Winnipeg, Manitoba, part 2

The Trans Canada Highway (Hwy 1) eventually becomes Portage Avenue in Winnipeg. Portage Avenue is also part of the Yellowhead, which starts in western British Columbia, runs right by our house, then across Saskatchewan, and eventually ends in downtown Winnipeg, precisely at Portgage and Main. It is perhaps analogous to Gateway Boulevard in Edmonton -- the busy, wide, commercial, vehicle-oriented thoroughfare leading into the urban core, the part of the city that gradually greets you with billboards, traffic lights, and signage after hours of driving along flat rural landscapes, leading you towards the "glorious" skyline of skyscrapers and city lights. The stretch of Portage Avenue where these three sketches were done was undergoing some heavy remediation, and although billboards advertising some of the more ubiquitous national retailers abound, the commercial establishments are still all quite local.