Happy Birthday, Wes!

We visited the Royal Canadian Mint this morning, along with Ed and Marlyn and Mike and Judy. The tour was very informative, and we were impressed by the complexity and efficiency of the operation. This mint makes all the circulation coins for Canada, and also makes coins on contract for other countries. Numismatic coins for collectors are made at the mint in Ottowa, using precious metals and multiple strikings to insure depth and clarity of impressions.

Most circulation coins are made of steel which is electroplated with copper or nickel or platinum or other metals, because the more precious metals are too expensive to make coins out of now. On the tour we got to see the process of manufacturing coins, from the coils of steel, through punching out blanks, electroplating, annealing, impressing the head and obverse and rim, and finally packing up for delivery, plus multiple intermediate steps to polish and insure quality control.

In the mint museum, we were invited to lift a gold bar that is on display (well guarded), and found it surprisingly dense and heavy for its size. I’m sure that’s the closest I’ll ever come to that much gold!

Then we all went to the Provincial Legislative Building, a very impressive classical revival structure. We spent the time while waiting for our tour to begin by searching for some of the many fossils embedded in the limestone walls. Our tour guide was well informed and personable, but her English was so heavily French accented that we had to strain to understand her.

The main entry hall of the building is dominated by two huge bronze bison. They were supposed to be lowered through the roof, but with delays from WWI, the roof was completed before the bison arrived. To get the multi-ton beasts in the building without scratching the marble floors, blocks of ice were cut from the river and used as sleds to slide the statues into the building. When we got back to our truck we found a parking ticket on the windshield. Fortunately it was just a warning—we had left the parking receipt wrong side up.

Lee on the way to our tour of the Legislative Building.

One of the heavy bison.

Afterwards we drove to “The Forks,” a waterfront area at the confluence of the Assinoboine and Red Rivers, where we had sandwiches for lunch and then walked around to explore a bit. One photographic exhibit sponsored by the Canadian Cancer Society was really touching and captured our attention. People had been invited to submit photos in some way connected with cancer, along with some narrative explanation. There were hundreds of large poster size photos with text in English and French. Some were of children, some of young adults, some of older folks. Some were proud survivors, some still in treatment, some had succumbed to the disease. One photo that stood out for me was a group of older women with bared breasts and mastectomy scars, all of whom had joined together to crew a dragon boat. One young mother was nursing her daughter with her remaining breast. There were children with brain cancer, young people with bone cancer, older folks with colon cancer, and many with forms of cancer you seldom hear of. The human story of cancer was the focus of interest—not the disease, but the ways people coped with, overcame, and lived with cancer in themselves or their loved ones

In the evening all five couples went on a dinner/dance cruise on the river to celebrate Wes's 73rd birthday. We took two cars of five, and the one I was in got misdirected and barely made it to the boat in time. Once we sat down at our table together, with Wes, the birthday boy, it was a familiar party with our friends. The cruise wasn’t very exciting, but the friendship, fun, and camaraderie were priceless. After dinner we went up to the dancing deck, where a DJ was playing music for an empty room. We requested some line dance music and got the joint jumping! When Ken tried to tip the DJ, he refused, saying that we had made the evening for him.

We all got a kick out of the party hat and all the candles on his cake.

Wes doesn't often sit down when dance music is playing.

Tomorrow we will split up with the rest of the group temporarily. They will go to International Falls while we travel through Grand Forks to pick up our mail.