Wayward Newlyweds – Day 13: Gimli/Silver Lake

A Place of Heritage

We were ready to head out by about 9am. Amanda came to give us a goodbye hug before we left and we were off north to Gimli. For those who don’t know, I have Icelandic heritage, and Gimli Manitoba is also known as New Iceland. It was a specific settlement that was given to a large number of Icelandic families early in the development of the Canadian ‘West.’ This group of settlers became the ‘West Icelanders’ as they were explicitly allowed to keep their language, culture, religion and self-governance by the Canadian government. In the late 1800s the council of New Iceland decided to open its doors to other settles from elsewhere in the world. The town grew and eventually became the District of Gimli which in the Poetic Edda is a place of peace, or haven.

The rights given to these Icelanders was extended to other Icelandic settlers that came to other areas of Canada, thus nearly anyone of Icelandic decent in Canada is considered a West Icelander. So although I am not sure if any of my own family settled in Gimli, I am still a West Icelander by heritage. It was a poignant moment for me driving into town thinking of my grandma and how glad she would be that we made it here to see the history of our ancestors in Canada.

 

We had a great time wandering around the town. We saw the Viking statue monument, and the rune stone which marked the landing point of the first settlers. We walked to the beach and put our feet in Lake Winnipeg. We went to the Heritage Museum, and got a few souvenirs, as well as some Vinarterta, for research purposes of course. We had some very tasty fish and chips(pickerel) and fish tacos, and I finally got my first vacation ice cream!! It was even lactose free! Very satisfying! We eventually wandered back to the car and said goodbye to Gimli son of Gloin.

We made it to the Ontario border by about 4:30pm and went on toward Kenora. Our planned place to stop was on crown land by Silver lake which was about 30km north of Kenora, so we turned off where google told us to and drove. The downside was, google didn’t have a specific point for us to stop at, it was more a range spots. So we drove for a while, saw a few possible spots but nothing that looked really ideal. We stopped a few times to turn around and check something out. We turned down one ‘road’ that turned out to be something that only a high suspension 4x4 could have made it down. Eventually we found a gorgeous spot that was obviously a local picnic/swimming site. We rolled in and there was a group of 5 or so 20 somethings enjoying an evening swim and drinks. We enjoyed ourselves sitting by the water, debating pulling out the swimsuits. We decided against it mostly because of bugs. The group left not long after we arrived and we set up camp. We had a nice time reading in the last of the sunlight and sharing a bottle of Ross wine. The bugs forced us in around 9:30pm. Dodd decided it was sleep time, and I finished my book. We both zonked out to the sound of lake waves by 10:30pm.

Belatedly we realized that this marked our one month anniversary as a married couple! Pretty sweet day to have as an anniversary!

Cheers

Sláinte

Skol