Winnipeg's Urban Past

I had just a half day this weekend to pack in all of my Doors Open fun ! I decided to hit a couple of museums that I have seen on-line but never actually been to.

First was the Winnipeg Police Museum at 130 Allard Avenue in St. James.

It's a great collection ranging from a 1925 REO Speedwagon to vintage police weapons and technology. You can also read more about local officers who died in the line of duty. If you prefer the criminal element, they have that too. Newspaper articles, mugshots and other memorabilia relating to some of the city's most notorious criminals.

The museum, located in the Winnipeg Police Training Academy, is normally open weekdays only so this is a great chance to catch it !

I also finally visited the Fire Fighters Museum of Winnipeg at 56 Maple Street, across from the old CPR Station on Higgins. Housed in the ca.1906 former Fire Hall No. 3, it is one of Canada's largest fire fighting museums with two floors of Winnipeg's past.

The first floor garage section has a number of Winnipeg fire trucks dating back to 1882 ! At the rear, the former stables, is where smaller apparatus is displayed.

Upstairs, a number of the old bunk rooms from when firefighters lived at the station 24-7 have been restored. There is also a central hall commemorating the men who served in the department's early days.

Throughout the building there are interesting artifacts and hundreds of pictures of past fires.

Even if you just love old buildings, this is worth a visit. For a utilitarian building that served until about 1990 it has seen very little renovation over the years. Tin ceilings, great windows and beautiful wood detail can be found throughout.

If you can't make it during Doors Open the museum is usually open Sundays hosted by a gentleman who worked for nearly a decade at old Fire Hall No. 3.

It was a great look back at Winnipeg's past but also made me a little sad.

Both museums said that what they had on display was just a fraction of the artifacts they had in storage. I blogged after my trip to London's Transport Museum about the piss-poor job we do of maintaining or showing our urban history. Whether it be transportation, fire, police, or the city's main archives, most of it will forever remain in boxes stored in substandard buildings that are just a discarded cigarette or water main break away from being destroyed.

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. 

Big 4 and Buhler - separated at birth ?!

Back in March when the exterior walls began to go up on the new U of W Buhler Centre at Colony and Portage my first thought was: Big 4 !

For those of you too young to remember, Big 4 Sales was the discount department store that took over Ashdown's, (most recently the Crocus Building), from 1958 to 1992.

Big 4 made special effort to cater to new immigrants. When they first arrived in Winnipeg my parents were sent off to Big 4 to get their first load of winter clothes and we were pretty much regulars for that first decade for linens, fabric, back to school shopping and such. Big 4 was where we could go 'as is' versus Eaton's when we had to dress up !

Above source: Heritage Winnipeg

To my young mind it was a fascinating place full of different languages and colours of people. I also remember the nice old owners who would walk around the store and sometimes give out little candies. I remember once that one of them let me pick out a little plastic toy from a tub at the counter. He told me he wanted me to have it because he was Jewish and there was a big holiday coming up the following night. I had to ask my Mom what was 'Jewish' was on the car ride home.

When I first moved out I went to Big 4 to stock up on my linens and towels but, of course, it wasn't the same place as when I was a child.

Image source: Shelter Canadian Properties

Big 4 Sales closed in 1992. As for the building, it did a brief stint as a chain discount store before finally closing down and sitting dormant for a few years. Eventually the stucco facade with the slit windows was removed and it was restored to something closer to it's original Ashdown's state.

When I saw the Buhler design, though, I wondered if the architect, consciously or subconsciously, had their own childhood memories of Big 4 ?!

Winnipeg's Old Signs

I've always loved Winnipeg's old signs. For decades I vowed to photograph as many of them as I could before time, demolition crews and graffiti vandals got to them.

Three summers ago I signed on for a walking tour of the Exchange, borrowed a beater camera and started documenting them. Some are truly pieces of art.

My most recent find (above) is a complete version of the Wohl's Sheet Metal sign on Selkirk Avenue. For years there was a vinyl banner covering most of it but last weekend I noticed the banner was finally gone !

On May 19th at Cinematheque Kevin Nikkel's 2009 film Our Neon City will be shown. The film takes five classic Winnipeg neon signs from the past and looks at the businesses behind them !

Included in the price of admission are a couple of great local shorts including The McIntyre Block, the building that just had to come down to make way for a rush of development at Portage and Main and is now on its fourth decade as an empty lot !

Related:
My Old Signs Album
The Murals of Winnipeg

Oh, Pooh. We hardly knew you !

UPDATED: July 2011

It's been 85 years since A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh was first published in London. I thought I would do a major update of a post from last year. Note that August 24, 2014 will mark the centenary of the day that Colebourn and Winnie met ! Pooh party, anyone ?!

"Capt. Harry Colebourn with his cub Winnie at Salisbury Plains"
Source: Archives of Manitoba, Harry D.Colebourn 9, N10467
(online at manitobia.ca)

Winnipeg has had some interesting and odd namesakes but the greatest will always be Harry Colebourn's black bear Winnie. Most know the Pooh story by now but here's a quick refresher.....
After graduating as a veterinarian in Ontario, Dr. Colebourn took a job at the animal health division of the Dominion Agriculture Department in Winnipeg in 1911. Colebourn was also an officer with what would become Fort Garry Horse Militia and when war broke, he signed up to go overseas.

Colebourn and Winnie (Fort Garry Horse website)

En route the train stopped in White River, Ontario where he purchased a black bear cub from a hunter who had killed its mother. He named her, (yes it was a she), Winnie, short for his home town of Winnipeg, and stashed her aboard the train. Winnie made it to England and stayed with the unit, sleeping under Colebourne's bed. When it became clear that they would soon be off to battle, a new home was needed for the cub. Colebourn chose the London Zoo.

Manitoba Free Press. August 6, 1920

 When Colebourn was to return to Canada, he realized that the much larger Winnie was now settled and had become a favourite of amny war-weary Londoners, including a young Christopher Robin.

Colebourn returned to Winnipeg, without the bear, and opened a veterinary hospital on McMillan Avenue.

Eaton's ad for "Winnie the Pooh"
Winnipeg Free Press, November 1926.

Starting in 1926, after Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne was first published, Winnipeggers bought Pooh books and blankets, listened to Winnie the Pooh radio shows on CKY, read news stories of Christopher Robin growing up and A. A. Milne's later writings but few had any idea of the local connection.

Certificate noting death (London Zoo Website)

Winnie the Bear died on May 12, 1934 at the age of 20.

Dr. Harry Colebourn continued to practice out of his home / clinic on Corydon Avenue until his death on September 24, 1947. He is buried in Winnipeg's Brookside Cemetery.

Winnipeg Free Press, May 2, 1987

The Winnipeg - Pooh connection was forgotten until a May 2, 1987 Free Press story featured Fred Colebourn's presentation of documents showing that "Winnipeg has had a famous namesake for more than 70 years but few knew about it." Fred knew the story from his father but until that time had no documentation. The Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry museum also heard stories but they, too were unable to confirm them so shied away from making a connection.

What brought the story to light ?
In 1981 the London Zoo erected a bronze statue of Winnie the Pooh Bear. Their initial research into Winnie's background mentioned a 'PPCLI soldier' donating the cub and that notation was put on the accompanying bronze plaque. That did not clear matters up, though, as Colebourn was with the Fort Garry Horse Militia and seconded to the 2nd Canadian Rifles regiment, not PPLCLI.
When the London Zoological Society uncovered further documents they tracked down Fred Colebourn and sent him copies.

Fred Colebourn spent his life in Winnipeg. During World War II he was a member of the RCAF and after a brief stint working with the YMCA became a civil servant. He died May 30, 1998 at St. Boniface Hospital.

In the 1960s Disney bought the rights to Winnie the Pooh and in 1966 the first animated short appeared of the Disney version of the bear. According to Disney, Pooh is published in 40 languages and in just the past FIVE years 85 million Winnie the Pooh books were sold.

If you want a copy of a 1926 first edition of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne, illustrated by E. Shepard, here's one for a cool $6k !

Related:

Statue at Assiniboine Park Zoo (source, info)

The Fort Garry Horse website has a detailed history and photo gallery of Colebourn and Winnie. Their museum and archives is at the McGregor Armouries at 551 Machray Ave.
Capt. Harry Colebourn Canadian Great War Project
Winnie the Pooh makes his literary debut CBC Archives
The bear who inspired Winnie the Pooh London Zoo
A literary history of Pooh Pooh Corner
A Bear Named Winnie Movie

You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes
(Pooh's Little Instruction Book)

The Walker as you'll never see It

While doing research for a post about the Walker Theatre for my Downtown Places blog I came across this neat drawing of the way the finished product was supposed to look - with the hotel that was to be built around it ! I placed an image of the current stone facade underneath where it would have fit into the complex.

I always wondered why the theatre had such an odd looking facade !

I couldn't find specific information as to why the hotel phase was never built but the Walkers likely kept an eye on the Marlborough Hotel just a block away which had quite a terrible start getting off the ground.

Image source: Winnipeg Morning Telegram May 31, 1906