Our Winnipeg:

Okay, so we spent the weekend in Winnipeg, for the sake of Christine's family things. Her mother is from there, so our whole crew, plus Christine's brother and his family, met up with mother-in-law and her two Winnipeg-based sisters, to acknowledge what would have been Christine's grandfather's one hundredth birthday. The last time I was in Winnipeg was for the sake of the ARP launch in 2023, which was plenty fun [see my report on such here], but this trip more for a couple of family events, and the kids seeing cousins. I've been moving around a lot lately, far more than usual, catching a recent week at the Banff Centre [see my report here] and an exciting weekend in Victoria, with three events in two days [see my reports on such here]. Otherwise, our last family trips would be Park Omega in February [a quick overnight, see my report] or that trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland last July, following Rose and her choir around as they performed [see my reports on such here], or even Calgary, the November prior (where Christine and I also read, and Rose had a birthday) [see my report on such here]. There is talk of our household (sans cats) attempting to drive to Halifax later this summer to visit Christine's brother and his family, but nothing is settled quite yet.

We spent the weekend in Winnipeg, landing Friday just before noon, and the young ladies and I left Christine to rest in our hotel room while we ran off to the Assiniboine Park Zoo [our young ladies have requested fewer pictures of them online, by the way], another Robert Kroetsch reference, his poem "The Winnipeg Zoo" [see also: Mile Zero]. Although, if this zoo (established 1904) was always known as the Assiniboine Park Zoo, why did Kroetsch title his poem thus? Was it the presumption that folk beyond the city's boundaries wouldn't have known the reference? Or was he, in New York State, misremembering? Mid-point through the zoo adventure, we met up with Winnipeg poet Melanie Dennis Unrau [see my review of her debut here], which did prompt Rose to complain less about having to be out at all, at a zoo, whatever. Aoife was having a grand time. She wanted to see snakes! She wanted to see polar bears! Melanie showed us the polar bears, who seemed tired, bored. But the heat was some thirty degrees. One barely poked his head up from the pool.

After the zoo, we went off to meet up with Christine, and then with her brother and his family for dinner, before they took the kids to the pool, and I wandered out to a pub night with various Winnipeg writers (Christine had considered joining, but her energy didn't allow for such), including Unrau [pictured], Marjorie Poor, melanie brannagan frederiksen, K.I. Press, Angeline Schellenberg, Julian Day and Kathy Block at a local place called Barn Hammer, which I quite liked. It was good to meet Schellenberg, who I hadn't prior [she had a "Tuesday poem" back in 2022], and I'd forgotten that Poor actually used to work at the late, lamented Heaven Art & Book Cafe, so we hadn't seen each other since the end-of-Heaven party back in, what, June 1999? Apparently Block had attended, during Covid, an online chapbook-making conversation I was invited to do, sponsored through one of the provincial Writers Guilds (Alberta? most likely). And did you know that Unrau has a new chapbook with Gap Riot Press? It is a lovely thing, hoping to get my hands on a copy of my own at some point. It was a grand adventure! Always good to see folk, certainly.

The next morning, a brunch, as our young ladies hung out with their cousins. More time at the pool, in which the young ladies hung out with their cousins [and I began to read the book, above, that Christine found at the Ottawa airport, as we were leaving]. And a bbq at Christine's auntie's house, where the young ladies hung out further with their cousins, a wall of photographs of Christine's grandparents. Christine's brother's family live in Halifax, after all, so we're only able to see them a couple of times a year. And at the bbq, a birthday cake or two for Christine, to mark her own birthday [do you remember the birthday poem I wrote her in 2011?], even wearing the birthday pin that I got her (or was it the one her mother got her? we each picked up the same). 

We visited the graveyard, on Sunday, where mother-in-law's parents lay, and a quick trip to Red River Books (finally) and then the Manitoba Museum before heading back to the airport. So quick! The big ship at the back of the Museum was pretty cool. Go see that!

And did you know that Winnipeg is the Slurpee Capital of the World? I had no idea! Although we did appreciate it, in the thirty-plus degree heat.