In the late ’90s/early 2000s, a band I listened to a LOT had a song called When You Feel Miserable (SF59, iykyk) which recommended taking a walk if you feel, well, miserable. And recently it leapt into my head again, because our spring break trip to visit friends in Mexico and see Mennonite stuff (in Chihuahua State) was abruptly cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control. The point here is, this was massively disappointing. And while a walk is always a good thing, a walk that touches on history is even better.
There’s just something about standing in a place, with your feet on the ground, learning something new and possibly significant about what happened, and with whom, in that place.
And so, faced with an unexpectedly free week, I proposed to Andrew that we explore the Dawson Trail on Tuesday. I’ve read a lot about this award-winning trail which was quite recently completed, and they have an excellent website, dawsontrailtreasures.ca which declares, “Dawson Trail Heritage Tour: self-guided activity, available year round.” Perfect!
It was really snowy for the end of March, but this suited us just fine since it is largely a driving trail. It extends from the Northwest Angle to Winnipeg. We are frequently in Winnipeg, and we feel the Northwest Angle deserves its own special trip maybe in summer, so we focused on the part of the trail that is most local to us: Prairie Grove to Richer.
I had actually never heard of Prairie Grove before, which is wild because I’ve driven past it constantly, all my life — it’s just one mile outside the Red River Floodway, and a five-minute drive from Deacon’s Corner (the first traffic lights you see on the TransCanada Highway if you’re heading into Winnipeg from Ontario… or Steinbach). So it’s been very near but I had no idea.
Also, the name Prairie Grove is so pretty, it sounds like a modern development. But no. It actually first had a French name but was swiftly given an English name when the post office appeared. I do not remember Prairie Grove’s original name, nor do I remember the year the post office came. Because I forgot to take a picture of the marker which tells the story. There is a LOT online, on the Dawson Trail Treasures website, but not all of what you see on the signage. It’s the kind of thing you just have to go see for yourself, I think.
And you know how much I love cemeteries. Well. For a place with a modern-sounding name like Prairie Grove, I expected one of those really boring, treeless cemeteries with identical stones in rows. And I was in for a surprise. Prairie Grove’s little cemetery feels old, it has old gnarled trees and markers from the 1800s with wrought iron fences around certain plots. This is one I will return to.
From here it was an eight-minute drive down to Lorette, where there were several stops on the trail.
I’m not going to tell you about each one because the website does an amazing job of that. The coolest thing I took away from our time in Lorette along the trail was seeing this waypoint, with this old photo depicting the Hotel Dawson which was built in 1894…
And realizing it’s still standing, right behind us. We turned around and saw this:
Next, to Dufresne, which is notable because it’s the first grain elevator you’ll see if you’re driving along the TransCanada traveling east to west.
Then, Ste. Anne, which is ridiculously close to Steinbach. But often it feels like our communities don’t always notice each other. (Matthew Tetreault gets into this with his 2023 novel Hold Your Tongue.) So being in Ste. Anne as a tourist exploring the Dawson Trail specifically was very cool.
Moving eastward along the Dawson Trail, Thurston Park was an interesting stop, with the millstones and triptych.
The “big wheel” and corduroy road re-creation was very interesting!
Then we arrived in Richer, our final stop on this leg of the tour.
We tried to go to the Dawson Trail Park Exhibits, but I think they are within the gates of the park, and this is quite obviously the off-season, ha. So we called it a day and went for an early supper to Derica’s!
Our experience at Derica’s was excellent, so we will definitely be back!
I guess I didn’t take any other pictures in Richer this time because of this fairly extensive post from 2021: Getting Richer.
Anyway. This little exploratory jaunt did not take away from our disappointment at missing our carefully planned visit to see friends in Mexico. But in some ways it was soothing and grounding to just get out, see something new (or, see something old in a new light).
It will be okay.