Winnipeg - WikiHQ

Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,607 and a metropolitan population of 834,678, making it Canada's sixth-largest city and eighth-largest metropolitan area. French traders built the first fort, Fort Rouge, on the site in 1738. A settlement was later founded by the Selkirk settlers of the Red River Colony in 1812, the nucleus of which was incorporated as the "City of Winnipeg" in 1873. Being far inland, the city's climate is extremely seasonal (continental) even by Canadian standards, with average January highs of around and average July highs of .

Known as the "Gateway to the West", Winnipeg is a railway and transportation hub with a diversified economy. It hosts numerous annual festivals, including the , the Winnipeg Folk Festival, the Jazz Winnipeg Festival, the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, and Folklorama. Winnipeg was the first Canadian host of the Pan American Games in 1967. It is home to several professional sports franchises, including the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (Canadian football), Winnipeg Jets (ice hockey), Manitoba Moose (ice hockey), Winnipeg Sea Bears (basketball), and the Winnipeg Goldeyes (baseball).

Etymology

Winnipeg is named after nearby Lake Winnipeg, north of the city. English explorer Henry Kelsey may have been the first European to see the lake in 1690. He adopted the Cree and Ojibwe name, (also transcribed or ), meaning "murky water" or "muddy water" (modern , ). French-Canadian fur trader La Vérendrye referred to the lake as or when he built the first forts in the area in the 1730s. Local newspaper The Nor'-Wester included the name on its masthead on 24 February 1866, and the city was incorporated by that name by the Manitoba Legislature in 1873. Evidence provided by archaeology, petroglyphs, rock art, and oral history indicates that native peoples used the area in prehistoric times for camping, harvesting, hunting, tool making, fishing, trading and, farther north, for agriculture.

Estimates of the date of first settlement in the area range from 11,500 years ago for a site southwest of the present city to 6,000 years ago at the Forks. In 1805, Canadian colonists observed First Nations peoples engaged in farming activity along the Red River. The practice quickly expanded, driven by the demand by traders for provisions. The rivers provided an extensive transportation network linking northern First Peoples with those to the south along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The Ojibwe made some of the first maps on birch bark, which helped fur traders navigate the waterways of the area.

Sieur de La Vérendrye built the first fur-trading post on the site in 1738, called Fort Rouge. French trading continued at the site for several decades. The British Hudson's Bay Company took over when France ceded the territory following its defeat in the Seven Years' War. Many French men who were trappers married First Nations women; their mixed-race children hunted, traded, and lived in the area. Their descendants are known as the Métis.

thumb|An 1821 painting of winter fishing on the ice of the [[Assiniboine River|Assiniboine and Red rivers. Fort Gibraltar was erected in 1809.]]

Lord Selkirk was involved with the first permanent settlement (known as the Red River Colony), the purchase of land from the Hudson's Bay Company, and a survey of river lots in the early 19th century. The North West Company built Fort Gibraltar in 1809, and the Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Douglas in 1812, both in the area of present-day Winnipeg. The two companies competed fiercely over trade. The Métis and Lord Selkirk's settlers fought at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816. In 1821, the Hudson's Bay and North West Companies merged, ending their long rivalry. Fort Gibraltar was renamed Fort Garry in 1822 and became the leading post in the region for the Hudson's Bay Company. A flood destroyed the fort in 1826 and it was not rebuilt until 1835.

In 1869–70, present-day Winnipeg was the site of the Red River Rebellion, a conflict between the local provisional government of Métis, led by Louis Riel, and newcomers from eastern Canada. General Garnet Wolseley was sent to suppress the uprising. The Manitoba Act of 1870 made Manitoba the fifth province of the three-year-old Canadian Confederation. Treaty 1, which encompassed the city and much of the surrounding area, was signed on 3 August 1871 by representatives of the Crown and local Indigenous groups, comprising the Brokenhead Ojibway, Sagkeeng, Long Plain, Peguis, Roseau River Anishinabe, Sandy Bay and Swan Lake communities. On 8 November 1873, Winnipeg was incorporated as a city, with the Selkirk settlement as its nucleus. Métis legislator and interpreter James McKay named the city. Winnipeg's mandate was to govern and provide municipal services to citizens attracted to trade expansion between Upper Fort Garry / Lower Fort Garry and Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Winnipeg developed rapidly after the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881. The railway divided the North End, which housed mainly Eastern Europeans, from the richer Anglo-Saxon southern part of the city.

Modern history (1900–present)

thumb|Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the [[Winnipeg General Strike in 1919]]

By 1911, Winnipeg was Canada's third-largest city. The canal reduced reliance on Canada's rail system for international trade; the increase in shipping traffic helped Vancouver to surpass Winnipeg in both prosperity and population by the end of World War I.

More than 30,000 workers walked off their jobs in May 1919 in what came to be known as the Winnipeg general strike. The strike was a product of postwar recession, labour conditions, the activity of union organizers and a large influx of returning World War I soldiers seeking work. After many arrests, deportations, and incidents of violence, the strike ended on 21 June 1919 when the Riot Act was read. A group of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers charged a group of strikers. Two strikers were killed and at least thirty others were injured on the day that became known as Bloody Saturday; the event polarized the population.

The Manitoba Legislative Building, constructed mainly of Tyndall stone, 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"). Proportional voting was also introduced in 1920, and used provincially until 1957. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression resulted in widespread unemployment, worsened by drought and low agricultural prices. The Depression ended after the start of World War II in 1939.

thumb|left|In 1942, the Canadian Victory Loan campaign [[If Day|simulated a Nazi occupation of the city to raise war bonds.]]

In the Battle of Hong Kong, The Winnipeg Grenadiers were among the first Canadians to engage in combat against Japanese military forces. Battalion members who survived combat were taken prisoner and endured brutal treatment in prisoner of war camps. In 1942, the Victory Loan Campaign staged a mock Nazi invasion of Winnipeg to promote awareness of the stakes of the war in Europe. When the war ended, pent-up demand generated a boom in housing development, although building activity was checked by the 1950 Red River flood. The federal government estimated damage at over $26 million, although the province indicated that it was at least double that. The damage caused by the flood led then-Premier Duff Roblin to advocate for the construction of the Red River Floodway.

Before 1972, Winnipeg was the largest of thirteen cities and towns in a metropolitan area around the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. In 1960, the Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg was established to co-ordinate service delivery in the metropolitan region. The City of Winnipeg Act incorporated the current city. In 1981, Winnipeg was one of the first cities in Canada to sign a tripartite agreement with the provincial and federal governments to redevelop its downtown area, and the three levels of government contributed over $271 million to its development. In 1989, the reclamation and redevelopment of the CNR rail yards turned the Forks into Winnipeg's most popular tourist attraction.

Geography

thumb|upright=1.1|Docks at [[The Forks, Winnipeg|the Forks. The city lies at the bottom of the Red River Valley, a flood plain with a flat topography.]]

Winnipeg lies at the bottom of the Red River Valley, a flood plain with an extremely flat topography. It is on the eastern edge of the Canadian Prairies in Western Canada and is known as the "Gateway to the West". It is relatively close to many large Canadian Shield lakes and parks, as well as Lake Winnipeg (the Earth's 11th largest freshwater lake). Winnipeg has North America's largest extant mature urban elm forest. The city has an area of . The city was subject to severe flooding in the past. The Red River reached its greatest flood height in 1826. Another large flood in 1950 caused millions of dollars in damage and mass evacuations. This flood prompted Duff Roblin's provincial government to build the Red River Floodway to protect the city. The generally flat terrain and the poor drainage of the Red River Valley's clay-based soil also results in many mosquitoes during wetter years.

Climate

thumb|upright=1.1|Winters in Winnipeg are cold with little precipitation.

Winnipeg's location in the Canadian Prairies gives it a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb), with warm, humid summers, and long, severely cold winters. Summers have a July mean average of . Winters are the coldest time of year, with the January mean average around and total winter precipitation (December through February) averaging . With 2,353 hours of sunshine per year, Winnipeg is the second-sunniest city in Canada. Total annual precipitation (both rain and snow) is just over . Low wind chill values are a common occurrence in the local climate. The wind chill has gone down as low as , and on average twelve days of the year reach a wind chill below .

The highest temperature ever recorded in Winnipeg was during the 1936 North American heat wave. The temperature reached on 11 July 1936 while the highest minimum temperature, recorded on the following day, 12 July 1936, was . The apparent heat can be even more extreme due to bursts of humidity, and on 25 July 2007 a humidex reading of was measured. Downtown Winnipeg, the city's financial heart and economic core, is centred on the intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street and covers about . More than 72,000 people work downtown, and over 40,000 students attend classes at its universities and colleges.

Downtown Winnipeg's Exchange District is named after the area's original grain exchange, which operated from 1880 to 1913.

Residential neighbourhoods surround the downtown in all directions; expansion is greatest to the south and west, although several areas remain underdeveloped. The city's largest park, Assiniboine Park, houses the Assiniboine Park Zoo and the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden. Other large city parks include Kildonan Park and St. Vital Park. The city's major commercial areas are Polo Park, Kildonan Crossing, South St. Vital, Garden City (West Kildonan), Pembina Strip, Kenaston Smart Centre, and Osborne Village. The main cultural and nightlife areas are the Exchange District, the Forks, Osborne Village and Corydon Village (both in Fort Rouge), Sargent and Ellice Avenues (West End) and Old St. Boniface. Osborne Village is Winnipeg's most densely populated neighbourhood and one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in Western Canada.

Demographics