Route to Winnipeg

Though we circumnavigated Regina due to poor weather and no information, Winnipeg and it's surrounding area were a different story. On the westside of things, we visited a farmer we were set up with by Malcolm, of cow-slaughtering fame. Malcolm's brother, Tom, also runs a cattle ranch nearby to Lake Manitoba, where he pastures cattle in between birth and finishing. He has really interesting ideas, some sound opinions, and superb cattle vs. grass rotational system. It's something I've read about briefly in Omnivore's Dilemma, when describing Polyface Farms. He rotates his cattle according to the levels of grass going on, so that the grass always has the optimal chance to regrow as fast as possible. It's a traditional technique, but I know nothing about the traditions of farming, so it was nice to see in action. Tom also offered us delicious muffins and even lunch sandwiches. Highly appreciated. It was nice to meet with him and his wife Michelle and sit and talk with people about their business and what interests them most. Lucky for us it rained that morning and bailing hay wasn't an option, otherwise he would be out there wrapping things up with no time for strangers. Thanks to Tom and Michelle for their hospitality and baking skills.


After Tom's ranch, we thought hey, lets gear for a change of pace, maybe something along the lines of a viking village. So we went to Gimli. Gimli is the largest Icelandic community in Canada, and does it well. The weekend before we arrived was the Icelandic festival, which meant we arrived during wind-down, slightly disappointing. However, Gimli was still a great time. We tried Icelandic bread, baked for 13 hours and still moist as sin. We even got free pastries because the bakery was going to close soon. We also tried Brennevin, which is an Icelandic eau-de-vie, heavily spiced with caraway. Its good with iced tea. Long Iceland Ice Tea. Take that, Bobby Flay and your cocktails with dinner. We also had Pickerel and smoked Goldeye to take with us, and prepare as we saw fit. O yeah, and some white wine pickled herring, of which I'm not a big fan, but would maybe eat if it was an issue of survival. I guess that once upon a time it was. So we missed the festival, but still had the fun. Walked the beaches, went swimming and generally enjoyed what there was to enjoy. To round out the Icelandic experience, we ate a warm green bean salad with pickled herring, Icelandic Rye and pickles, helped down by a generous pour of Brennevin on ice. The day was still young however, and we made it to Winnipeg Beach by nightfall.

Winnipeg beach is a very touristed spot, providing the holiday vacation for hundreds of Manitobans who get tired of the city. Thankfully it wasn't very busy upon our arrival, and we swam, relaxed, cooked and even used the wireless from a hotel on the beach for free. Oh the glories of piracy. For dinner we decided that foreign was needed, as the beach has no real Culinary specialties outside of what we had in Gimli. We made a kind of sloppy joe burger thing with corned mayonnaise.

It was almost as good as it's description is useful. Basically we bought some wicked local plums, and cooked them into some ground beef with soy sauce and a couple other flavourful fixings. Spicy mayo with corn somehow reared it's head, which was promptly bitten off. After what was definitely not a health concious feast, we played a couple hours of frisbee, our on the road game, at which I have begun to excel. Post frisbee we took to the beach and showers to get nice and clean before getting to sleep. A small child said "Wassup fools!?" very loud, and that pretty well capped off our Winnipeg beach experience. On the road again, to Winnipeg.