We had a beautiful sunny drive into this province late in the afternoon.  We drove eastwards to Dauphin, north of Riding Mountain National Park, where we spent the night.

We arose early next day with the hope of catching some wildlife as we drove south through the park.  We dressed for hiking in “mosquito land” and proceeded into the park.  This park is named Riding Mountain because when the settlers were heading west and reached this point, they had to ride over the mountains on horseback rather than take the wagons westward.  To us, being from BC, this area is really not very mountainous at all. J   The park is supposed to have lots of black bears, moose and bison.  We did happen upon one black bear foraging near a pond in the long grass.  Other than a rabbit we saw later, that was all we saw.  We did a short hike on the lakeshore in the park village and opted out of a long hike due to the mozzies and a moderate one got kyboshed due to the half the trail being under water.   Not a big walking day!

We drove towards Winnipeg, the capital of the province with the intent of heading to the Legislature Building to learn about the secret coding encrypted into the rotunda of the building but after calling to find out what time the tours were, found out that they are only once a week on Wednesdays.  Darn.