Written By David Gomez
I have always enjoyed travelling, and you may be wondering: who doesn’t? Still, travelling does not come easily to everyone. For some, leaving the comfort and familiarity of home can be difficult.
In my case, I enjoy both. Staying home and travelling are two seemingly opposite sides of my personality, yet both feel equally natural. Since leaving Peru and embracing life as an immigrant, I have tried to preserve them. Canada, the beautiful country I now call home, has given me the opportunity to be both a homebody and an explorer.
A couple of weeks ago, I used my vacation to travel to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg was not my only destination—I also visited the beautiful town of Gimli—but it became the centre of eight very well-deserved days away. Beginning with this edition, I will share some of what I discovered in a four-part series.
Winnipeg grew around the meeting of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the geographic centre of North America. Long before the modern city existed, the area around The Forks had been a meeting and trading place for Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years. It later became important to the fur trade, the Red River Métis and the development of Western Canada. Today, Winnipeg is Manitoba’s capital and largest city.
Our first day began with a warm welcome at the home of Maureen. Originally from Liverpool, a retired nurse and United Church minister, Maureen is now an authentic and proud Winnipegger. She welcomed us with a delicious dinner, remarkable charisma, plenty of stories and even more laughter. It was a lovely introduction to a week filled with discoveries.
The following day, we made what turned out to be one of the best decisions of the trip: visiting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Human rights, their protection and the consequences when they are denied have long interested me, so this museum was an obligatory stop.
Opened in 2014, the museum is impressive before you even walk through its doors. Architect Antoine Predock conceived the building as a symbolic journey from darkness toward light, combining stone, glass and steel in a structure that seems to rise from the Prairie landscape. Inside, visitors physically ascend through the museum as they encounter stories of struggle, injustice and resistance.
Some sections are difficult to absorb. The Holocaust galleries were particularly chilling, showing how persecution and dehumanization became systematic. Elsewhere, photographs, testimonies and artifacts document racism, discrimination, genocide, political repression and the continuing struggle for equality.
One display immediately caught my attention: Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Beginning in 1977, mothers whose children had disappeared during Argentina’s dictatorship publicly demanded answers about their fate. Seeing their struggle represented in a Canadian museum was a powerful reminder that human rights abuses leave wounds extending far beyond borders and generations.
My only significant disappointment was the treatment of Palestine. Compared with the depth and context provided elsewhere, I found this section strikingly inadequate. Given the scale, history and continuing human consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I expected a much fuller examination. In a museum otherwise willing to confront extraordinarily difficult subjects, the limited treatment felt like a conspicuous omission.
After several emotionally heavy hours, we walked through nearby The Forks. Located where the Red and Assiniboine meet, the site has served as a gathering place for more than 6,000 years. Today, its market, restaurants and shops make it one of Winnipeg’s busiest public spaces—and definitely more during summer. We ate, wandered through the shops and eventually boarded a boat for a trip along the river.
From the water, Winnipeg offered another perspective. We passed different parts of the city and caught views of landmarks including the Manitoba Legislative Building, opened in 1920 and recognizable by its dome and famous Golden Boy—we will talk more about this in future editions.
It was only our second day in Manitoba, but Winnipeg had already given us history, difficult questions, good food and a city best appreciated from more than one point of view.
