It was sleepy days in the bread basket of Manitoba. Despite the slow moving pace of small towns, we managed to get out on walking and driving tours of rural Manitoba.

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Region Visit: Killarney, Manitoba, Canada

Killarney is an unincorporated community in southwestern Manitoba, Canada, at the corner of Manitoba Provincial Trunk Highways 3 & 18. The community was formerly an incorporated town before amalgamating with the surrounding Rural Municipality of Turtle Mountain to form the Municipality of Killarney-Turtle Mountain. Killarney is known for the lake situated within the community. Killarney is located in a rural area, dependent primarily on agriculture and agribusiness.

It is approximately 20 km (12 mi) from the Canada-US border, 100 km (62 mi) south of Brandon and 250 km (160 mi) southwest of the provincial capital, Winnipeg. The population of the town is 2,429.

Thanks to agribusiness, MrsWT73’s mom’s partner had relocated to this small town. 

Killarney is the perfect place to be “off the grid”. Indeed, like many small farming towns across North America, there isn’t much happening here. The pace of life is much slower with less of the rush in the pace of business that happens in our usual every day lives of being “on” 15 hours of day.

Walking Through Killarney: 

We went for a 3.6 mile walk around town today. We started off by leaving the house and heading down to Killarney Lake. Being that it was nearing fall, the colors of the leaves were starting to turn into greens, browns and oranges of autumn.

Killarney is known for it’s large lake called “Killarney Lake” situated in the center of town. There are many homes that intersect with the lake making it a key feature of town. Along with being a great feature, it had many green parks and spacious areas full of lush trees and grenery.

The “Irish”-ness of the community is often used as a tourist attraction with things such as green fire engines, Erin and Kerry Parks, Little Irish Downs, and many other good Irish-themed attractions used to play up this theme. Killarney, Manitoba does not have any actual connection with the town of Killarney, Ireland. Most of the people who originally settled the region were from the Scottish Highlands, the English or were Mennonites or Hutterites of Central European extraction.

Despite having no actual connection between Killarney Ireland, the town had it’s own Blarney Stone next to a sign by the lake. There was no inverted kissing at this location, unlike at my last trip to Ireland.

It was pretty windy on the lake, with white caps cresting the waters. 

From the lake, we wandered into town. The town is a mostly forgotten place with dated buildings and reminiscent of an era past. 

The walk tuckered me out. We did manage 3.6 miles on foot over several hours which was a great outing for the day.

Checking out Boissevain

The next day, with nothing more do to, we took a drive down to Boissevain.

Boissevain is the next nearest down to the south west of Killarney. It was a railway down for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

It also happens to be home to the largest turtle.  “Tommy the Turtle” is a 28-foot-tall, 10,000-lb western painted turtle that serves as an icon for both the Turtle Derby and the community as a whole.

As with small towns, there isn’t much too them. The odd sight here and there made for some interesting viewing from the car.

Overall:

The breadbasket in the Killarney and Boissevain region of Manitoba was somewhere that I would never have imagined that I would ever have visited. Despite it’s remote nature next to the Canada / United States Border, it maintained a small town charm to it with a rural feel that can be felt everywhere.

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