street signs - Third St

Cobourg's Heritage District has these unique street signs featuring a sailboat with gulls and an image of the cupola from the Victoria Hall.

nearing the end of the alphabet with this 20th edition of the street signs series

for signs,signs

the Garrick

While wandering the streets of Winnipeg, looking for signs and murals and interesting architecture, I came across a place selling the "coldest beer in Winnipeg". This may sound unappealing to anyone outside North America reading this. But really, depending on the beer, drinking it very cold may be the only way to get it down. As a general rule light body and low alcohol beer tastes better cold, while full body and high alcohol beers taste better when served warmer. What is being served here is probably something "lite" - Bud,  Miller, Coors, or Molson's ...
Had it been one of those unbearably hot southern Ontario summer days, I may have ventured inside for a look around and a quick one, but it wasn't. Anyway, I prefer my beer with more alcohol, and more flavour.

The Garrick Hotel was built in 1906, making it 110 years old this year. I'm sure it has a storied past, especially during Prohibition which started in 1916 and wasn't repealed until 1921, by which time the Wellington Hotel (the original name) had suffered one too many liquor violation fines and was sold by the bailiffs. The Garrick opened a year later after a makeover but while Prohibition was over there were still many alcohol restrictions and it was raided several times until finally being shut down in 1924. New owners re-opened it, but then the Depression hit which ruined many of the hotels and bars with owners simply walking away and abandoning their debts. Creditors were mostly the breweries who would often take over the premises.  Shea's Brewery were the lucky ones to inherit the Garrick. By 2008, it lost its vendor's licence and became the only historic hotel in downtown Winnipeg to not serve beer. Things improved so much by 2014 that it won an Achievement Award for "best business transformation in downtown Winnipeg".  It is now described as a downtown bar venue with vintage ambiance with state of the art sound, lights and special effects.

You can still see the faded sign for the original name Wellington Hotel.

some signs for Lesley's signs, signs and a not highly recommended hotel for Travel Tuesday

with thanks to this site for help with the history lesson

war effort

This set of four stamps was issued in 1990 to celebrate Canada's contribution to the war effort during WWII showing realistic scenes and focusing on the effects of war on people

The whole series ran from 1989-1995. Pierre-Yves Pelletier designed these stamps with the help of illustrations by Jean-Pierre Armanville.

Clockwise from top left, the first stamp reflects the hardships endured by people who stayed on the Home Front followed by the Communal War Efforts where the "many communal activities, organizations and programs that were created boosted the morale and provided assistance to troops, prisoners of war and their families".

"Through research, inventions and innovations, scientists and medical doctors made significant technological developments, which helped to win the war" for Science and War. And finally, Canada's important contribution in Food Production helped feed the Allied nations.

The details are a bit hard to see unless you can enlarge the stamp, which I have done here for you with this one from the Canada Post Archives.

Mother may be knitting socks for the troops, while one child is hanging stockings which may or may not have an orange in the toe. Another child is perhaps wrapping a present in old newspaper after Grandfather has finished reading the latest updates.

see more stamps reflecting war or peace at Sunday Stamps II, the 100th edition

street signs - Saint(e)

It is a distinctive characteristic in Quebec that many streets are named for saints. These are not only for specific saints, but may also recall the names of community founders or leaders, missionaries or priests. 

In this case, the city of Saint-Hyacinthe (named for St Hyacinthe of Krakow)  features the street name of Saint-Simon, after the founder of the city –Jacques-Hyacinthe-Simon Delorme.  These signs downtown all very helpfully list who the street is named for. Although, the sign here gives his birthdate as 1722 whereas all other sources say 1720. 

Jacques-Simon – also known as Hyacinthe – Delorme was born in Quebec City and trained as a carpenter. By 1745 he was in the naval service of Louis XV building platforms, carriages and artillery works necessary for cannon installations. This was lucrative enough for him to buy the seigneury (manorial land tenure) which was to become Saint-Hyacinthe.

Monument à Jacques-Hyacinthe Simon dit Delorme 
erected in 1948
Photo : Francine Girard

There is also a Avenue Sainte-Anne, named for his daughter.

Here there is also a slight discrepancy, as it seems he had three children, a daughter Marie-Anne who was born and died in 1776 and another daughter Anne-Marie who was born in 1779 and lived until 1801. Since our Simon died in 1778... it is possible he never knew this daughter or, of course, the date could be wrong.

There was also a son, named Hyacinthe-Marie.

The H on the sign would be for Hyacinthe, with the squiggle in the middle of the H for the Yamaska River which bisects the city.

19th in this irregular series of interesting street signs for signs, signs

polar bears in a park

These polar bears are now more than 10 years old, and showing signs of their age.
















They hang out on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature and were enjoying the late evening sun when I stumbled upon them.

All of them were missing their name plates.








But, although faded, and a bit dirty, you could still get an idea of their design

At one time, they were part of a fundraising display for CancerCare.
62 of these 7 foot, 8,000 pound concrete bears were each sponsored by a corporation who was matched with an artist. They were then on display here and along the tree lined median of Broadway, thus the name Bears on Broadway (link where you can see pictures and names of all the bears)

The bears looked a little sad, I thought, in spite of their artistic, colourful coats.

 This one I could guess was called Loony Bear

and these two are known as Nanookshuk

combining two Inuit words - Nanook for polar bear and Inukshuk, a directional guide for a safe journey made of stacking stones.

The other bears have made a journey to various parks and gardens around Winnipeg.

I'm sharing this short journey with Jo for Monday Walks

temples of culture, and more

I had received quite a few of these se-tenant stamps since its issue in 2014 before I looked closely at the lettering and discovered that it was not a view of Hamburg as I had assumed (I know, I know...) but was actually a view  of Dresden.

Well, at least both cities are on the same body of water - the River Elbe. But, while Hamburg is closer to the border with Denmark, Dresden is close to the border with the Czech Republic. This stamp shows the view of the (south) left bank of the river with the Frauenkirche, the castle, opera house, museum, and Bruhl's Terrace among other buildings in the historic inner city. There is still ongoing reconstruction after the devastating bombing of the city in 1945, but it also has to contend with severe flooding, the worst being in 2002 and the most recent in 2013. And it suffered the indignity of having UNESCO remove the city's World Heritage status after a modern bridge was built (Waldschlösschen brücke) in 2007 to alleviate traffic (a plan that had been in the works for 100 years already). That bridge isn't shown here, though. I believe it is the Augustus Bridge on the far right that you can see.

Another, very different city view is on this stamp which fortuitously

arrived in my mailbox this week.

It took a lot of time to find out that this stamp - on a prepaid postcard - was issued in 2015. There was no description on the card and the sender wrote only of the beaches in Thailand and nothing about the temples. That was nice to read about, but  did nothing to enlighten me about the view. So, I took a stabbing guess that this is a night view of Bangkok. And that some of the temples lit up for our enjoyment are Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha). For a more illuminating background on these, and other, temples, check out this tourist website.

and for more illuminating stamps check out the other links at Sunday Stamps 

street signs - Ross

These street signs can be found in Paisley, Ontario. 

Ross St runs parallel to the main street (Queen St) and at this intersection, near the barn, you can find the Farmer's Market held every Saturday morning from Victoria Day to Thanksgiving.

I rather liked the signs even if they are bit dark 

until I tried to read another pair of signs.

The fancy script was a bit hard to decipher, especially if you weren't familiar with the town.

But then, I saw this, one block over

and felt a little sad for this end of Maggie St.

something fancy for signs, signs