Exploring Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park

Today we spent the day exploring Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park, and impressive expanse of urban park in Manitoba's largest city. My parents were along for the visit.

Our first stop was the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden.

Next, we headed over to the English Garden, with its proper, manicured flower beds.

We continued on to the Duck Pond

and the Pavilion.

We cut through the Nature Playground, which we had visited previously,

and got some ice cream before heading out.

As I had mentioned, this was not our first visit to Assiniboine Park. Noelle, Sierra and I had visited in late May and toured the zoo,

 with its impressive Journey to Churchill exhibit.

The polar bears were definitely the stars of the exhibit,

and it features a glass tunnel you can walk through that the bears swim over and around.

However, there were seals and other animals also.

We also found the Winnie the Bear sculpture during our last visit.

It's a wonderful park and I would guess we will probably be back to visit again some day. Perhaps next visit we will explore the Assiniboine Forest section of the park.

Zippel Bay State Park

After last night's storms, and a restful night's sleep,

we awoke to a beautiful clear morning. We ate breakfast and explored the campground area a bit. Sierra and I found some ripe wild strawberries.

Yum! We also found lots of blueberries, but most of them aren't quite ripe yet. About mid-morning we headed out to do some exploring and swimming at the beach area. We walked along the beach to see what we could find.

It was quickly warming up, and so walking in the water to cool our feet seemed the logical thing to do.

We walked as far as a driftwood shelter

and then started to make our way back to the main swimming area.

When we arrived at the swimming area, it was of course, time for a swim. Sierra practiced her new swim skills a bit.

We also found life in the waters: dragonfly larvae

and tadpoles.

The beach was mostly pleasant, except for the biting flies. Eventually the flies drove us back to our campsite where we packed up our still wet tent, ate lunch and then hit the road for the return to International Falls.

A Day in Minnesota's Northwest Angle

Last night after work, Noelle, Sierra and I packed the car, ate dinner and then hit the road headed west to Zippel Bay State Park. We set up camp, slept in the tent and this morning awoke ready for an adventure in Minnesota's Northwest Angle. "The Angle" as it's know by its residents, is the part of Minnesota that sticks up into Canada along the northwestern shore of Lake of the Woods. Getting there required a drive to Warroad, a border crossing into Canada, a drive of about 60 miles in Canada, and then a border crossing back into the United States

with a check-in with customs via videophone.

One we had arrived in the Northwest Angle, we headed directly to the "town" of Angle Inlet. We then drove to the northernmost post office in the Contiguous United States

and the northernmost school in the Contiguous US (it's only 1 room).

At the school we played on what we presume to be the northernmost playground in the Contiguous US

and ate a picnic lunch. Then we headed over to Young's Bay Resort to check out the northernmost point monument

and put our canoe in the water for a paddle on Lake of the Woods to the reconstructed Fort St. Charles.

The forecast for the day called for light winds in the 3 to 5 mile per hour range and the lake was pretty calm as we made our way around Magnusons and Penasse Islands.

Before too long we could see the reconstructed wooden fort on the northern shore of Magnusons Island.

We found a dock and tied the canoe off

to explore the fort.

Fort St Charles was built by explorer and fur trader Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Verendrye in 1732.

On June 6, 1736 La Verendrye's son, a priest and 19 voyageurs had just left the fort and were heading to Fort Michilimackinac when they were attacked and killed by a party of Sioux. The bodies of those killed were returned to the fort for burial and a marker is in place at the burial site.

The fort was abandoned in 1849 and for years its location was forgotten.

In 1911 the site was rediscovered by a Jesuit archeological team. Eventually the Knights of Columbus raised money to buy the site and built a reconstruction of the fort which was completed in 1950. Today there is some reconstruction at the site again. A chapel within the fortification's walls is being rebuilt, its altar exposed to the elements.

We walked around and explored the site,

then headed back to the canoe for the paddle back to Young's Bay. For the return trip we opted to go around the south side of Magnusons Island. However, we were unable to find the passage between the island and the mainland and were forced to paddle back the way we had come.

As we made our way out of a narrow bay we found a very rough Lake of the Woods with whitecaps. Noelle and I nervously paddled the three-foot waves which sometimes crashed over the gunwales of the canoe. Sierra enjoyed what she called the "roller-coaster ride". As we paddled past some rock cliffs the waves got particularly intense and as we approached the shoreline, we opted to take a break among the aquatic vegetation.

We tried to formulate a plan, but without any information about whether the wind would die down or get worse we eventually opted to get back into the canoe and paddle back to Young's Bay. It was slow going paddling into the wind. But we were quite relieved to return to the boat ramp at the resort.

We loaded the canoe back onto the car and then made the long drive back through Canada and Zippel Bay. By this time it was raining, so instead of cooking dinner in the rain at our campsite, we opted for Dairy Queen.