Canadian trip itinerary help
 

My husband and our baby twins (who will be just over a year old next summer) are planning a trip to Canada next summer and are need of help with an itinerary. Currently we are thinking of making it a 3 week or month long trip as we will be flying from London and want to make the most of it.

I'll let you know what we want our trip to include and then if anyone can suggest an itinerary that would be great. First off, my husband has family living in Winnipeg so we will want to spend time there visiting, we were also thinking of going up to a lake for some time with family too. Can anyone suggest anywhere particularly scenic in the area where we could rent a cabin or house?
For the other part of our trip we'd like to either do some touring around the area or maybe visit another city or two before we leave. Are any within easy access of Winnipeg?

Any other suggestions of activities or places to visit to include on our itinerary would be great. Thanks for your help in advance!

I drove through Winnipeg twice - back in '84, once on the way to Vancouver from Toronto, and then the return trip. I'm not an expert on the local area and I'm sure it has changed a bit (!!) since then. I do have a feel for travel times though. What I noticed about Manitoba was that its geography was fairly consistent - at least from the highway.

You can head west to Regina, Saskatchewan. This will bring you into an entirely different geography. I found the Prairie to be very impressive. There's something about an endless horizon, fields - oceans!- of wheat growing and rippling in the breeze. Dust plums blowing up into the sky from the edge of the highway, those cute little prairie dogs lined up along the should watching you drive by. It's about 6 hours to Regina from Winnipeg if you drive steady.

Or you can head back east to Thunder Bay. This gets you back into the exposed rocky relief of the Canadian Shield. Endless forests, thousands of lakes and about a day's drive to get there, it's well worth the journey. Thunder Bay has some historical sites (Fort William) and huge nature land marks (the Sleeping Giant, Kamanistiquia falls)

see some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_William,_Ontario
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Giant_(Ontario)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaministiquia_River

There's also some semi precious gem stone quarries around where you can pay to get a hammer and prospect your own amethyst.

Going east, you would also cross a time zone into the Eastern Time Zone and lose an hour. ( i guess the size of the country and necessity of invention lead Scottish born Canadian Sir Sanford Fleming to socialize the time zone concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone and of course I would be remiss to mention the Prairies and time zones without a shout out to the Canadian group Tragically Hip and their song At The Hundredth Meridian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCFo0a8V-Ag ). :)

Well, I see that I've gone on a fair bit. I'll let the local Winnipeggers reply in more detail!!

Cheers!

I assume you are flying into Winnipeg from the U.K. If so, we will take it from there!

Gimli is not far from Winnipeg...maybe 2 hours. it's a beautiful beach area. I also like the area of Pinawa.
Have a look at northern Saskatchewan for some nice lake - Meadow Lake is one that I heard is really nice.
Or, if you don't mind an extra flight...spend a week around Winnipeg area then fly into Halifax, Nova Scotia and spend weeks in Nova Scotia and a few days in PEI then fly home from Halifax.

If you're still looking for cabin rentals I'd recommend the Whiteshell, aka Falcon Lake area to the east of Winnipeg - on the edge of the Canadian Shield. Or you could continue travelling east on Hwy 1 to Kenora and Lake of the Woods. Lake of the Woods has an advantage that you could look into renting a houseboat rather than a cabin.

For me Thunder Bay is too far - about an 8 hour drive and you're travelling through a lot of lake country, besides Kenora, there's Vermilion Bay or even Dryden - and I would say that even Dryden is too far.

Heading northeast there's the Pinawa, Lac du Bonnet area or north you have Lake Winnipeg and places like Victoria Beach or Lester Beach.

Heading west you've got Clear Lake which is in Riding Mountain National Park.

Going to the lake is a common activity and for the most part distances aren't that far. Don't know enough about SK but Manitoba is known as the land of 100,000 lakes so you have plenty of choices very near to Winnipeg.

As to your other questions: The closest city of any size is Regina which is still smaller than Winnipeg. Minneapolis, USA is the nearest large city (about a 5 hour drive)- it's fairly popular for folks here who want to do more than shop. If you're into just shopping then Grand Forks (2 hours) or Fargo (3 hours) are better options.

If flying is an option than Calgary or Edmonton (2 hours) are good choices or even flying to Minneapolis (about 1 1/2 hours).

For shorter trips there's the International Peace Garden down by Boissevain (south of Brandon). Depending on when you're coming, you could also look at the many summer festivals that take place in smaller communities - there's a rodeo in Morris about 1 hour south of Winnipeg or Morden has a Corn and Apple festival etc.

Just north of the city is Lower Fort Garry, a fur trading fort and one of the few surviving stone forts.

Winnipeg has a lot of summer festivals, including a Folk Festival, Fringe Festival and one of my favourites - Folklarama.

If you're interested in sports you could watch a Goldeye's game (baseball) or a Bomber game (football - the American kind).

If you let me know approx. when you're planning on travelling I can give you more concrete suggestions.

Have fun planning your trip!