Winnipeg Attractions

Ethnic diversity is one of the hallmarks of Winnipeg, Britons, Germans and Ukrainians heading the list of more than 40 ethnic groups. St Boniface, the French quarter, has the largest Franophone community west of Québec.

Winnipeg is also a city of trees, an estimated 2 million. Mostly planted before 1920 various species are represented including some 250,000 elms alone.

In 1738 Sieur de La Vérendrye chose the site for his Fort Rouge which later became the nerve center of a flourishing fur trade marked by increasingly bitter rivalry between the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies. In 1821-22 the Hudson's Bay Company established its own Red River trading post, christened Upper Fort Garry. The settlement which grew up outside the fort took its name from the Cree word "win-nipi" meaning "murky water".

It was still a small community of only 215 inhabitants when the province of Manitoba was created in 1870. But by the time of its incorporation in 1874 the figure had grown to 1,879, and ever since then Winnipeg has been the premier manufacturing and marketing center in western Canada. In 1882 it became an important stop on the first Canadian east-west railroad, soon developing into the financial, industrial and retailing capital for the entire West. At the same time, agriculture became a major factor in the province's economy. Following the first shipment of wheat from Manitoba in 1876 a multitude of grain trading businesses sprang up in the city and the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, now the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, was founded.

The greatest period of expansion however occurred between 1901 and 1914. The population increased to 100,000 as immigrants from Europe and America poured into the prairies, among them large numbers of Ukrainians, French-Canadians, Germans, Poles and Scandinavians, producing the city's characteristic mix of ethnic groups each of which preserves its language and traditions.

This was the time also when the city center began to take shape, the insatiable demand for housing, offices and business premises brought about by the influx of immigrants giving rise to a building boom.

Winnipeg was hard hit financially in 1914 by the opening of the Panama Canal which proved to offer a cheaper route for freight to British Columbia and Alberta. The set-back proved temporary, being overcome in time by the city's transformation into the major manufacturing center in the prairies with, amongst others, extensive clothing, food processing, furniture, farm machinery, machine tool and electronic components industries. It is this diversification which largely accounts for the city's enviable economic stability.

In the 1920s Winnipeg began to present a more outward-looking and cosmopolitan face, as well as acquiring a symphony orchestra, ballet company and professional theatre (it already had a university, the University of Manitoba founded in 1877). In the early 1970s the city enjoyed another building boom. Old and dilapidated downtown buildings were replaced and the center was revitalized with numerous high-rise blocks. Following a period of recession at the start of the 1980s the pace of new building quickened again in 1983.

Some of the highlights of Winnipeg are the Forks, with a market and entertainment area, the open green space of Assiniboine Park in the summer, and the Manitoba Museum, and soon, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.