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Sign in with FacebookLatest Brandon hotel reviews
Pro
Small, pretty and nice countryside
Con
COLD , LOCAL POLITICS AND BORING
In a nutshell
good place to raise a family but if you are 25 and still live here it is time to move on
Staying Busy in Brandon, Manitoba
Dereka_k Says: Brandon is a city that thinks like a small town but there is not that much to do here if you’re not into hockey or agriculture. However visitors to the wheat city can keep themselves busy by taking in what the city has to offer. The Commonwealth Air Museum located at Brandon...
Canada's longest 'swinging' bridge
Bwana_Brown Says: The main reason I rented the car was so I could make the short 30-mile drive to the small town of Souris, specifically to see its famous 'Swinging Bridge'. Souris was born out of an 1872 decision by the Canadian government to grant 160-acres of land to anyone over the age of...
Bwana_Brown Says: When considering that the province of Manitoba has an area of 648,000 sq km (slightly smaller than Texas or about twice the size of Norway), the fact that Brandon and its population of 42,000 people is the second largest city in the province gives you some idea of how...
Commonwealth Air Training Base
Bwana_Brown Says: Located just a mile or so outside the city, on the perimeter of the Brandon airport, is a museum dedicated to preserving the history and artifacts of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan that was born as a result of the outbreak of World War II. Shortly after the start...
A short drive in the countryside
Bwana_Brown Says: This was it - my one afternoon off work to allow some exploring, so one of the other guys came with me as I hired a car and we took off to see what the area around Brandon had to offer. We were targeting the small town of Souris and its 'Swinging Bridge', so headed south on...
Bwana_Brown Says: You never know what will crop up in small towns but I was still surprised when, next to the Swinging Bridge and on a hill overlooking the river, we came upon this castle-like structure, presently known as Hillcrest Museum. It turns out that construction of Squire Hall (as it...
Managed to spot a bit of wildlife
Bwana_Brown Says: Turning around from our dead-end road at the weir, we had not gone far back along the narrow road through the forest before we suddenly spotted a White-Tailed Deer and her young fawn, its coat still speckled with white spots. They both noticed us too and seemed a bit nervous...
Bwana_Brown Says: The 700-km (435-mi) long Souris River rises just south of Regina, Saskatchewan and meanders southeast into North Dakota before looping north again into Manitoba, where it comes to an end just outside Brandon when it meets the larger Assiniboine River. The Assiniboine...
Brandon is not a great tourist destination
Redlats Says: If you are visiting Brandon, you must be going for an event or visiting friends, because just visiting Brandon isn't worth it.The land is flat
Redlats Says: If you are in Brandon on the first week of April in any year, go see the winter fair. It is a fair featuring rural life. You will get to see farm animals - cows, pigs, horses, chickens, etc. a ton of agricultural exhibits in a fair-type environment.We went once, and I...
69 Opinions
47 Opinions
Trails West Motor Inn: Tried something different
Bwana_Brown Says: On the day I had the rental car, one of the other guys joined me as we headed out around noon to do a bit of exploring and, while we were at it, decided that we should also try to find somewhere else to eat for once! It was not long before we spotted the interesting looking...
34th Street Bar & Grill: A very handy Oasis!!
Bwana_Brown Says: Located within the Victoria Inn, adjoining the front desk area, is the 34th Street Bar & Grill restaurant/bar. It also has direct access to another eating area beside the indoor swimming pool - so you have quite a few choices of a place in which to find a table. By the time...
grubbstew Says: HOUSTONS ROCKS FROM THURSDAY TO SATURDAY NIGHT. THURSDAY NIGHT IS LADIES NIGHT AND THE BEST NIGHT FOR WOMEN WATCHING, FRIDAY IS OFC NIGHT. IT IS AN OLDER CROWD BUT YOU WILL NOT FEEL OUT OF PLACE IF YOU ARE YOUNGER. FOR THE YOUNGER PEOPLE, iNFERNO IS JUST DOWN THE STREET THAT...
Redlats Says: You have to drive all the way to Portage la Prairie to find this McDonalds.If anyone from Brandon ever reads this, I'm in big trouble.
Helpfulness
During the afternoon of my one day off-work while in Brandon, I decided to book a rental car so I could have a brief look around Brandon and its immediate area. When I called Budget Car & Truck rentals, asking for the cheapest thing they had available they said I could rent a PT Cruiser for $40/day with the first 150-km free and $0.15/km after that. It sounded good to me, so I was soon picked up from the Victoria Inn by their shuttle service and shortly afterward I was underway.
The car had about 31,000-km on the clock but seemed to work quite nicely as I first explored around the city a bit before heading south and west to the small community of Souris. That gave me a chance to take in the countryside at a slower pace while also enjoying some interesting attractions in Souris before looping back to Brandon on a different road. At the end of the day, I only put 135-km on the clock, so the total cost was $45 including taxes plus another $17 to top up the fuel tank.
Updated Jul 21, 2008
Helpfulness
BRANDON IS AN EXTREMELY SAFE COMMUNITY WHERE MEN AND WOMEN COULD FEEL COMFORTABLE WALKING AROUND AT TWO IN THE MORNING. tHERE IS A MINORITY ELEMENT WHO LIKE TO STEAL CARS. I HAVE LIVED HERE FOR THIRTEEN YEARS AND IT HASN'T HAPPENED TO ME THOUGH. OTHER THAN THAT THE STREETS CLOSE AT SIX AND IS VERY UNLIKELY YOU WILL ENCOUNTER MANY PEOPLE ANYWAYS
Written Jan 9, 2003
Helpfulness
This is the reason I made the trip to Brandon, along with 30+ other employees of the company I work for! This large industrial plant had planned various power outages to different parts of the site over a 7-day period and we were there to tackle as many as we could of their many small substations each day to make sure that everything was still working as designed.
Because of their processes, safety was very strict - requiring all of us to have an emergency self-contained breathing apparatus attached to ourselves at all times and our various teams of 4-5 people were confined to the specific areas of the plant that they had been allocated for that particular day. A typical work day began with a 5 AM wake-up, left the motel for work at 5:30 AM, began the 'work' portion at 6 AM and finished between 8-16 hours later (10 PM was our latest quitting time). Repeat for the next 6 days! Breakfast was in a paper bag from the motel, a quick half-hour lunch of pizzas or something personal picked up from a local grocery store and no evening meal until returning to the motel.
Still, it was quite interesting to work with the guys on the equipment rated for various voltage levels from 115,000 to 4,160 to 600 volts as we tested transformers, breakers, fuses, cables and relays. Overall, it went very well and the guys were happy to rack up the overtime hours with no injuries or major safety violations! I did spend one day working in a room that had a 21% ammonia content in the air but that just seemed to clear one's head.
Updated Jul 24, 2008
Helpfulness
The Wheat Kings are always a power house in junior hockey. NHL players like Jordan Tootoo and Wayne Redden played their junior hockey in Brandon.
As well, the University of Brandon always seems to have great teams in mens and womens basketball.
Updated Oct 28, 2004
Redlats Says: I received an email objecting to my views of Brandon - ie that it is not really a place worth visiting unless you have friends/family to visit. I stick by that, but I do agree that if you like hiking, there is a park about a half an hour outside Brandon called Spirit Sands....
Willem_oa Says: Everywhere you go in Brandon, the Mckenzie Seeds building stares down at you like "Big Brother." Kind of unnerving.
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My first real taste of Manitoba
I had visited Manitoba only twice before, both times involving the capital city of Winnipeg. The first time was on a hitch-hiking trip from Canada's east coast in 1970 and the second was a 2-night...
Brandon is not prime tourist material, but it is a great place to raise a family. As our license plates say, "Friendly Manitoba". City of Brandon's webpage: www.city.brandon.mb.ca
i HAVE LIVED HERE FOR OVER TEN YEARS AND I HAVE GROWN TO LIKE IT , THE PLACE IS A LITTLE BORING BUT FOR A SMALL TOWN IT HAS A LOT OF ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND THE BEST COLLEGE BASKETBALL TEAM IN CANADA
If you get stuck in Brandon, Manitoba, there are a few things to see and do, but after that, you'll just be twiddling your thumbs.
Build your own Brandon page
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