Day 56 Selkirk, Manitoba: Best Danish West of Montreal

June 25, 2011

With the bikes at Gooch's bike health spa we called on Conan's parents, Bill and Paddy, to come down (50 Km) from Selkirk and bring us up to the family home north of Winnipeg and near the Red River as it winds its way to Lake Winnipeg.

Church on Main St. as we head North to Selkirk

Dodie particularly had looked forward to arriving at Selkirk, where she could recuperate more from her fall in the protective family cocoon. Selkirk, though, has another big feature: Bill and Paddy's good friends Larraine and Ernie Benjamin, and their daughter Mary Jane, operate Benjamin's Gourmet Foods in the heart of the old town.

Benjamin's Gourmet Foods is a family effort of three crackerjack industrious people. Ernie is the business genius, Laraine is the organizational power, and Mary Jane is the chef and technical wizard. Between them they have created a landmark where real pizza and real baking thrive in the midst of a pretty uninspired culinary landscape.

The Benjamins bought and renovated a large bank building, where they live, and next to it is an outdoor gazebo where wood oven pizza is served, together with the best danish maybe anywhere. The danish is only on Saturday mornings, and we hit it perfectly. Not by accident!

For lots of long lonely km we dreamed of sitting at this table with these people and those danish!

The wood fired pizza oven. We came one day too late for this.

The renovated bank building and adjoining pizza gazebo

We went out in the afternoon to have a look at the new Walmart Supercentre. It was quite crowded, but we found once again that prices are about 30% higher than in the States, and then there is the 12% sales tax!

Dodie bought these sunglasses for $24.97 in Missoula.

Ben and Paddy at the new Walmart. Canadian prices, even here, are pretty darn high.

The Red River and riverside walk at Selkirk. The walk was under water until three weeks ago.

In the evening after bison burgers I got Bill (a locksmith) to try reviving both the Planet Bike computer and the Canon camera, both of which died in the various downpours we had experienced. Bill did a lot of disassembly, but both patients stayed dead. Next stop, Miracle Max?

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