Day 85 - Sleepy Saskatoon

Saskatoon has about 200,000 people and the guide book described it as offering next to nothing for the tourist to see and do. A little bit on the perfect side for me at this stage - a little 'touristed' (is that even a word?) out at the moment - although my host has been a little concerned about me getting bored while here.

So at the moment staying with Holly and her husband. Her parents happened to pop over in the morning, having also come from The Pas, for a bit of a visit ('Spring Break' here at the moment - just love how they have a funky name for the holiday - gives it a little bit more 'umph' to it all or something).

We got out the door and headed into the city for a bit of a look around the city. Architecturally, this place is an extremely interesting hybrid of styles. From my initial impressions, it is like taking European styles and putting a bit of a Canadian 'spin' on it.

First up is this church - St Johns I think. The colour of it is striking to say the least. I'm thinking the floor plan and layout would be a curiousity in itself.



Just a little further down from this was this hotel. For those people out there in blog land paying attention, what does the building remind you of? Have a check back through some of the Prague architecture - similarities. Basically built in the 1930s but was opened 3 years after completion - why? Depression and no money.



A curiousity that I never really considered before, what ended the depression? Great spending on WWII - will have to check out some numbers on this.

We went for a wander along the river and ended up at a small art gallery called the Mendall. It was really interesting to see local interpretations of landscape. A temporary exhibition of landscapes was directly referencing Rembrandt, although it was never spelt out anywhere explicitly.

But it struck me right away with the colour palette being utilised and then I saw the title of the exhibition - "Nightwatch". The exact same title as Rembrandt's famous 1642 painting that I saw in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam.

This was in the main entrance and is life size. The whole thing is actually made out of barb wire and steel. I thought it was pretty cool and an interesting medium to be using.



This next photo is probably one of the stranger things I've seen. This 'greenhouse' was in a room just off from the art gallery. It was humid, colourful and had lots of tropical plants growing. Then you could look out the window and see the cold snow, dark browns, greys and overcast of the day outside.



Next up we wandered around to a tourist information centre which had an interesting overview of the formation of the city and its development. Afterwards we wandered over to the mall for some lunch before heading out to Holly's work in a microbiology lab.

This was actually quite curious. First up they have a tube system where samples from anywhere in the hospital can be placed and they will find there way via hydraulics to the lab. You know when you see a doctor, they take some samples, send it to a lab and get a whole bunch of results back, well this is one of those labs.

It was great to see to get an understanding of how it works and integrates/fits into the health system, along with having some fantastic explanations of machines and process (I'm always curious about how 'stuff' works). Holly tried to gross me out with some 'samples', didn't quite succeed. The tape worms looked like nasty little critters however.

Afterwards wandered around the university that the lab/hospital is attached to. This was another curious building in a Canadian mixtured flavour of building styles. The entrance looks like an archway to a gothic church, while the roof looks a little bit like a castle or something.



Holly managed to find the Geology building which had this funky permanent exhibition of live animals, various rocks and dinosaur bones. It was just in the entrance to one of the departmental buildings. One of my favorite dinosaur's skeleton of all time was on display here.



How I wished we had these bones on display in Sydney. In the Australian Museum in Sydney you have skeletons from current animals on display which are always interesting to draw (interesting to compare skeletal structures between humans and other creatures - ALOT in common once you know what to look for).