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Saturday 19 October 2024

Four generations of Paul Kane

© 2024, Christian Cassidy

If you enjoy piecing together stories from Winnipeg's history, cemeteries are a great starting place.

I was walking past St. John's Cemetery in the North End a few days ago and saw this intriguing sight through the fence. Three generations of Paul Kane who died between 1922 and 1958 with similar headstones referencing an earlier Paul Kane.

Finding out who these Paul Kanes were revealed the interesting story of one of Canada's most famous 19th-century artists and how the large family collection of his works depicting Canada's West ended up in the hands of a Texas millionaire.

Here's a look back at four generations of Paul Kane.


Paul Kane I - The artist (1810 - 1871)

Undated portrait of Kane by F. A. Verner (Royal Ontario Museum)

The "original" Paul Kane came to Canada from County Cork, Ireland in 1819 with his family at the age of nine. He excelled at art and in 1845 came to the West to document the landscape and the daily lives of its Indigenous peoples.

Kane would make sketches on his travels and then return to Toronto to make some of them into oil paintings that he would exhibit and sell to finance his next trip. It is believed he created around 700 sketches and 100 oils in his lifetime.

Colonial life was a popular literary genre in Victorian England and Kane eventually published a diary of his travels with numerous sketches in The Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America from Canada to Vancouver's Island and Oregon through the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory and Back Again in London in 1859.

The book was republished in French in 1861 and in Danish two years later. The Radisson Society of Canada republished the book in English with a foreword by historian Lawrence J. Burpee in 1925.

Kane retired to his Toronto home with his wife Harriet in the 1860s and soon went blind. He died on February 20, 1871 at the age of 61. 

Mount Kane in the Rocky Mountains, and Kane Avenue in Winnipeg are named for him.


Paul Kane II - The son (1854 - 1922)


Winnipeg Free Press, Feb 1902 (top) and June 1910

Paul Kane II was born in Toronto in 1854, one of four children of Paul and Harriet Kane. He came to Rathwell, Manitoba in 1878 where he bought a farm and soon became a big player in the life of the small agricultural community.

Kane operated a corner store, built the community's first grain elevator in 1889, and opened a drug store in 1900. He eventually sold these ventures to get into the lumber business. In public life, Kane was secretary of the district's school division from 1889 to 1919, a justice of the peace, and was even said to have pulled teeth when called upon.

As for family, Kane married Abigail Uniacke soon after arriving in Manitoba and they had five children: Irene, Paul. William, Douglas, and Mary.

When Kane's mother died in Toronto in 1891, he inherited a collection of about 250 of his father's sketches as well as some correspondence and other memorabilia from his travels.

In the journal article Paul Kane Goes South: The Sale of the Family’s Collection of Field Sketches by I. S. MacLaren, Kane's daughter Irene said "I feel my father (Paul Kane II) was too young when his father died to have built up much appreciation of his father's talent." and that it was her mother took more of an interest in what they had received.


Fort Garry and St. Boniface, 1850s by Paul Kane (National Gallery of Canada)

There was a resurgence of in interest in Paul Kane when in April 1904 the Women's Canadian Historical Association hosted an exhibit of his oil paintings at a private gallery in Toronto. National wire stories about the exhibit, Kane's travels, and his art were picked up by several major newspapers across the country.

Some sources say that the collection included 100 oils which were purchased from the artist in the 1850s by Toronto M.P. Hon. Gorge W. Allan, likely making him the main patron of Kane's travels. The collection was sold on to Sir Edmund B. Osler in 1903 and a decade later he donated most of the works to the Royal Ontario Museum and about a dozen of them to the National Gallery of Canada.

January 5, 1907, Winnipeg Free Press

On Saturday, January 5, 1907, the Winnipeg Free Press ran a two-page feature about Paul Kane the artist that included several reproductions of sketches provided to the newspaper by Paul Kane II.

The text was a recap of Kane's travels from The Wanderings of an Artist... and was presented as a nostalgic look back at the Canadian West to a new, urban generation of Winnipeggers.

The Free Press story was carried by the Edmonton Bulletin and likely other Western newspapers.

March 18, 1922, Winnipeg Free Press

Paul Kane II was in failing health and sold off his lumber business around 1920 so that he and Abigail could retire to 893 Corydon Avenue in Winnipeg.

In March 1922, the Board of Trade hosted an expansive exhibit of Kane's sketches and other memorabilia in its exposition building on Main Street. The items were provided by Paul Kane II and it was said to be the first most of the works had ever been displayed in public.

A Free Press art critic wrote: "The two hundred or more pictures made on the spot by Paul Kane will be a revelation to those who visit this exhibition as presenting one of the only two original pictorial records of the early days of this country."  (The other was well-known American artist George Catlin, who in 1830 began travelling the American Midwest, sometimes venturing into Western Canada, to draw and paint the scenery and Indigenous peoples of the region.)

A follow-up Free Press editorial column stressed that the Kane collection should be bought by the provincial library or the Winnipeg Foundation so that it could be part of the province's public record. This did not happen and Paul Kane II died three months after the exhibit closed.

This 1922 exhibition again put Kane and his work into the spotlight and every few years the Free Press or other papers across the country would write about him and publish images of his work. This renewed interest prompted the Radisson Society of Canada to republish Kane's 1859 book The Wanderings of an Artist in 1925.


Paul Kane III - The grandson (1889 - 1958)

When Paul Kane II died, the art collection was left to his wife and five children, including Paul Kane.

A lawyer by trade, Kane III was the long-time secretary of the Manitoba Electrical Association. He lived with his wife Evelyn and their two children, Harriet and Paul, in the 938 Corydon Avenue family home as his mother moved in with one of his sisters until she died in 1940.

In MacLaren's Paul Kane Goes South..., Kane III is described as a "prickly pear".  His sister Irene said of the collection that "... he (Paul)  just took over and we had no say".

MacLaren details how the federal government, first the National Archives then the National Gallery, reached out to Kane on several occasions after his father's death to inquire about obtaining some or all of the collection. In one communication, Kane said that he had already been offered $12,000 for the collection but was coy about allowing officials from either institution to examine, catalogue, and appraise the collection for themselves.  By the mid-1920s the communications ended.


September 24, 1926, Winnipeg Tribune

Kane then took on the Radisson Society for their 1925 republication of Wanderings of an Artist....

A column in the September 24, 1926 edition of the Winnipeg Tribune reported that Kane III released a long statement slamming J. W. Garvin who provided notes, and historian Lawrence J. Burpee who provided a new forward for the book.

The column states that Kane "... challenges messrs. Garvin and Burpee to battle because of what he calls misinformation to be found in this new edition". He was particularly harsh towards Burpee claiming that he "made a number of mistakes and has been careless and and contradictory in dealing with the life and work of the artist."


November 10, 1957,  Paris (Texas) News

Another slow round of communications resumed with the National Archives in the late 1920s. Kane informed the archives officials that he had an offer from the U.S. for $50,000 for the collection but they were still willing to assess the value for themselves. Negotiations to see the collection came to an end around 1935 after a letter was sent to the institution by another member of the Kane family stating that Paul did not have sole authority to dispose of the collection. Also,

In 1957, an ageing Paul Kane III finally sold his grandfather's collection to Texas millionaire Lutcher Stark and they are still part of the Stark Museum of Art collection. News stories from the time estimated the sale price to be $100,000.

MacLaren concluded in Paul Kane Goes South... that, "Though the sale netted Kane some money, it all but killed him", noting that even his daughter told her that "the saga of selling the collection ruined his personality and ended his life."

Paul Kane III died less than a year after selling the collection at his Corydon Avenue home on August 25, 1958.


Paul Kane IV - The great-grandson (1928-1954)

Paul Kane IV was a 25-year-old second year arts student at St. John's College when he was struck by a train on Sunday, August 15, 1924 along Waverley Street.

At around 9:30 p.m., the crew of a passenger train spotted Kane walking on the track with his back towards the train. The engineer blew the whistle several times but "the man paid no attention". His body was thrown 320 feet from the track. An ambulance was called but he was pronounced dead on arrival at General Hospital.

A later inquest exonerated the train's crew and ruled the death an accident.


More about Paul Kane the artist:

Articles and books:
- The Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America from Canada to Vancouver's Island and Oregon through the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory and Back Again by Paul Kane (1958)

- Paul Kane's Frontier, J. Russell Harper (1971)
- Paul Kane Goes South: The Sale of the Family’s Collection of Field Sketches by I. S. MacLaren (1997)

Websites:
-
Paul Kane Life and Work Art Canada Institute
- Paul Kane collection National Gallery of Canada
- Paul Kane Collection Royal Ontario Museum
- Paul Kane Canadian Encyclopedia
- Paul Kane Albert H. Robson

Sunday 6 October 2024

From Vimy Ridge to Winnipeg's Vimy Ridge Memorial Park

 © 2024, Christian Cassidy

Did you know that the 44th Battalion monument in Vimy Ridge Memorial Park on Portage Avenue once stood on Vimy Ridge? It was removed in 1924 to make way for the current national monument and returned to Winnipeg. Two years later, it was erected in what was then called St. James Park. The monument was refurbished and the park's name changed in 1967.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge took place between April 9 - 12, 1917. Over 15,000 Canadian soldiers, including the 44th Battalion, successfully captured the five-kilometre-long ridge at a terrible cost of 3,598 soldiers killed and another 7,000 wounded.  They were the bloodiest days in Canadian history.

Here's the story of the 44th Battalion and the history of its monument.


44th At Camp Sewell, Royal Winnipeg Rifles Museum & Archives via MHS

The 44th Canadian Infantry Battalion was established in Winnipeg on November 7, 1914, with headquarters in the newly opened Minto Armouries on St. Matthews Avenue. After seven months of recruitment and basic training, it was off to Camp Sewell, (later named Camp Hughes near Carberry), for five months of more intensive training.

The 1,200 or so men of the 44th Battalion left for Britain in October 1915 and were dispatched to France on August 12, 1916. It fought in some of the most famous and bloodiest in France, including The SommePasschendaele, Hill 70, Vimy Ridge, Arras, Canal du Nord, and Amiens.


Royal Winnipeg Rifles Regimental Museum

The 44th Battalion was still located in the Vimy Ridge area in the fall of 1917 and began erecting this monument atop "The Pimple", a strategic hill on the ridge.

The body of the monument was made from cement and other materials captured from the Germans. The names of the 328 members of the battalion who lost their lives at Vimy Ridge, the Triangle, and La Coulotte were carved into its side panels

When the 44th Battalion returned to Canada, the monument stayed behind to honour its fallen.


June 9, 1919, Winnipeg Tribune

When the war ended the battalion hung around England for months with tens of thousands of other soldiers awaiting passage back to Canada. Finally, in May 1919 they boarded the Empress of Britain in Liverpool and landed at Saint John, New Brunswick on June 2, 1919 where the troops were dismissed.

The return of the battalion to Winnipeg was anticlimactic. By the time its train reached the CPR depot on Higgins Avenue on the morning of Sunday, June 8th, it was reported that barely 50 men from the unit disembarked.

This was partly due to some finding alternate transport home from Britain - its men had been trickling back to the city throughout 1919. Another factor was that there were not many Winnipegers left in the 44th Battalion.

According to Six Thousand Canadian Men, of the original 1,200 men only 100 "originals" remained at the end of the war. Its ranks were bolstered many times throughout the war to replace those lost due to death and injury with soldiers from across the country and there were few Winnipeggers in its ranks.

Those who did disembark were driven to Minto Armouries by volunteers where they signed their discharge papers.


May 5, 1926, Winnipeg Free Press

The 44th Battalion was officially disbanded in September 1920 but the 44th Battalion Association was established soon after in Winnipeg. For decades after the war it held an annual reunion dinner and memorial ceremony in the city and cared for the legacy of the unit.

The federal government announced that it was going to build the Canadian National Vimy Monument near the site of the 44th Battalion monument in 1924 and it would have to be removed. According to Six Thousand Canadian Men, "From all corners of the earth, members (of the 444th Battalion Association) contribute the funds needed to bring this trophy home to Winnipeg."

After negotiations with the city, the monument was reassembled in the northeast corner of what was then called St. James Park and rededicated on Sunday, June 27, 1926.

The ceremony included military brass, a guard of honour, and a military band. Dignitaries included  Major General H. D. B. Ketchen, Premier John Bracken, Mayor Ralph Webb, and Sir Hugh John Macdonald. The unveiling was done by Mrs. J. Bowes of Boissevain, Manitoba who lost three sons with the battalion.


Memorial Service in St. James Park, (Source: 6,000 Canadian Men)

In January 1967, federal Veterans Affairs Minister Roger Telliet and Winnipeg Mayor Stephen Juba announced a refurbishment of the deteriorating monument to commemorate both the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and Canada's centennial year.

The federal government paid to have the cement base replaced with Tyndall stone and the cement panels containing the 328 names were put on bronze plaques. The cross and its base appear to be original to the monument that stood in France.

For the city's part, it also spent $1,000 to improve the landscaping and garden area around the monument. It also announced that the park's name would be changed from St. James Park to Vimy Ridge Memorial Park.

The ceremony to rededicate the monument and rename the park took place on Thursday, June 15, 1967.

It was led by members of the 44th Battalion Association, Mayor Stephen Juba, Veterans Affairs Minister Roger Teillet, and Paul Piroson, the recently retired caretaker of the Canadian Vimy Memorial in France.

There was a bit of an ulterior motive for the renaming of the park and the new landscaping.

The Veterans Affairs department let it be known that in Canada's centennial year it was also looking for possible Canadian sites to become national war monuments or memorial sites. Such a designation would mean that the federal government would be responsible for the cost of the care and upkeep of the space.

Despite the department's hand in the refurbishment of the monument and the minister's attendance at the renaming ceremony for the park, this site did not become nationally designated and the city has maintained it ever since.

The monument and landscaping surrounding it was refurbished in 1992. In 2017, a $350,000 refurbishment of the memorial and surrounding walking plaza and gardens area took place.

The 44th Battalion monument has been joined by other monuments and memorials over the decades. The Royal Winnipeg Rifles monument was dedicated in 1992 (and rededicated in 2018), the Andrew Charles Mynarski V.C. was added in 2015, the XII Manitoba Dragoons / 18th Armoured Car Regiment in 2000, and the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in 2022.


June 17, 1915, Winnipeg Tribune

More about the 44th Battalion:
Manitoba Organization: 44th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force MB Historical Society
War Diaries of the 44th Canadian Infantry Battalion Library and Archives Canada
Six Thousand Canadian Men Library and Archives Canada

"First World war Soldier" on the move from Portage and Main

 

The nine-foot-tall bronze memorial known simply as First World War Soldier or the Bank of Montreal Monument is on the move after standing guard over Portage and Main for a century. It was unveiled in December 1923 to honour the men of the Bank of Montreal who died in battle.

It was announced in October 2024 that the memorial will be moved from Portage and Main to allow for the redevelopment of the intersection. It will not return there when the work is done as the Bank of Montreal sold its iconic Portage and Main banking hall to the Manitoba Metis Federation in 2020.

"Soldier" will instead be relocated to the Brookside Cemetery Field of Honour, one of Canada's oldest and largest military cemeteries. Brookside was declared a national historic site in 2023.

For more about the history of the monument, its artist, and its model, visit my Winnipeg Places blog post about it.

Monday 23 September 2024

Farewell, Window on Air Canada Park

 

"Window on Air Canada Park", known informally as Window Park, Air Canada Park, or Pink Park, is no more! It is being demolished to make way for a new park that will open in 2025 which is the park's 40th anniversary.

It is too bad someone didn't ensure that the historic building fragments located at the park weren't demolished along with it.

If you follow my blogs, you'll know I am a realist. Not every building or building fragment can be preserved.

When the new plan was released for the park back in 2023, it was clear that the fragments would not be part of the new space. This gave the city time to inform heritage groups that they would be available, consider using them in another project, or even raffling them off while in situ with the funds maybe going to local heritage initiatives.

I doubt any of that was done before the decision to demolish and their destruction is symbolic of how this city sometimes treats its built heritage.

Related:
- For a history of the park, see my Winnipeg Downtown Places post
- See my Flickr photo album of the park.
- The redevelopment tender noting the "
(m) Protection, disassembly, transportation, and re-installation of artworks currently erected in the park."

Media:
Winnipeg history among ruins of park demolition CBC Manitoba
City criticized after parts of historic buildings demolished Winnipeg Free Press

Saturday 14 September 2024

The transformation of Odeon / Triangle Park is complete!

© 2024, Christian Cassidy

I wrote in detail about the history of Odeon / Triangle Park in a blog post back in February 2023 and a column in July 2023 and noted that it was about to undergo a transformation from a traffic island to a curbside boulevard park. That work is now done!

The triangular piece of land at Smith Street and Notre Dame Avenue was part of the back end of the Grace Church property at Ellice Avenue and Notre Dame Street. The city had wanted it since the 1890s so that it could connect Smith and King streets to create another route from the retail district on Portage Avenue to the warehouse district (what we now call the Exchange District.) It wasn't until the church fell into financial trouble in the 1930s that it agreed to sell.

The city joined the two streets in 1936 and the traffic island was created. In the early 1970s and again in the early 1990s it was modified to give it more of a park-like setting.

The park space hasn't disappeared completely.

A piece of land even larger in size than the traffic island was moved over and merged with the sidewalk on the west side of Smith Street. The space, now sodded, contains some picnic benches and a temporary public art installation.

The only remnant left of the old park is a single elm tree that manged to make the transition.


This space has never had a formal name. In most newspaper references it was just called the triangular traffic island on Smith Street and on the odd occasion "Odeon Park" as the Walker Theatre was known as the Odeon Cinema from 1945 to 1990. Some city archives photos refer to it as "Triangle Park".

I am not a huge fan of naming things after people but some people love that sort of thing. Before a city councillor or True North (which operates the Burton Cummings Theatre) show up at a committee meeting to push through naming it for a politician or a hockey player, I think it would be appropriate, considering their theatre has lost their name, to call it Corliss and Henrietta Walker Park, or green, or boulevard, or whatever a curbside piece of lawn is called.

Corliss and Henrietta Walker were the husband and wife team who uprooted their U.S.-based theatre circuit and relocated its headquarters to Winnipeg and had this theatre built. Corliss got most of the accolades but the two were partners. He did the finances and she booked the talent, (including the famous Mock Parliament in 1914.)

The Walkers were a huge part of Winnipeg's cultural, social and business life during their era.


Related:
My Flickr album of Odeon / Triangle Park
Triangular park on Smith Street dates back nearly 90 years West End Dumplings
Odeon Park to lose 'island' status Free Press Community Review

Monday 9 September 2024

My Winnipeg Free Press Community Review Columns

 
I have been writing a local history column called "What's in a Neighbourhood" in in the Free Press Community Review since July 2021. Here are links to my work. Also be sure to see my Real Estate News columns and Winnipeg Free Press columns!

Winnipeg's Civic Clock turns 50

Downtown's Port-a-Parks of the 1970s

Rainbow Stage's 70th Anniversary

Downtown Winnipeg's biggest fire

Charles Barber designed early Winnipeg's skyline

Winnipeg's inception a violent, messy affair

Downtown's Christmas lights date back nearly a century

Valour Road's forgotten hero

J P Robertson founded city's library system

Exhibit tells story of Manitoba's building blocks


Odeon Park to lose 'island' status


The demise of the Highland Park subdivision

WHAT'S IN A STREET NAME?

How Metro Route 90 became Lagimodiere Boulevard

The U of M's 'Avenue of Elms'


Winnipeg's short-lived numbered street system

Online archive offer glimpse of the past

A tale of two perimeter roads


Elmwood's annexation cost it many street names

Family waits 40 years to redress street name change

Did Winnipeg name any streets after Titanic victims?

The problem with Cecil Rhodes

Arlington Street's great lengths


When Portage Avenue was known as Queen Street

Main Street could have been Victoria Street

The origins of Winnipeg's Metro Route system

The women in Winnipeg's Street names

The wartime origins of some Winnipeg street names

Downtown's one-way street system turns 65

Make sure your beer's delivered to the right address - July 5, 2021

Sunday 8 September 2024

Behind the Photo: Old city hall's goat skelton

 © 2024, Christian Cassidy

Often I will see an old photo or ad and spend some time digging into its back story. Sometimes I find a great story, sometimes not. Either way, I learn a few things about the city's history. Here's my latest attempt:


March 21, 1936, Winnipeg Free Press

While researching my latest Free Press Community Review column on the history of Winnipeg's civic clocks, I came across a creepy story about the presence of a long-dead goat in the clock tower of the old 'gingerbread' city hall. Where did it come from and how did it get up there? Here's a look back at mentions of the goat over the decades.

The first mention I can find of the goat skeleton comes in the March 21, 1936 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press. Photographer and columnist Nicholas Morant led some of his Free Press colleagues up the tower to show them the “mysterious city hall goat”.  It is likely him who took the photo shown above. 

Morant asked around at city hall about the origins of what he presumed was a mountain goat and found that it “definitely has been there for more than 15 years” and was possibly the remains of a stuffed exhibit from a "natural history society" operating in city hall around 1900. (This was likely the Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba, forerunner to the Manitoba Historical Society, that had a reading room and display area at city hall until they were asked to move the Carnegie Library when it opened in 1905.)

U of M Digital Collections, Winnipeg Tribune Photograph Index


Dead or alive, getting the goat into the tower would have been a challenge.

Piecing together the makeup of the tower using various newspaper articles finds that it could be accessed from the top of floor of city hall using a narrow staircase.

The tower itself had three floors. The first two had a large room in the centre, presumably for storage, that could be closed off with a door. Leading up from the second floor was a curved staircase or ladder that went to the top level where the bell and clock works were. There were 67 stairs in total from the top of city hall to the top of the tower.

According to Morant, the goat's remains were in the tower's second floor storage room.


July 14, 1934, Winnipeg Tribune


The next mention of the goat skeleton comes courtesy of Winnipeg Tribune municipal editor A. V. Thomas in a July 1934 story celebrating the 50th anniversary of the laying of the building's cornerstone.

Thomas wrote glowingly of the building but said of the goat: "... it is enough to make anyone pause and shudder to come suddenly across a skeleton lying amid the dust and dirt. What's more, the head has been severed and lies a few feet away." (The head was likely moved during that Free Press visit of 1932.)

Thomas was told a similar story that it was thought to have been part of a museum display at city hall. he added, "Whether the stuffing shifted with age or whether the goat degenerated from another causes, it was deemed advisable to put it away. Just how it got into the upper precincts of the city hall is a mystery." 

The skeleton had never been removed, Thomas was told, because of the difficulty of get something that large down the narrow staircase.


October 9, 1948. Windsor Star


The goat's presence would be recounted in a story about city hall every few years.

A September 1948 Free Press article described how local jeweller William T. "Bill" Muirhead had been the unofficial caretaker of the clock for over 20 years and had made the journey to visit it hundreds of times.

It noted that one of the things he has to pass is the goat: "It must have been a massive creature in life and just how it came to its death chamber remains a mystery of the city hall. No one goes near the skeleton for the floor is shakey and the room is locked."

The wire story was picked up by at least one other Canadian newspaper, prompting the above headline in the Windsor Star.


Looking east from clock tower, September 1900. (City of Winnipeg Archives)


The legend of the goat grew in the late 1950s.

According to an unnamed Free Press reporter writing a retrospective of the building in April 1960, Mayor George Sharpe started his "famous clock tower tours" in 1954 by taking "... guileless visitors up the winding wooden starts to the very top of the clock tower."

Points of interest along the way were "crude drawings on the walls" and the goat, noting that "the goat's skeleton, still a mystery, lies on the floor area declared unsafe so it cannot be retrieved."


May 17, 1957, Winnipeg Free Press


Mayor Stephen Juba continued the tours when he took over as mayor in 1957, though the purpose of his visits was not to show off its history or views. He had long pushed for a new city hall building for Winnipeg and took reporters and other officials up to show the poor condition of the tower. (Since the early 1950s there was talk of removing the tower portion the building due to its sagging fllors and numerous large cracks.)

One Free Press reporter who went on a May 1957 tour noted, "among the sights of the tour were the mouldering bones ... of a goat's body left there years ago by pranksters." This first mention of "pranksters", Juba's take on how the bones got there, would be repeated in Free Press stories for years to come.


Demolition in 1961, U of M Digital Collections, Winnipeg Tribune Photograph Index


The old city hall was demolished starting in April 1962.

Al Barnes of the Free Press wrote a feature called "The Saga of Old City Hall" after it came down. He wrote that the story behind the the bones was never fully and that "Winnipeg is probably the only metropolis in the world whose city hall literally had a skeleton in its closet."

More about the tower from my blogs:
Selkirk Avenue's Bell Tower - West End Dumplings
Winnipeg's Civic Clock - Winnipeg Places

More "Behind the Photo'