2010

Our reporters comb the country for inspiring stories. You're welcome to use them just follow our usage guidelines.

Need a story?

At the CTC, our job is promoting Canada to the world. We are pleased to provide media all copyrights to reproduce the stories and story ideas published here.

We welcome you to use these story ideas as inspiration for your own stories about Canada. The CTC owns all rights worldwide. (Our images are also royalty-free and available for editorial print, broadcast and electronic use.)

If you choose to reproduce these texts for editorial use only, please include the author’s byline and “courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission.” If you cut, edit or modify the text in any way, please include this note: “The text has been modified from the original.”

Please contact us if you would like to reproduce one of our media centre stories, and let us know how and where you will use this story. Thank you.

Manitoba: ‘the artsy middle child’

This land is our land: the culture, the clichés and the eternal truths of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories.

The province in the geographic centre of the country—easternmost in the prairie bed—can’t be pegged as “east” or “west,” in the same way that no genuine creative spirit can be stereotyped. Manitoba’s an artist. It punches above its weight culturally with a fantastically vibrant arts scene centred in Winnipeg. Talented and quirky writers, musicians, filmmakers and artists seem to find inspiration in the ricocheting silence. (Could Guy Maddin exist anywhere else?) And they all cross-pollinate.

What’s keeping the souls of Manitobans topped up? Could be the history. This is where the action was in the early-19th century, westward-expanding colony. From the northern shores of Hudson Bay, the “Company of Adventurers” (as those early Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders called themselves) steamed down the Hayes River from York Factory to Winnipeg with beavers in their boats. (“Did we mention,” said Mother England, placing its orders, “that they make great hats?”) Every Canadian schoolkid learns of the Métis resistance leader Louis Riel—whose execution by Canadian officials strains Anglo/French-Canadian relations to this day, some say. But only Manitoba kids get field trips to the Riel family home on the Red River.

Maybe the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) will create a dance about the Red River Rebellion one day. In the meantime, residents of “The Peg” might nod to old Louis while hoisting a pint near the RWB headquarters by the Exchange District (once the hub of Canada’s grain trade, now Winnipeg’s pulsing cultural precinct—a marvel of the Chicago Style preserved). In summer, there’s no resisting the fantastic rural hinterlands, a paradise for birders, fly-fishers and big-animal lovers. Snorkel with belugas, spy polar bears from a tundra buggy, bag a moose with your Nikon and say you’ve “done” Manitoba? Yeah, right.

Manitoba in a nutshell:
Story by: Margaret Laurence, David Bergen, Miriam Toews

Soundtrack: The Guess Who, The Weakerthans, Crash Test Dummies

Sports icons: Bobby Clarke, Cindy Klassen, Jennifer Jones

Late lamented: Grain elevators, Winnipeg Jets

Love the one you’re with: Blue Bombers

Destinations: Wapusk National Park, Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba Children’s Museum, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre, the “spirit sands” in Spruce Woods Provincial Park

Local delicacies: Winnipeg goldeye, perogies (best sampled at Canada’s National Ukrainian Festival in Dauphin), canola-oil-fried Manitoba pickerel ‘n chips

Mascot: Winnie the Bear statue at the Assiniboine Park Zoo (A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh was based on a bear named “Winnie” after Winnipeg)

Wintertime cultural ritual: Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s “Nutcracker”

Quirky fact: Birthplace of K-Tel

***CentrePlace Manitoba Day at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is Feb. 25.

http://travelmanitoba.com/

video:
Canada’s National Ukrainian Festival in Dauphin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUW1KEDJnrg

The French Community of St. Boniface
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0j6pDeSB2g

Riding Mountain National Park
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF2dpofz7HQ

Parc national du Canada du Mont-Riding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E98mYhtcILM

The Masonic Mysteries of the Legislative Building in Winnipeg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofeEr9ozar4

Read about Canada’s 13 provinces and territories

Print
Usage guidelines

We welcome you to use these story ideas as inspiration for your own stories about Canada. The CTC owns all rights worldwide. (Our images are also royalty-free and available for editorial print, broadcast and electronic use.) If you choose to reproduce these texts for editorial use only, please include the author's byline and "courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission." If you cut, edit or modify the text in any way, please include this note: "The text has been modified from the original." Thank you.

Tags:
- Background Image