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Pompano
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Unusual Monuments - Canada - USA - Baja
A colorful history, cultural depth. and local character can in part be witnessed by the number and significance of the monuments that are displayed by
any town or area. These are a few such 'interesting' monuments I've come across in traveling Canada, USA, and Baja.
FLIN FLON, ON THE BORDER OF MANITOBA/SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA
The town's name is taken from the lead character in a paperback novel whose name was Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin. 
Flin Flon shares with Tarzana, California, the distinction of being named after a character in a science fiction novel.
Flin Flon straddles the provincial border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with the majority of the city being located in Manitoba.
This is a very scenic area of The Canadian Shield,which refers to the exposed portion of the continental crust underlying North America. Canadian
Shield area...the bedrock here is 4 billion years old...some of the oldest on earth, full of streams and lakes, making it also one of North America's
greatest places to canoe and fish.
[Edited on 3-18-2015 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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durrelllrobert
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Another fictional Canadian in the RCMP
Bob Durrell
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Pompano
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Another Unusual Town Monument
Narcisse, Manitoba about 130 kilometers north of Winnipeg. Where you can see more snakes at a glance than any other place in the world. Just
after the snow melts in late April and early May, tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes slip out of their limestone dens and hang out on the
surface of the ground performing their mating rituals in great tangled heaps. The original groupies.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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AKgringo
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Taste like chicken?
If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space!
"Could do better if he tried!" Report card comments from most of my grade school teachers. Sadly, still true!
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Pompano
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Clam Monument, Baja Sur
Bahia de Concepcion, Baja Sur...southern end of the Bay. The graveyard of the clams. A Clam Monument to commerate the millions of clams that were
once on those beautiful sandy shores. Now it could represent piles upon piles of empty scallop shells.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
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OLD SHEP, FORT BENTON, MT.
This little historic town on the shores of the Missouri River in central Montana is a favorite stop of mine while traveling across the West. I once
thought of buying a home there, but my wanderlust got the best of me.
Another of my favorites is this monument that was erected there and is typical of the bond between man and his dog, and vice-versa.
(This is for Dennis in the loss of his Lulu, and others whose pet/companions have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. All of our furry friends will be
missed.)
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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BeemerDan
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[img] [/img]
Yes they do become a big part of our lives, Its been 6 yrs for me, and it still feels like yesterday.
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Howard
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Location: Loreto/Manhattan Beach/Kona
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Mood: I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.
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No way about Tarzan!
Are you trying to tell me that Tarzan was fictional? Say it ain't so Roger. What are you going to try and tell me next, the Easter bunny and Santa
Claus are fictional as well? I saw Tarzan on TV with Jane and that is real enough for me. Actually even at a young age Jane turned me on, she was so
hot, but that's another story.
Please let me have a little hope that the world is all OK and my childhood was not in vein.
[Edited on 2-13-2015 by Howard]
We don't stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing
George Bernard Shaw
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Pompano
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Eastern ND Chippewa Native Americans local monument...a rather modest structure in a impoverished community.
And on the western side in the Bakken Oil Field ($$$$), things are a mite different with the Three Affiliated Tribes. An oil boom on American Indian
land has brought jobs, millions of dollars and hope to long-impoverished tribal members who have struggled for more than a century on the million-acre
Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The joke is now on those long-ago government officials who thought they were re-locating these Plains Indians to
worthless land.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
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Omnious Past
Shadows of the Cold War...a Minuteman III missile.
Grand Forks AFB, ND, just a few miles south of the U.S. - Canadian border. Today, only the Bomber Wing there is still active.
A running joke was that if North Dakota declared itself a sovereign nation it would be the 4th or 5th most powerful nuclear country in the world!
The 321st Missile Wing, in its heyday, consisted of 150 LGM30-G Minuteman III missiles in underground silos, all discommissioned today. Politics
played the biggest part, next to military budgeting. But the price of freedom and security is not, and has never been, cheap.
As more 3rd world countries develop, buy, or steal nuclear technology, only the threat of instant and overwhelming retaliation will hold them at bay.
Old threats may re-emerge.
Perhaps this cartoon is prophetic.
[Edited on 2-17-2015 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
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Rainbow Bridge Natl. Monument
August 14, 1909: Rainbow Bridge, the world's largest natural stone bridge, was "discovered" by the Douglas-Cummings
expedition. Many Native American Tribes already knew of the bridge's existence and had passed stories down about its creation for centuries. On May
30, 1910, Rainbow Bridge was designated as a National Monument by President William H. Taft. At 278' wide and standing 290' above the streambed,
Rainbow Bridge remains a favorite Lake Powell destination today.
This photo of 'The Non-Thinker' next to the arch was taken in 1986 while on a water tour of Lake Powell.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
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Vikings in America...does our New World history begin with Columbus, or with ax-swinging sons of Odin?
According to recorded history, the Vikings were the first Europeans we can be reasonably sure to have discovered and settled America, around the year
1000. Vikings sailed from Denmark to Iceland then to Greenland and then finally into what is today , Newfoundland in Canada, about 500 years before
Columbus. Anthropologists have reconstructed camps where they settled and have carbon dated iron they made to confirm this.
(Other theories of early visitations: Phoenicians, who were from the eastern Mediterranean may possibly have beaten them by a couple of thousand
years, and word is the Chinese visited the American WEST coast a little before Columbus reached the other side (I don't think he actually ever set
foot on the mainland, come to think of it). Possibly Polynesians reached South America... and some believe the mysterious Olmecs were Africans.)
Here's a monument I pass by often in Minnesota...at Alexandria. Statue of early day Viking in America. Recall reading the history of Eric The Red?
On the other hand, if you're a football fan Up North..Go Vikings!
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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durrelllrobert
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Here's an interesting one on the back side of Mt.
Backside of Mt.Rushmore as seen from Wyoming
Bob Durrell
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elbeau
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Let's not forget Baja's Eagle Monument:
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Pompano
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Another unusaul monument in Baja...The Virgin of the Rocks...photo from 1975 BG (Before Graffiti).
And The Virgin of the Rocks nowadays...a sign of our times. PC?
Remember the artist who painted all those roadside rocks & boulders to look like FROGS?
[Edited on 2-21-2015 by Pompano]
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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AKgringo
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To many people, that IS graffiti! Personaly I like my rocks unpainted, I mean who gets to chose where and how many works of nature are to become
shrines?
Aside from subject matter, that isn't a lot different than what the taggers have done to some pretty spectacular landscapes in Baja.
If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much space!
"Could do better if he tried!" Report card comments from most of my grade school teachers. Sadly, still true!
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Pompano
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Kicking this can down the road....more unusual monuments.
Here a little more orderly form of graffiti. The Signpost Forest at Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada at Milepost 613 of the Alaska
Highway.
In 1942 a soldier was ordered to repair a damaged road sign on this part of the original Alaska Highway..then a tote road being built for WWII. The
homesick soldier ad-libbed the mileage to his home town, Danville, Illinois on that repaired sign. Several other people added directions to their
home towns, and the idea has been snowballing ever since. Like Baja's Virgin of the Rocks, the Signpost Forest now takes up a couple of acres, with
huge new panels being constantly added, snaking through the trees. We've certainly seen some very wild & strange signs. There are street signs,
there are "Welcome To..." signs, there are signatures on dinner plates, there are license plates from around the world - the variety is as broad as
people's imagination. The size of some of the signs is amazing - how on earth do people get a 6x10-foot sign from the German autobahn to Watson
Lake??
For our second trip by the place I painted a metal tray folk-art style showing our motorhome bouncing it's way over the moguls (frost heaves) on the
infamous Alaska Highway. That was in 1991 when there was just over 10,000 signs in the 'Forest' On a trip in 2008, there were over 65,000 and last
time we stopped in summer of 2012 the count was more than 72,000 and growing fast...so it's a long-term fad.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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BeemerDan
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Signpost 2009
[img] [/img]
Ah the signpost forest, I usually stop there on my rides north, and stay overnight at the Airforce lodge in Watson Lake.
The run up the Campbell hwy from Watson to Carmacks which is really a dirt road is fun.
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Pompano
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FOR ALL YOU HOBBITS OUT THERE.
GOING GREEN with a GRASS ROOF.
We are often charmed by this grass-roofed, down-sized cottage. Built as a monument to Icelandic settlers. It lies within the International Peace
Garden, (on the ND-Manitoba border) which commenerates the peace between the United States and Canada.
How many of you have used...
....a Green Roof Design for your Cabin?
Green roof design is ideally suited for the 'Hobbit' in you.
Are you eco-friendly - want to live in harmony with Mother Nature - create great roof salads?
Ahead of it's time?...No. A sod or turf roof is a traditional Scandinavian type of green roof covered with sod on top of several layers of birch
bark overlaying wooden roof boards. Dating back to before the Viking and Middle Ages, it was the most common type of roof on rural log houses and
cabins in Scandinavia until the late 19th century.
Now all you need to add is a goat to mow/chomp your roof. 
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Pompano
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"Willie Walleye"
Remember the ice-fishing movie, "Grumpy Old Men"? This is the featured fish they were all after.
When home Up North I drive by this fish statue almost every day...and it strengthens my fishing hopes.
The Walleye is a favorite catch for sportsmen angling in America's north-central lake regions. But the glassy-eyed, needle-toothed fish's popularity
only partially explains the pile-up of redundant "Walleye Capital of the World" claims made by tourism bureaus of little lake towns. Seems every pond
lays claim to being the most famous. Maybe a brain-damaging chemical accumulated in the fish makes walleye eaters blind to the obvious -- there
can be only one Walleye Capital of the World!
Baudette, Minnesota: The largest tribute to the fish is Willie Walleye, over 40-ft. long and weighing about two tons. Willie was
constructed in 1959. The town's festival, Willie the Walleye Day, cranks up the first week in June. Baudette lays claim to the title "Walleye Capital
of the World," though signs on approaches to town state, simply, "Home of Willie Walleye."
If bigness of statue is the defining quality of the "Walleye Capital of the World," then Baudette holds the title.
I'd like to take a shot at today's politics....When smashing monuments, save the pedestals-they always come in handy.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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