can use. but I chose to just enjoy the art and take photos.

I liked this woodblock print with the woodblock included.

In the 50s art was created in Nunavut for export by The Hudson Bay Company to southern Canada. During this time many artists became internationally known.   

I liked this guy covered in mosquitoes.

This piece was carved out of a Walrus Skull.

There were a lot of elements of bone, ivory, and fur included in the art.

The 2nd half of the museum featured more Eurocentric art with info placards. 

The Countess of Oxford and Asquith, The Wharf, Sutton Courtenay - Sir John Lavery

Young Anglers - Henry Herbert La Thangue

The first recorded instance of the "Smell my pit" gag.

The Funnies - Laurent Roberge
There was a whole section on The Free Press which wasn't very photogenic but this wall created of shredded newspaper comics was cool.

Vallée - Jean-Paul Riopelle

Sounds Assembly - Bertram Brooker

Wo Ist Ein Zigarrengeschaft? - Jean-Phillipe Dallaire

Le déjeuner sur l'herb - Pablo Picasso

The lobby had a bunch of colourful works.  We saw this last.  I guess we went into the wrong entrance.

That's it for today.  If you missed Prime Rib and Ponies at Assiniboia Downs check it out.

Prime Rib and Ponies at Assiniboia Downs

 Winnipeg, MB

We're off to the races!  

The Prime Rib Special

Tonight we went to Assiniboia (not sure how to pronounce this) Downs for the Prime Rib Special and Horse Racing.  They race on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays and have a Prime Rib buffet.  We made reservations and got seats up near the front of the room so we could see all of the action.  The waitstaff was great and they had a bet runner that was fantastic.  He really made people feel at ease even if they didn't know what they were doing like me.  

We got there well before the first race so the place was pretty empty except for the restaurant which was hopping.

They blew up the bounce houses just in time for the kids to start lining up.  It was free to get in so families were having a great time.

This ad brought to you by the horse racing lobby.

They also had an off track betting sports book.

The prime rib dinner was VERY popular.

We were provided a free program and tip sheet with the purchase of our meal.

We ordered some liquid courage and did our homework.  

We put $2 CAD on horse #2 to win.  It didn't win and after finding the tip sheet we found out that it was the long shot of the night.  I guess we used the wrong book for our homework.

I consoled myself with a big slab of prime rib.

I took this shot in anticipation of winning race #1.  I was going to say that with that win all of our other bets are gravy.  Turns out that drop of gravy was worth more than all of our bets combined.

I spent my losings on another beer.

Race 2 got Donna out of her seat.  Actually I think she was looking at birds in the infield.

I waited until everyone had gotten their prime rib before I took this photo.

The races continued as the sun set.

In the 4th race we bet a long shot to show.  It showed last.  We will now have a running joke that includes "Better chances than horse #3 in the 4th". 

Earlier in the day I was texting with my one friend that knows Horse Racing and he was familiar with Assiniboia Downs.  He joked that we should take a careful look at the prime rib dinner fine print because horses that don't win at Assiniboia have a short career in racing.  I thought that was pretty funny and Horse #3 in the 4th might just be on the plate next week.

It was super fun and a really different experience for us.  We took home the above pencil because we figured we paid $8 for it.  If you missed The Corn and Apple Festival, check it out.  We got free corn!

The Corn and Apple Festival

 Morden, MB

Free Corn in Morden!

This morning Donna and I did the 1.5 hour drive to Morden, MB.  Morden is about 20 minutes from the US border just above a city in North Dakota that you have never heard of.  The festival was in Downtown Morden so the streets were closed and we got to see all of the shops.  Donna learned of this festival by reading the local newspaper and the article wasn't about festivals, it was about Morden trying to because an urbanist walkable place.  

Morden has the tree lined streets going on so that's a good start.

Or festival visit started off with the the craziest petting zoo you ever did see.

It's like they got all of the animals in the area and chose the ones that had the smallest chance of biting children or each other and put them in a giant pen full of screaming running kids.

Li'l Sebastian!

We learned a lot about this tortoise from its child handler.  We learned that the pyramids on the back of the shell wear down in the wild due to sand storms.

Once we found the main drag of the festival we had to get our bearings.  

FREE CORN AND APPLE JUICE!  That is what we are here for.

We drove 1.5 hours for a free $0.25 CDN ear of corn.  We walked up to the free corn area but we were an hour early so we had to wait.

We walked through the craft area.  /start sarcasm I am sure these are licensed /end sarcasm.

We wondered if these colorful gals were Mennonites.  Usually you don't see that much party on the lower half when the upper half is so conservative.

We found BeaverTails in Canada!  We have only ever seen them in the Canada Pavilion at EPCOT.

The free corn was a bit crazy at opening

 so we thought we would kill some more time at a brewery

I got a very nice IPA

We ordered cheese fries and they arrived I felt it was a very small serving of fries with cheese but it turned out to be a reasonable serving of cheese cut in the shape of fries and fried.  They were delicious.

We both liked the Marathon Pizza sign.

We visited the Quality Canadian Milk stand.

We received tiny milkshakes for free!

The corn was cooked with a 1916 case steam engine courtesy of the Pembina Threshermen's Museum

The Steam Engine

The machine in back is actually shucking the corn and dumping it out into buckets waiting to be boiled.

They boiled the corn in batches for 8 minutes and then moved to those crates to serve to us.

When the 8 minute boil was done they passed out the corn and then the process started over again so the line moved in groups.

They claim this is the freshest corn you can get.  It was picked this morning and then they say they flash freeze it until it is ready to be shucked.  We couldn't actually confirm it was frozen going into the shucking machine.

But we could confirm that the corn was delicious!  A little oil and salt made it even more delicious.

We left with 3 ciders

And honey as well as chokecherry jam.

We added some more miles to our Manitoba Highways.  We are up to 240 miles now.

We also ticked off a few more County Equivalents in Manitoba.

That was it for today.  If you missed Farmers Market and Thrifting, you can find it via the link.