For now this is a chance to collect books and clothes to take back with me, a chance to see the wife and Swiss friends, a chance to remind myself of all that is good and bad about Switzerland. What is most positive about my return, besides people, is my library of books that make writing so much easier in terms of both information and inspiration, for both my blogs and my literary ambitions.
Considering it is mid-summer now and temperatures are rising all over the world, including places where it rarely heats up to extremes like Canada, Scandanavia and Russia so intensely, it feels strange to speak of Winnipeg in winter. But I write of Winnipeg and my visit there in January , just before the corona virus became a global pandemic, because a number of topics in the news of late โ human rights, indigenous relations, climate โ all seem relevant and related to this discussion.
I arrived last night in darkness โ the cab taking me down snow-covered streets that all looked the same to me. This morning with no breakfast forthcoming I needed to explore the streets or starve quietly indoors. Folks preparing to go to work, heading to showers and kitchens to bolster themselves for the day.
My wife can read the shape and flow of a city like a sailor can sense the direction of the waves and wind. Valour Road is a three-kilometre 1. Originally called Pine Street , it was renamed Valour Road in to recognize three young men โ Corporal Leo Clarke โ , Sergeant Major Frederick William Hall โ and Lieutenant Robert Shankland โ โ who all lived in this neighbourhood and individually received the Victoria Cross for acts of bravery during the First World War โ The three medals were loaned to the Manitoba Museum here in Winipeg in to commemorate the th anniversary of the start of the Great War.
Designed in by David Wagner Associates, it features four bronze plaques mounted on Tyndall stone bases accompanied by three metal silhouettes, one for each of the three soldiers. It was on the night of 24 April during the Second Battle of Ypres, Belgium, that Hall discovered a number of men were missing. Under cover of darkness, he went to the top of the ridge on two separate occasions and returned each time with a wounded man.
