Yo, check out my new shirt! I am totally a Candadian Cutie. I'm visting my host Kym and her lovely family in Winnipeg now.
This is Bella waiting for me to arrive. She sees me as yet another unwitting victim that she can convert to Twilight fandom.
Uhm....not really my thing, I told her.
She's forcing me to read Twilight! Ack! See, she's pulling my hair! This is vampire fiction by force.
Fortunately, Miss NY Molly came to my rescue.
She braided my hair so it wasn't such an easy target for Bella.
Nyah nyah, you can't get me! Really, Bella's not so bad.
It's doll sleepover time!!!
All tucked in with my trusty traveling blankie. A girl needs to have her traveling blankie near-by at all times to protect her from sparkly vampire dreams.
Bella let me borrow this grey owl. Next to polar bears, owls are my favorite critters .
Good morning! Pizza for breakfast is always good.
Oh and good morning to you, too, Bella! Any vampire dreams?
This is Jess. She rules this room and will let you know it. She is the only teenaged doll in the house (she's 13). Are all Jesses bossy? Must be the Angry Jess influence.
On the other hand, Jess has an awesome scooter.
Me and Jules.
Yay, it's time to scrapbook! That's my doll, Princess Azulina, on the table there.
I couldn't wait to dig into all the cool supplies
Uhm. Maylee loves pictures, too....if she's in them.
Get off the table, Maylee, before you fall. (Or at least move your foot, because I want that sticker!)
See, I told you to move before you fell.
Oh man, now my stickers smell like doll feet!
Here's Bella with her books. Her favorite is Wuthering Heights.
Me with indoor tomato plants. Frost can last until June in Manitoba, so you start growing inside and move plants outside once the chance of frost has passed. Look at this one plant--it's as big as me!
Here I am with a puzzle of Canada. So far I've been to Alberta and Manitoba!
Here is Manitoba, the Keystone Province! Hey, funny, Pennsylvania is known as the Keystone State! The provincial bird (that's like state bird in the USA) is the Great Grey Owl, and the provincial flower is the prairie crocus. The southern part of Manitoba is the most populated (but polar bears live in the northern part!). Winnipeg (where JeanieD and my current host Kym live) is the capital city with a population of 700,000 . It is located near the longitudinal center of North America, at the confluence of the historic Red and Assiniboine Rivers at a point now commonly known as The Forks. Winnipeg was an historic trading centre for First Nations peoples. The first fort was built on the site in 1738 by French traders.
Me and Taryn, a Maplelea doll. Mapleleas are made by Avonlea Traditions and are Canadian-themed, 18” vinyl play dolls. We got along just fine because Taryn's an environmentalist like me!
Guess what -- this is my twin in cat form! Kitty is named Mercedes and nicknamed Sadie, just like me!
Here I am on the Red River trail.
Okay, it's more brown than red. It has a mud bottom and floods every spring. I saw how high it can get when JeanieD took me here a month or so ago!
We're at The Forks, where there is a tourist museum. Mush, doggies! Inuit sled dogs have more in common with their ancestor the wolf than they do with our pet dogs. Did you know they don't bark, but they do have haunting howls? They are bred for work, not play, and aren't what you'd call pets.
Look, I'm a Viking Princess! Kym's family heritage is Icelandic. Because life was so hard in Iceland, nearly 20,000 Icelanders left their homeland between 1870 and 1915 and many settled on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. In fact, Manitoba is home to the largest Icelandic population outside of Iceland!
POLAR BEAR! I saw this guy with JeanieD, too! So the polar bears who live in the wild in Manitoba are about 800 miles away from me, in the western Hudson Bay area starting at the Manitoba-Ontario boundary through to Chesterfield Inlet in Nunavut. Estimates are that there are approximately 935 polar bears. When the females are breeding, they do range further inland. Manitoba lists the polar bear as threatened under The Endangered Species Act, and as protected under The Wildlife Act. Sometimes they have to do away with aggressive bears that threaten people (like maybe this poor guy), but in general the people of Manitoba take good care of their polar bear neighbors!
Manitoba is really one of Canada's prairie provinces so it might seem like a weird setting for lighthouses, but Lake Winnipeg is huge and has been the home for three lighthouses.
The sign says "do not climb on bear" but it didn't forbid me from leaning on him! Black bears (Ursus americanus) range throughout most of Manitoba but don't come south into Winnipeg very often. We have them back home in Pennsylvania, too, but they know to avoid the heavily populated areas.
Okay, there's been so much to see and do here that I don't know if I can fit it all in my journal, but here I am writing as fast as I can. Gotta pack up now and head off to visit MapleLeaf in Ontario now!
