We enjoyed our one night stay in Kenora on our way west, so we decided to return to the Anicinabe Park for a two-night stay on our way back east. On our first day, we met our RV park neighbours from Ireland, who were tenting there for one night before they had to head back to Winnipeg on Sunday for work on Monday. Our guess is that they were there for the Lakeside Live EDM music festival that was happening on the Saturday evening. And while we did not go to that music festival, it meant that in our wandering around Kenora during the afternoon, it was filled with body-painted sequin and glitter covered youth who were preparing themselves for the night’s festivities.
Our first day was full of doing errands (but also returning to Iron and Clay for a coffee). On Sunday we had a delicious brunch at The Hungry Pug Cafe, which was well worth the wait in line. Then we walked around the bay to see “Huskie the Muskie”:
Which is definitely impressive to see up close as it is forty feet tall!
We also went to the Lake of the Woods Museum and the Douglas Family Art Center. They are right next to each other, and when you buy an admission ticket to one, for $3 more, you can visit both.
As a part of the 150th anniversary celebrations of the signing of Treaty #3, the museum had an interesting exhibit on the treaty. The community copy of the treaty had been on long-term loan to the museum until 2017, when it was returned to the National Archives of Canada for a preservation assessment. A travelling agreement was reached with the archives to see the documents travel from the National Archives to various locations in the Treaty #3 Territory during this year, as a part of the 150th anniversary celebrations.
On they other floors of the museum there was a range of historic artifacts, including this terrifying looking Permanent Wave Machine for all your curly hair needs?
They also had a photo of the bicycle club from 1899, in which everyone looked quite dapper:
As you will see in the photo, it refers to the “Rat Portage Bicycle Club”. This is because Kenora used to be called Rat Portage, and before that, it’s original Ojibwa name was Waszush Onigum. Which (according to Wikipedia) roughly translates to “portage to the country of the muskrats”. Unfortunately, the Hudson’s Bay Company chose to shorten that translation to Rat Portage when naming their post on Old Fort Island on the Winnipeg River. In 1905 Rat Portage was renamed, using its first two letter and the first two letters of the neighbouring towns of Keewatin and Norman, to create the name Kenora.
We then went next door to the Douglas Family Art Center where we saw a beautiful exhibit of the work of Walter J. Philips, which included some of his watercolours and his woodcuts. I was quite taken with this painting:
in part because from it I learned about the Canadian “Bat Wing” boat. From the painting’s description I found out that this type of boat was steered using rope lines, and could be turned into a row boat by lowering the sails. It was manufactured by Bastien Boats, and rose in popularity in Southern Ontario in the 1880s. In the early 1900s, this was the first sailboat purchased by the Royal Lake of the Woods Yacht Club. After World War I the fabric shortage drove the price of these boats up. The explanation didn’t say more, but I am guessing that contributed to the stopping of their production.
The next morning, we packed up and hit the road to go back to Thunder Bay for Adam to play in the Canadian National Disc Golf Championship. En route we did a quick stop in Dryden to see Max the Moose:
(not to be confused with Mac the Moose who lives in Moose Jaw).
And remember, don’t snowmobile on the sidewalk in Kenora.
