“ I’m going fishin’… I got me a line… I know nothin’ about fishing… “ Chris Rhea couldn’t have put it better: I know nothing about fishing. Beyond casting a line with some kind of fish food in the water and wait and wait and wait until some fish shows that it has more intelligence than me by eating that bait and leaving the hook untouched, well I know nothing.
Here in Manitoba, fishing is a whole different affair, it’s an art and a real sport. Even more if you start talking ice fishing. Fishing on ice is a whole different way of fishing and for some a way of living. At any rate fishing in Manitoba is a good opportunity to catch great photographs.
On Lake Manitoba waiting for fish
And no, the fish is not biting through the ice to come up to present itself for my supper…
Most of the time, quietness and town or city do not go together. Either it is quiet and the town looks like a ghost town, or the town is lively but far from quiet. I like my relaxation in the weekend and just go far from the house and from the city. Ok, in Winnipeg there are enough quiet places to find, but a bit farther out is always good.
Every now and then we take a car to get out, and try to find some nature and calm down from the week’s hassles. Now if you find places like these in this picture, you can imagine that this is not a very hectic place.
The Winnipeg River
And once you find the place, you’ll want to stay for some time, well…
Holiday on Ice, Fish on ice, walking on ice, we can do it all in Winnipeg. In Holland, where I come from, we are happy if once in ten years we get 15cm of ice to hold the “elfstedentocht” a difficult but wonderful competition of skating on ice. Over 220km of natural ice must have these coveted 15cm, everywhere. Useless to say that that does not happen every year.
In Winnipeg, however, if there were only 15cm of ice in winter on any of the frozen water surfaces, we would call it a catastrophe. In Winnipeg, on the Red River we should be able to solve the (minor) parking problem of the city…
Parking on ice
Here we parked our rental car on the ice, in order to do some ice fishing. Didn’t catch anything, but it was a fun day. And the ice? Well if there is less than two feet (60cm) of it, you don’t try to park your car on it!
So, what else do we do on ice here?
A daytime festival is nice. But some travellers will want to travel by day and have some fun by night. The Festival du Voyageur will also accommodate you for this. While Fort Gibraltar is closing its doors at 9pm and you are kindly asked to leave, the rest of Voyageur Park gets livelier by then.
Also, for the photographers, the lighting gets more interesting, the place is full of coloured lights and this year’s choice is warm and cold.
The entry sculpture in the Park now looks like this:
Entry sculpture at Voyageur Park
An eerie glow of red and blue, with the absence of all other colours, now there’s a challenge for your camera!
After a series of snow sculptures, perhaps now is the moment to look at some more lasting sculptures. Winnipeg has been the home of world renowned sculptor Leo Mol.
Leo Mol as he was known in Canada was born in 1915 as Leonid Molodozhanyn in Polonne, Ukraine. At that time Ukraine was still independent from the future Soviet Union, so we can drop the “The”. He studied sculpture at the Leningrad Academy of Arts from 1936 to 1940. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1940 he fled to Germany. In 1945 he went to Holland and three years after that he and his wife Margareth moved to Winnipeg.
Here in Winnipeg the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden is located in the Assiniboine Park. The sculpture garden contains more than 300 works of art by Leo Mol. More than 200 were donated to the city by Mr Mol himself. The rest comes from private collectors and donators. Sculptures of three different popes stand in the Vatican, in Winnipeg we can admire smaller versions of these sculptures.
Taras Shevchenko
One of his famous sculptures is of Ukraine’s poet Taras Shevchenko. In the Assiniboine Park we can admire the head of the poet’s sculpture, for the rest you’ll have to go to Washington DC, USA.
So, what else can we find in the Leo Mol sculpture garden?
6 hours 43 minutes
Thanks :) !
9 hours 56 minutes
---Very nice Blog Henk - some nice shots there...-:)
5 days 3 hours
Presets can speed up your workflow a lot, provided you have plenty of the same type of pictures. People doing weddings will a ...
5 days 3 hours
Hi, I hadn't noticed that the typing colour was that dark... changed it to pure white, that should do it ... Henk
5 days 5 hours
I certainly agree the use of presets will discourage people learning their own methods but they can offer a shortcut to fulfi ...
26 days 3 hours
Well, I was told so by a "pro" that later recanted... :-) I removed the name, so at least it is now correct.
27 days 6 hours
nice blog but sorry the horses are not Clydesdales. Those are a little bigger. :)
27 days 19 hours
Test comment here
28 days
This is a comment. I will see if this works or if this will be taken over by spammers. If so, then I will take it down again.