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Retired Teachers’ Tour-2015
CHAPTER REPORTS southwest assiniboine Retired Teachers’ Tour-2015
Text and photos by: Ed Arndt-Virden
Above: Participants 2015, Retired Teachers' Tour, Assiniboine Park Zoo-Winnipeg. Top-right: Tour organizer Kel Smith with Brandon Bus Lines Driver Doug Thiessen. Right: Human Rights Museum, Winnipeg (Photo by Patrick Coulee. Courtesy of Ed Arndt.)
On June 17, 2015, some 41 retired teachers and their guests boarded a Brandon Bus Lines motor coach for another “Discovery Adventure Tour” which has become an annual event for more than a decade. This year we were pleased to have Bruce & Pat MacDonald, former teachers in Virden, now residing in Charleswood, join our tour.
As were all our previous tours, this tour was once again sponsored by the Southwest Assiniboine Chapter of Retired Teachers’ Association and was once again organized and directed by our own very capable fellow retired educator, Kel Smith. Our bus driver on the first leg of our journey from Virden to Winnipeg was none other than the owner/operator of Brandon Bus Lines, Gordon Hrechka. Upon arriving in Brandon he surrendered control of the bus to Doug Thiessen, who was our driver for the rest of the tour.
This year we had two major destinations a bit further afield than usual, The Canadian Museum for Human Rights located at The Forks in Winnipeg and the Assiniboine Park Zoo.
The Canadian Museum for Human rights was opened to the public some months before our visit. This museum is the “first museum solely dedicated to the evolution, celebration and future of human rights.”
The aim of the museum is “to build not only a national hub for human rights learning and discovery, but a new era of global rights leadership.” The eight floors were full of much information, many displays and there was just not enough time in the amount of time we had at our disposal to do justice to viewing all the displays and absorbing all the information. I believe it is safe to conclude that many of our group resolved to come back for a more leisurely future visit to this marvelous and captivating museum. This writer was particularly fascinated with the Holocaust Display and spent most of his time on this floor.
