I’ll eventually be writing a sequel to my recent release,
Torn in Toronto. It will be set in Winnipeg which has a strange and fascinating
history. It had its peak of commercial importance around 1920 but it has
continued to grow since then. Winnipeg is the perfect setting for this next
book in the series the completion of the first direct rail link to
eastern Canada in 1881 allowed for mass immigration to the city so there was a
boom in population growth and urban development. I love history and the
development of a “young” city like this is truly fascinating to me but I will
try not to drone on too much ;-) If you don’t love history as much as I do,
feel free to skip down to the “Conclusion.”
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| Royal Tour of Canada 1939 |
A
wee little bit of ancient history:
Winnipeg lies at the juncture where the Assiniboine
River and the Red River meet, a historic focal point on canoe river
routes travelled by Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years. First Nations people would
use the area for camps, hunting, fishing, trading, and further north,
agriculture. The rivers provided transportation far and wide and linked many for
trade and knowledge sharing. Lake Winnipeg was considered to be an inland sea,
with important river links to the mountains out west, the Great Lakes to the
east, and the Arctic Ocean in the north. The Red River linked ancient northern
and southern peoples along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Fur trade
The Hudson's Bay Company and British colonialists
laid claim to the entire area (called Rupert's Land at the time) in the
late 17th century. This entire Hudson Bay drainage basin included the area now
known as Winnipeg. Fur traders working with and trading with the Hudson's Bay
Company would have traveled and lived along the major rivers, including the Red
River. To protect their interests, various forts were built throughout the
years.
Early settlement
In 1811, the Scottish aristocrat and
humanitarian Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, received from the Hudson's
Bay Company a grant of 116,000 square miles in the basins of the Red and
Assiniboine Rivers, which he named Assiniboia. His goal was to establish the
first permanent agricultural settlement along the Red River near the junction
of the two rivers, to be inhabited by displaced Scottish Highland families and
retired Rupert's Land employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Red River
Settlement was founded in 1812 and the construction of Fort Douglas was
overseen by Miles Macdonell, Lord Selkirk's first Governor of Assiniboia, in
1813–14. This would be the first European agricultural colony on the northern
great plains.
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| Selkirk Settlement 1822 |
All this time, the Hudson’s Bay Company had a
monopoly on commercial affairs in the West but beginning in 1862, an
unincorporated village began to form a short distance north of Fort Garry
(the Company’s main location). This village became home to a cluster of
business enterprises of the longtime landowners of this part of the settlement,
as well as a small but growing number of entrepreneurs and small landholders
who had recently arriving from the United States and Ontario. While
open commercial trade that was independent of the Hudson's Bay Company had been
occurring in the Red River settlement since 1849, this concentration of
businesses would form the basis of a new urban centre. As the city grew, this
area would remain its commercial heart well into the 20th century.
Early
post-Confederation Winnipeg (1870–1913)
In 1869, the Hudson's Bay Company formally
surrendered its charter rights over Rupert's Land, a territory that
includes Winnipeg, back to the Crown. In 1870, the British ceded the territory
to the Canadian government, under s. 146 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
Some didn’t love how this was handled and the resulting rebellion and
negotiations led to the passage of the Manitoba Act, and the
admittance of Manitoba as a province into Canadian Confederation on
15 July 1870. Shortly before the passage of the Manitoba Act, the Wolseley
expedition was dispatched from Toronto to Fort Garry in May
1870. Led by General Garnet Wolseley, and manned by British Army and Canadian
militia units, the expedition was sent to quell the rebellion, and counter
American settlers encroaching the Canada–United States border.
Railways and economic growth
The first locomotive in Winnipeg, the Countess
of Dufferin, arrived in Winnipeg via steamboat in 1877, and railway
connection to St. Paul began the following year, via the Pembina
Branch. The Pembina Branch ran on the east side of the Red River and
terminated in St. Boniface. From there, passengers and goods were
transported across the river to Winnipeg by ferry. The Canadian Pacific
Railway completed the first direct rail link from eastern Canada in 1881,
when the railway crossed the newly-constructed bridge across the Red River
at Point Douglas, the Louise Bridge. The arrival of the Canadian Pacific
Railway opened the door to mass immigration and settlement of Winnipeg and
the Canadian Prairies.
With the arrival of the railways, Winnipeg
experienced a period of significant population growth, beginning in 1881 and
lasting well until the 1910s. The city's population grew from 7,900 in 1881 to
more than 179,000 in 1921. The only large city on the Canadian prairies in
1891, and a centre of railway transportation between eastern and western
Canada, Winnipeg became the leading commercial centre of the prairie
territories and provinces. In succeeding decades as other prairie centres such
as Calgary, Edmonton, and Regina become regional centres of trade, Winnipeg's
importance as the chief economic centre of Western Canada was reduced, though
it retained a strong regional importance, particularly as a Western Canadian
centre of finance and the grain trade.
Owing to its place as a transportation hub between
eastern and western Canada, Winnipeg became a major wholesaling centre in the
late 19th century, and many substantial wholesaling warehouses and light
manufacturing buildings were constructed on the northern end of the central
business district, to the east and west of Main Street.
The Manitoba Legislative Building reflects
the optimism of the boom years. Built mainly of Tyndall Stone and
opened in 1920, its dome supports a bronze statue finished in gold leaf titled,
"Eternal Youth and the Spirit of Enterprise" (commonly known as the
"Golden Boy"). The Manitoba Legislature was built in
the neoclassical style that is common to many other North American
state and provincial legislative buildings of the 19th century and early 20th
century. The Legislature was built to accommodate representatives for three
million people, which was the expected population of Manitoba at the time.
Urban structure
With a rapidly growing population, enlarged urban
area, and growing economic importance, a neighbourhood class structure began to
form in the 1880s. This structure's most notable character was a general divide
based on class and ethnicity between the north and south parts of the city.
This began with a real estate boom in 1881 and early 1882, which resulted in
the expansion of commercial uses in the centre of the city near Main Street,
and significant outward expansion of residential districts.
The North End became home to many of the
growing city's working classes and recent immigrants,
while many of Winnipeg's
wealthy and Canadian-born and British-born citizens settled in the south end of
the city. This north–south division would generally continue well into the 20th
century, as the working class North End and the wealthier south end expanded
further out from Winnipeg's downtown core.
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| 1880 Winnipeg |
Winnipeg took on its distinctive multicultural character
during this period. Many new Canadians that settled in Winnipeg lived in the
city's North End. For much of the 20th century, the
North End was home to many religious, cultural, and economic institutions of
the immigrant communities arriving from Eastern Europe.
Conclusion:
It’s fascinating how explorers turned to settlers
and then technology led to population growth. It’s sad that immigration, so
needed for such a young country, also led to divisions. This seems to be a tale
as old as time. But I sure wish I could have seen the late nineteenth century
Winnipeg with my own eyes instead of just with the eyes of my imagination. But
my characters sure are going to have a lot of fun exploring.
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| Torn in Toronto |
Could love be the
greatest adventure of all?
Caitlyn Doherty wanted more adventure than her proper life
in upper class Toronto allowed. It took a struggle against her parents’
restrictive views for her to be able to accept a position as telephone
operator. She wanted to experience more than just finding a rich husband to
marry.
Connor Dalton was too busy overcoming his childhood of poverty
by becoming a fabulously wealthy businessman to even consider starting a
family. But he feels so drawn to his telephone operator, it puts him in a very
awkward position.
When Caitlyn’s mother pushes her toward Connor’s business
rival, Connor and Caitlyn must both decide what they value most.
If you like sweet, swoony love stories set in the
adventurous, late 19th century, then you’ll enjoy every minute of
reading Torn in Toronto.
Thanks for an intriguing post about Canada. I've only been there once and that was barely into the country but I saw the Canadian Red River. Before that, the Red River with which I was familiar was the one that starts in Colorado and flows south and then along the Texas border.
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