MOOSE JAW SUPPLEMENTARY

They get supplementaries in Parliament, so I am going to take one too. A Moose Jaw Supplementary.

I forget to say yesterday that Moose Jaw has more murals on more walls than Chemainus does. Really good ones, all over the place, arguably as good or better than those in Chemainus. A cynical view might be that this is merely an economically depressed town trying to capitalize on tourism, and maybe it is. Whatever, we enjoyed them. Lots of good murals.

Today we went to the Capone Tunnels beneath the streets of Moose Jaw. Tourist trap or not, there was lots of interesting stuff to be learned here; how the Chinese were exploited for labor, how Mr. Al Capone ran a monster criminal enterprise involving Moose Jaw, and other stuff. A couple of years ago we went to a similar display in the old coal mines of Sidney, Nova Scotia. That stuck in my mind, and this one is going to also. Must have been good.

Then we went to the WDM, short for Western Development Museum. Google them if you like, or believe me that this is a large operation. Largest of its kind in Saskatchewan. 80,000 artefacts which includes lots of very fine old cars, old planes, old locomotives, a complete history of Saskatchewan with lots of old stuff, a Snowbird display because the Snowbirds are stationed here, and more. Some old boats even.

Ya. Very good. The weird part was, we were almost totally alone in this monster place. I think we saw a family with two kids and another couple in two hours or so. We weren’t the only ones, but very close to it. Like we had the whole huge place to ourselves. We didn’t even see one another most of the time. It was virtually empty.

So that’s it for the Moose Jaw supplementary. You should plan your next vacation here. Or maybe not. But hang around a day or two if you’re passing through because it’s worth it. Who’da thunk?