Written By David Gomez
In this third part, I want to focus on four places that I not only enjoyed very much, but that also reflect the way I usually approach somewhere new. I like the obvious attractions, of course, but I am often more interested in the places that preserve traces of another time.
The first of these was Gimli.
I did not particularly enjoy going to the beach as a child. I come from a desert region beside the Pacific Ocean, so many of my childhood memories include family trips to the beach. Back then, I disliked the rough sand and the sometimes-overwhelming heat. Fortunately, that changed as I grew older.
Today, the beach has become almost indispensable when I travel. I enjoy watching the waves, however small they may be, feeling the breeze against my face and hearing families around me enjoying a summer day.
Gimli, on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg, offered exactly that. The community traces its modern history to 1875, when Icelandic settlers established what became known as New Iceland. That heritage remains highly visible today, including through the town’s Viking imagery and cultural traditions.
Standing on Gimli Beach, looking across a lake so vast that the opposite shore disappears entirely, it is surprisingly easy to forget that you are hundreds of kilometres from an ocean.
Back in Winnipeg, another highlight was Dalnavert Museum.
I have always had a deep interest in Victorian culture and its influence on Western society, and Dalnavert gives visitors the rare opportunity to walk through that world rather than simply read about it.
Built in 1895, the Queen Anne Revival home belonged to Hugh John Macdonald—yes, son of the first prime minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald—and his family and is now a National Historic Site.
The house is filled with the details that make history feel intimate: richly patterned carpets, dark wooden furniture, fireplaces, books, decorative objects and even an old gramophone. Moving from room to room, it becomes easier to imagine how a prosperous Winnipeg family lived more than a century ago.
A very different atmosphere awaited us at Trappist Monastery Provincial Heritage Park in St. Norbert.
The Trappists established Our Lady of the Prairies there in 1892, building a community centred on prayer, work and contemplation. As Winnipeg expanded around them, the monks eventually relocated in 1978 in search of greater solitude. Five years later, fire gutted the vacant church and residential wing.
Perhaps because of my own Catholic roots, I found the ruins especially compelling. The church has no roof, and the sky now fills spaces once occupied by windows and ceilings. Yet that absence gives the place much of its character. The surviving walls seem suspended somewhere between architecture and landscape.
Our final stop was St. Andrew’s Rectory and the neighbouring St. Andrew’s on the Red Anglican Church.
The rectory now operates as a museum and heritage centre, with exhibits that explore the area’s history and strong Scottish connections. Inside, displays of tartans, Highland clothing and family histories tell the story of cultural traditions that travelled across the Atlantic and took root along the Red River.
The nearby stone church and its cemetery extend that story beyond the museum walls. Walking through the grounds, among monuments and graves, gives the visit a different weight.
These four places could hardly be more different: a lakeside beach, a Victorian house, a ruined Catholic monastery and a historic Anglican settlement. Yet each offered the same thing I often look for when travelling—a chance to understand a place not only by seeing what it is today, but by noticing what remains of those who came before.
