June 2nd, Sunday, 2013

The sun is out! Still cool but sunny. We headed to Winnipeg with lots of items on our to do list but a parade and festivities downtown at The Forks changed our plans a bit. We visited the Saint Boniface Cathedral in the French District which had burned twice and the newest one is built within the walls of the old one. Then headed across the Esplanade Riel bridge over the Red River to The Forks, a Historic Site where the Red River and Assiniboine meet. We wandered around the park, toured the market (bought Bison meat pies for supper), had lunch along the river and headed back across the bridge before the parade crowd arrived at The Forks. The next stop was the St. Boniface Museum which held a lot of Louis Riel artifacts and the history of the establishment of Manitoba and the influence Riel had on the outcome. He is also buried on the property. Then onto the Royal Canadian Mint - you enter the mint by driving thru the parade of flags from 75 countries for which the Canadian Mint makes their coins. The Mint was not in operation but you could see the work area and lots of info on the process of making coins. Not too many visitors today so the staff were quite helpful and full of fun.Bernie tried to take off with the $650,000 brick of gold but no luck !