Back from Winnipeg

I was just out in Winnipeg for a conference.*  I was actually speaking twice, including on how to handle fact that university students in residence (1st and 2nd years mostly) will not be captured by the Canadian Census (as they are mostly back at their parents house by the time the Census rolls around) and are generally not present in household travel surveys either, which means that we don't have a very good understanding of travel that happens in the fall (the highest travel season) compared to the spring.  There was a decent crowd, certainly better than my second talk where there were perhaps 10 people in the room (and four of them were the other speakers and the moderator!).

I'd never been in Winnipeg itself, though we drove all the way around it on the ring road on my epic drive from Toronto to Calgary back in 1994.  I had come in a day early to look around a bit and found the downtown was pretty deserted.  It got a little busier during the week, but not by much.  Overall, it reminded me a lot of Edmonton, though with a more defined urban core.  I learned later at the Manitoba Museum that at one point Winnipeg was the third largest city in Canada, but its growth and prosperity did not survive the Great Depression and other economic slumps.

I managed to get over to the Winnipeg Art Gallery Sunday afternoon.

The collection is weighted very heavily towards First Nations artists and Inuit carvings, though they have a handful of Group of Seven paintings on view.  The most interesting thing there was a special exhibit on Abraham Ruben, who combines Inuit carving techniques with Viking/Norse mythology, apparently in reference to the fact that the Vikings did interact with the Inuit ages ago.

I had considered going back on Tues. during a break in my schedule, but it was closed Monday and Tuesday(!),** so I went to the Manitoba Museum instead.

Another highlight was that the Monday night reception was held at the Human Rights Museum, which is quite interesting inside.  It's sort of like a Cubist re-interpretation of the Guggenheim Museum.

I wandered along one of the rivers, and, as I said, I had a chance to run over to the Manitoba Museum.  (I was skipping the conference lunch, which was dire for vegetarians.)  Overall, it was a pretty decent trip, and I have a better sense of Winnipeg now.

On the trip, I finished Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, which was ok, but I had so many issues with the world-building, esp. how the mother thinks the Klara might "take over" from her ailing daughter (which is super creepy all the way around), but then only a few pages later we hear that AFs (Artificial Friends) go into this deep fade and are essentially useless as apparently solar power is no longer enough to keep them going, so that made no sense to me.  I'm leaning against seeing the upcoming movie now, though I may change my mind.  I also made it halfway through Huxley's The Devils of Loudun, which would have made a great 20-30 page magazine article, but is pretty insufferable as a 300+ page book.  I'm skimming large chunks and should be able to wrap this up fairly soon.  I finished it up in fits and starts, but I have now reread Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.  Overall, it's pretty interesting, though I don't think he stuck the landing...

I probably need to switch over to Baldwin's Another Country, as my son returns home for Thanksgiving, and I wanted him to take it back to Ottawa (if he wants it now).  Then I will finally finish Thien's The Book of Records (I'm about 100 pages in).  Then I have a few books out from the library that will be next: Johnson's Train Dreams, Bradbury's The October Country, a book of plays by Daniel MacIvor and Masashi Matsuie's The Summer House, which is another Book Club selection, though not one I am really looking forward to, as it is too long (400 pages); then I will close out November with Thammavongsa's Pick a Colour (which I am looking forward to).  As ever, there are a few books I hope to squeeze in, but this is already a lot of reading to tackle.

 

* Getting there was a huge struggle, much harder than it needed to be, but I'll write about that later perhaps... 

** I did somewhat regret not picking up the Ruben catalogue, as it really is not available elsewhere (even on eBay), but I convinced a colleague who was staying through Wed. that the Art Gallery was worth visiting (fortunately, he agreed with me!), and I had him grab a copy.