This is Canada….what in the world has Winnipeg got to do with the very British Winnie the Pooh? There is even a statue in Assiniboine Park of the original Winnie. Well, around 1914, Lt. Harry Colebourn purchased a black bear cub from a hunter for $20. He named the bear Winnie after his adopted hometown of….Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnie was secretly brought to England with Colebourn, and when he went off to fight in WW II, he left Winnie at the London Zoo. The bear became so loved there that he donated her permanently. Consequently, AA Milne’s son Christopher, for whom his father wrote his stories, fell in love with Winnie. The “Pooh” part came from a swan of that name in the zoo. So, Winnie the Pooh was born and lives in children’s literature even today.
The first photo is of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. It is a beautiful, modern, dramatic building, but to us it looks a little like Darth Vader! The next two photos are of the Forks Market, its two stories put to use as a food court and for various small gift shops. The last two photos are from the Lyric Theater in Assiniboine Park, where the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra was playing a live, free concert. The photos were taken about 9:00 pm…you can see how late it remains light outside in the summer! The orchestra was fantastic, playing Mozart, Strauss, Dvorak, and even John Williams. If the final video will play for you, it is the encore piece…the orchestra playing the can-can after the director invited up everyone who wanted to dance. We really liked the director, Alexander Mickelthwate. His tempos were very upbeat, his conducting very free and vigorous. A marvelous evening of music!
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