When Canada Day Emptied Winnipeg, the Museum Filled Me In

It took something like 16 hours by bus to get from Saskatoon to Winnipeg. Back in Summer 2018, Greyhound buses were still running in the region, and they were the easiest way for my dad and me to make that leg of the trip while touring the country in a month.

It was also almost the end of the trip. We had already spent 3 weeks between the Yukon, BC and Alberta; Winnipeg was the last stop before finally reaching Toronto, my final destination, and we were tired. Once in Manitoba’s capital, we decided to take things slow and keep the visits to a minimum.

The day after we arrived, we took the bus from our hotel, had lunch in town, walked around, and hit a museum. At first I was annoyed that the bus was 20 minutes late. Then, once we reached downtown, I couldn’t believe how quiet it was for a place of skyscrapers, big glass-and-iron buildings, and long, wide avenues crossing them. It was Monday at noon; where was everybody? We walked around, trying to find a lunch spot, but even the malls were closed. I couldn’t comprehend why the core of a city that size was so deserted. Something was up, but I couldn’t tell what.

We eventually found an open Subway and sat there for a meal. I kept running theories in my head about why the city would be so dead, and I couldn’t accept the idea that being boring and loveless was the norm. Then it hit me! A friend of mine who had lived in Ireland once told me that over there, if a statutory holiday fell on a weekend, the following Monday was off. Piecing things together, the day before was Sunday, July 1st, and it was Canada Day. When I booked my trip, I had no idea about that, or when or where the statutory holidays fell on the calendar, and the 16-hour bus trip didn’t really feel like an actual day.

There it was! Winnipeg wasn’t a lifeless prairie city; it was just Canadians enjoying their first summer long weekend and heading off to greener pastures.

Despite everything being closed for Canada Day, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was open, and it was the next item on the “To-Visit-Once-In-Winnipeg” list. The first exhibition was about Nelson Mandela and his fight for freedom, a lovely echo of a previous trip to South Africa that my dad and the rest of the family took a few years prior. I then walked into the first room of the museum and learned a lot about Indigenous history and how those rights are recognized today. When I came to Canada, I set a goal to learn about the country’s bilingual culture, its relationships with Indigenous peoples, and their rights.

Like a lot of us outside Canada, and educated through media that only narrates Canada through its values, kindness and great manners, I believed the relationship with Indigenous folks was a success story with no more work to be done, unlike some other countries. The first steps into this museum brought me back to reality and captured my attention. This is where I learned about assimilation, the residential schools, the army enrolment, the voting rights, the displacement of Inuit in the Arctic and the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2008.

A few minutes later, while visiting the second room, where more recent movements were exhibited, such as the REDress Project and the Viola Desmond fight, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. The security guard warned me that the museum was closing and that I had to make my way back. I looked around; I was the only one in the room. My dad was nowhere to be found.

I went looking, and found him by the exit. He then told me about all 5 floors he had visited and shared the details of each. I was stunned: 5 floors? I had barely made it out of the first one!

I left the museum with a sad feeling about unfinished business; I was disillusioned, and I couldn’t get all the answers on subjects I had only just discovered existed.

The next day, we rested in the hotel room and took an early flight to Toronto. A crazy thunderstorm raged across the sky as we departed, and we followed its tail until reaching our destination. 

The answers came with time, long after Winnipeg, and I reached the goal I had set for myself about bilingualism and Indigenous rights. I now take Canada Day off, and I know a lot more about the woman on my ten-dollar bill. Still, I’ll have to go back, not only to see my favourite artist, Begonia, sing in her hometown, or to spend a long weekend at the lake, but above all to finish visiting the first national museum built outside the National Capital Region. And I promise that second trip to Winnipeg will be a story for another time.