Manitoba Legislative Building (inside)

Back in the days of the railway, Winnipeg was situated right in the middle of the country and had high hopes for becoming a transportation hub and all around huge city like Chicago became. Time didn't play out the way they'd hoped, but a very elaborate legislative interior was part of the payoff for thinking big. Tours of the interior are free to anyone passing by and if you've never done it, its certainly worth a look. The main entry plaza (click panorama below to enlarge) is pretty spectacular and those giant bronze bison were brought in without scuffing the marble floors by using giant pieces of river ice to slide them through.
The assembly chamber itself is a goodly size and filled with statues of philosophers and paintings of saints with seats on both sides for the ruling party and the opposition. There was no session going on the day I passed through but if the politicians are meeting there is a gallery above here where the public can watch.
And this is the interior of the giant dome at the top of the building looking up from the middle. There's a hole in the 2nd floor that lets light all the way down to the ground floor where there's another neat room below.

Manitoba Legislative Building (outside)

Canada lacks castles in general and Manitoba falls particularly short to that challenge, but it does have a very nice legislative building near the downtown core. As far as I can tell, most of the parliament buildings were built to the same general design but I guess if it ain't broke you don't fix it. The Manitoba legislative is made from Tyndall stone which is a sedimentary stone quite often filled with fossils, so the exterior of the building is full of neat worms and shells if you look closely. (click on the panorama below to enlarge)
On top of the central dome is the golden boy; holding a sheaf of wheat in one hand and a torch in the other, but apparently forgetting to wear pants, he shows how Canadians are always charging forward to greatness without perhaps thinking things through properly.
And since it was designed and built by The Masons there are all sorts of weird things like sphinxes on the building. Traditional Canadian sphinxes. A part of the heritage of the European settlers, indigenous natives and the metis all rolled into one: sphinxes. Okay, I really don't get them either...