Lower Fort Garry is one of my favourite places to take visitors. The wide open spaces are breath-taking, but even more so for people from crowded places like Europe and Asia.

You can wander the grounds and listen to costumed interpreters re-enact the lives of company clerks, York boatmen, native trappers, and the more genteel people of Red River society.

They teach historic skills, such as baking bannock and you can hang out with the blacksmith. (I still have a picture of me with my school field trip buddy, circa 1978, making candles with the candlemaker.)

Looks like 2011 will be a busy year for LFG with tea parties, school programming and family days. I heard kids can sign on for a day as an HBC worker. There will also be Treaty 1 commemoration days happening in early August.