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Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg, Canada. Where Gumbo Was #36

Assiniboine Park Pavillion and Duck Pond, WinnipegGumbo was enjoying a stroll in Winnipeg's largest park, Assiniboine Park.  Established in 1904 the park covers 1100 acres (450 ha); almost half the park's design is styled after an English park (which is quite common in Canada).  

 

Big congratulations to ace travel sleuth, PortMoresby, for figuring out this destination!

 

Entrance to the Assiniboine Park Pavillion, Winnipeg

Botanical tea set, entrance to the Assiniboine Park Pavillion

Flowers at the entrance to the Assiniboine Park Pavillion

The building in our puzzle photo (with the tall tower) is the Pavilion, the signature building of the park.  The current Pavilion is actually the second building on the site, the first being destroyed by fire in the 1920's.    This current building is of Tudor style, including half timbering, with a prominent tower.  Over the years the Pavilion has served as a gathering place, banquet and dance hall.  Today, after a $5 million rehabilitation, it highlights an Art Gallery Museum featuring some of the province's most popular artists, and a 150 seat restaurant.  

 

Canada geese, Assiniboine Park Duck Pond, Winnipeg

Canada Goose, Assiniboine Park

Wood Duck, Assiniboine Park

 

The highlighted photo of the Pavilion (at the top) was taken across the park's Duck Pond.  In the summer it's filled with migratory ducks and geese and is a popular place for kids to feed old bread to the birds.   In the winter it's a beautiful place to go ice-skating.

 

Fountain at the entrance to the English Garden

English Garden, Assiniboine Park

English Garden, Assiniboine Park

 

Immediately adjoining the Duck Pond is the park's English Garden, a lovely place to stroll and which leads to the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden.  The park also has a fairly large and popular zoo focusing mostly on animals of Northern North America.    Assiniboine park also has a great kid's playground, miniature train ride, a lovely conservatory, large fields for rugby, soccer and cricket, and much more.  Well worth a day's visit (which I recommend you do in the summer).

 

Botanical sculptures, Assiniboine Park

Play area, Assiniboine Park

 

Another travel question goes up tomorrow which I hope you find challenging!

 

Cricket Field, Assiniboine Park

 

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Images (13)
  • Assiniboine Park Pavilion and Duck Pond, Winnipeg
  • Entrance to the Assiniboine Park Pavilion, Winnipeg
  • Botanical tea set, entrance to the Assiniboine Park Pavilion
  • Flowers at the entrance to the Assiniboine Park Pavilion
  • Canada geese, Assiniboine Park Duck Pond, Winnipeg
  • Canada Goose, Assiniboine Park
  • Wood Duck, Assiniboine Park
  • Fountain at the entrance to the English Garden
  • English Garden, Assiniboine Park
  • English Garden, Assiniboine Park
  • Botanical sculptures, Assiniboine Park
  • Play area, Assiniboine Park
  • Cricket Field, Assiniboine Park

Twitter: @DrFumblefinger

"We do not take a trip, a trip takes us".  John Steinbeck, from Travels with Charlie

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Comments (7)

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We are indeed very civilized here, but in full disclosure, cricket is just a footnote sport.  Not played by many.  

 

There is only one sport in Canada and that is hockey.  Every other sport combined would not equal half the popularity of ice hockey.

Twitter: @DrFumblefinger

"We do not take a trip, a trip takes us".  John Steinbeck, from Travels with Charlie

Close but no cigar on Central Park's designer (who also did my backyard, Brooklyn's Prospect Park). Birkenhead was the work of Joseph Paxton, while the other two were done by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. 

 

Olmsted visited Birkenhead in 1850, three years after it opened, and while he was already thinking about Central Park, which opened in 1858.

 

In his book "Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, Olmsted wrote about Birkenhead:

"five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden"

The best part of every trip is realizing that it has upset your expectations

In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted won a design competition to improve and expand Central Park with a plan he entitled the Greensward Plan.

8 years AFTER Olmsted visited the Peoples Garden - Birkenhead Park England.

 He said "that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden"

So he took the plans back to New York. Entered the Central Park competition 8 years later.

And won using Paxton plans from the Peoples Garden in England as a guide.

 

Intellectual plagiarism.

Like many American Sports. 

I'm keeping hold of this Cuban Cigar ! 

 

Hats off to the Canadians who admit copying - very flattering !!

 

 




Last edited by GarryRF

Garry, no one doubts Paxton's influence on Olmsted, and on generations of others (as Olmsted influenced those who came after him), but surely there's a vast difference between learning from a master and applying similar ideas to different terrain on the one hand, and "plagiarism" of any sort on the other. That's especially so when we see how fully and publicly Olmsted acknowledged the model!

 

The best part of every trip is realizing that it has upset your expectations

Apr 13, 2013

The boss of New York’s Central Park hailed his first visit to Birkenhead Park which inspired its design as “a dream come true”

Doug Blonsky, president and chief executive of the New York Central Park  said: “You drive around Birkenhead Park and there is no question that the physical similarities between here and Central Park are there"

“To come here and take a look at it is a dream come true for me."

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