Gimli is a small Lake Winnipeg town about an hour north of Winnipeg, but it has a stronger identity than many places ten times its size. Icelandic settlers arrived here in the 1870s and called the shore "New Iceland"; the connection is still visible in the Viking statue, the museum, and the big Icelandic Festival held every August long weekend.
The best way to meet Gimli is slowly. Walk the harbour, follow the painted seawall, stop at the beach, then look across the inland sea of Lake Winnipeg. The lake is shallow, moody, and enormous, and the working harbour keeps the town from feeling like a simple cottage strip.
Gimli is also home to one of Canada's stranger aviation stories: the "Gimli Glider", an Air Canada Boeing 767 that ran out of fuel in 1983 and landed safely on the former air base west of town. Add that to the Icelandic heritage, fish dinners, summer film screenings on the beach, and easy walking scale, and Gimli is worth a day if you are already in southern Manitoba.