Manitoba’s roadside attractions

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/09/2020 (1935 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As we head into fall, with great uncertainty still surrounding COVID-19, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to travel outside Manitoba anytime soon — myself included.

I’ve always been a fan of exploring our province, and 2020 has granted more reason than ever before to take in some of the unique sites and roadside attractions. Here are a few of my favourites that you can visit all in the same day:

When I was a kid we lived in the very southern region of Manitoba’s Interlake. We had family in Balmoral and went there often but anything further north seemed like a mysterious world away. One of my first trips beyond the familiar frontier was to Komarno — a place named after the Ukrainian word meaning ‘lots of mosquitos’. The statue here honours this name, and getting up close to this massive mosquito for a roadside selfie won’t leave you scratching your head, or anything else for that matter.

A little further up Highway 7 is another cool site in the town of Meleb  — giant fibreglass mushrooms modelled after three local fungi delicacies known as pidpenky, smorzhi, and kozari. While foraging for wild mushrooms is not recommended without an expert on hand, you can find these statuesque versions all on your own in Meleb Park, which opened in 1994 to honour the area’s veterans and to celebrate 90 years of settlement.

Keep heading north and you’ll arrive in Arborg, a town founded in 1890 and boasting a rich cultural diversity influenced by its many different settler groups. Arborg lays claim to the world’s largest curling rock, on display outside the curling rink (of course). While curling rocks typically weigh 19.1 kg, this one weighs in at 1.5 tonnes, is 4.2 metres across, and stands 2.1 metres tall. Not only is it a draw for curling fans from miles around, its also pays homage to two local curling teams who brought home provincial championship titles.

Over to the west, in Poplarfield, is the popular statue known as King Buck. It was erected in the community park in 1991 to pay tribute to one of the most important animals of the region —  the white-tailed deer. Both beautiful and bountiful, deer were considered the primary sustenance of early pioneers who settled here, and still provide food for many hunting families today.

The final stop on this tour is Fisher Branch’s giant wagon wheel, symbolic of the role the town played as the ‘hub of the Interlake’ in the early 1900s, and a visual representation of the slogan ‘a community reinventing the wheel’. Unveiled in 2015, it is one of the newest monuments in Manitoba —  but actually looks like it could be one of the oldest. That’s because it was intentionally created out of metal meant to naturally rust to the same rustic colour resembling that of historic wagon wheels.

RoseAnna Schick is an avid traveller and music lover who seeks inspiration wherever she goes. Email her at rascreative@yahoo.ca and follow her on Twitter @rasinspired