Victoria Day in Manitoba

© 2010, Christian Cassidy. Updated 2026.

Happy Victoria Day !

This is a three-part 2026 update on all things Queen Victoria, 125 years after her death. To read more about the history of the Victoria Day holiday and her connections to Canada, visit here. For another lost Victoria monument, the Victoria Memorial, read here.

"Victoria Day" celebrates the birthday of Queen Victoria (also see), who was born on May 24, 1819. It takes place on the Monday that precedes May 25th each year and has been a holiday in Canada since 1845.

Despite the extent of the British Empire during her reign of 1837 to 1901, at one point taking up roughly 20 percent of the globe's land mass, we are the only Commonwealth country to celebrate Victoria's birthday with a national holiday.  

When Victoria signed the British North America Act in 1867, which took Canada from a colony to a country, she became our first head of state. That still didn't make her a Canadian, though, as there was no such thing as a Canadian citizen until 1947.

Victoria never visited Canada, she never left Europe despite her vast realm, but she had a number of family connections to it during her lifetime.

Family Connections to Canada

The Royal party at Charlottetown, 1860

Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent, lived in Canada and was the Commander of British North American troops from 1791-1798, and again from 1799-1800. 

Victoria's son, Albert Edward, made the first Royal visit to Canada in 1860 as Prince of Wales. He would go on to be  He became who would become King Edward VII upon her death.

Mother and daughter, early 1880s (National Portrait Gallery)

Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Victoria, married John Campbell the Marquess of Lorne and were Canada's Governor General and Chatelaine from 1878 to 1883.

Lorne took a particular interest in the western territories, and Louise is credited as being the first Royal to visit the area. As a result, several things in the West are named for her, from the District of Alberta, later the Province of Alberta, to Lake Louise, to Winnipeg's Louise Bridge and Princess Street.

In 1881, Lorne visited Winnipeg at the start and end of a weeks-long visit the West. On his way there was when Louise was supposed to dedicate the Louise Bridge, but she had to stay home in Ottawa to convalesce from injuries from a sleigh ride accident. He dedicated the bridge in her honour.

Upon his return in October 1881, he addressed the Manitoba Club with a memoir of his trip and revealed what would be a life-long fascination with the West. He said "For a Canadian official a knowledge of the Northwest is indispensable. To be ignorant of the North-west is to be ignorant of the greater portion of our country." (For the full text of his address).

The two would pass through Winnipeg the following year on a visit to British Columbia. 

One biographer said that Canada, and especially the West, stayed with Lorne. His sister later wrote that “His heart is always in Canada.”

The anticipation of Victoria Day

The Victoria Day holiday is looked upon today as the unofficial start of summer; a time to ready the garden for planting or open up the cottage for the warm weather to come. This has always been the case.

Railways often offered cut fare excursions to nearby communities or into cottage country. For those in the city, parks were filled with organised sporting events and picnics.

Lost Monuments

The Jubilee Fountain on the front lawn of Winnipeg's "gingerbread" city hall is long gone, but its the two major components, the Boy with the Boot statue and Victoria's bust, were reunited in the 1960s at the English Garden in Assiniboine Park.

The Victoria Memorial stood, or rather sat, outside front of both of Manitoba's legislature buildings from 1904 to 2021.

A Victoria Day monument of sorts, King George VI addressed the British Empire from government House on Kennedy Street on Victoria Day 1939.