North Dakota and Southern Manitoba

I’m all about timely blog posts. That’s why I’m finally writing about my time in North Dakota and southern Manitoba as part of my annual-ish hockey road trip…which happened more than a year ago. Better late than never, right? I mean, I wrote about eating in Winnipeg and attending the Pittsburgh Penguins-Jets game last year, so that was somewhat timely!

Besides attending a hockey game in every NHL city, another life goal is to visit all 50 states. So as part of visiting Winnipeg to see a Jets hockey game, we decided that we had to find a reason to go to North Dakota, which is a short drive away. The initial idea of last year’s hockey trip was to attend a Winnipeg Jets game and a University of North Dakota hockey game. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t work unless we made the trip in the middle of winter (which we didn't want to do). So instead, we attended a UND football game. I mean, of course you go to a college football game when you’re in North Dakota!

So let's start with the drive from Winnipeg to Grand Forks, North Dakota. Do you know what is between the Winnipeg suburbs and the Manitoba/North Dakota border? Not much though now that I’ve driven in Iceland, the area between Winnipeg and Grand Forks is a metropolis. So highlights of Southern Manitoba:

Hemp Oil Canada! After probably about 25 miles of driving through nothing after leaving the Winnipeg suburbs, we passed the Hemp Oil Canada factory. (Apparently, the company is now known as Fresh Hemp Foods.) There were (and I assume still are) also a series of homes across the highway from the factory. While I didn't think that there were still company towns, Ste. Agathe, Manitoba may just be one. According to WikiPedia, the population of Ste. Agathe in 2021 was 643. Feel like at least half of the population has some sort of affiliation with Hemp Oil Canada,

After another 20 minutes of nothing, we came across Morris, Manitoba (population approximately 2,000), home of the annual Manitoba Stampede which seems to take place in July of each year. Would I like to attend a rodeo in Manitoba someday? Yes. Will it ever happen? Extremely unlikely.

After another half hour of nothing, we reached the US border. When we entered the United States and returned to Canada later in the day, the border control seemed confused by our visit. Why were two guys from Virginia and another from New York crossing the border driving a vehicle with a Manitoba license plate? The concept of a rental car seemed to escape them. 

We finally arrived in Grand Forks, and after a stop at the UND bookstore to buy some souvenirs (meaning T-shirts for my kids), we made it to the Alerus Center for the football game between the University of North Dakota and University of Northern Iowa. It’s a somewhat odd arena/stadium. It’s more of a field house. There are stands on each side with no or limited seating in the end zones. I know you really don't care about a recap of a football game that took place over a year ago, but I have some pictures and videos to share. 

I liked how the teams shook hands before the game. Don’t remember ever seeing that before.

We went to a late lunch / early dinner at a place called Smiling Moose. It was fine. However, a few days after I returned home, I learned that there was a Ground Round only a few miles from the stadium. Ground Round was one of my favorite restaurants growing up in Pittsburgh, and there are only a few remaining. Not going to Ground Round was the only regret of the trip.

Around the corner from Smiling Moose is the Grand Forks curling club. The door was open, so we walked right in. There was one guy there setting up the place for the start of the curling season which was a few weeks away. He was super gracious in letting us walk around. 

On the drive back to the hotel, we stopped at the St. Vital Curling Club, founded in 1933. This Winnipeg curling club has members that won Olympic medals! I think we hoped that we would be able to try curling ourselves, but there were league competitions going on, so we just watched for a few minutes and left.

A few more pictures from Winnipeg. Did you know that Winnie the Bear, later Winnie the Pooh, is named for Winnipeg?