St-Boniface (or Saint-Boniface) is a city ward and neighbourhood in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

. Along with being the centre of the Franco-Manitoban community, it ranks as the largest

francophone French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the l ...

community in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada– ...

. It features such landmarks as the St. Boniface Cathedral, Boulevard Provencher, the Provencher Bridge,

Esplanade Riel Esplanade Riel is a pedestrian bridge located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was named in honour of Louis Riel. It is a side-spar cable-stayed bridge which spans the Red River connecting downtown Winnipeg with St. Boniface; it is paired with a vehi ...

, St. Boniface Hospital, the Université de Saint-Boniface, and the

Royal Canadian Mint }) is the mint of Canada and a Crown corporation, operating under the ''Royal Canadian Mint Act''. The shares of the Mint are held in trust for the Crown in right of Canada. The Mint produces all of Canada's circulation coins, and manufactures ...

. The area covers east-central and southeast Winnipeg, including ('Old St. Boniface'), and consists of the neighbourhoods of Norwood West, Norwood East,

Windsor Park Windsor Park is a football stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home ground of Linfield F.C. who own the land the stadium is built on, while the Irish Football Association own and operate the stadium and pay Linfield an annual rent ...

, Niakwa Park, Niakwa Place, Southdale, Southland Park, Royalwood, Sage Creek, and Island Lakes, among others, plus a large industrial area. The ward is represented by Matt Allard, a member of

Winnipeg City Council The Winnipeg City Council (french: Conseil municipal de Winnipeg) is the governing body of the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The Council is seated in the Council Building of Winnipeg City Hall.Canada 2016 Census The 2016 Canadian census was an enumeration of Canadian residents, which counted a population of 35,151,728, a change from its 2011 population of 33,476,688. The census, conducted by Statistics Canada, was Canada's seventh quinquennial census ...

History

Succeeding cultures of

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

lived in the area for thousands of years before European exploration. It is an area of historic

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

occupation. Fur traders and European mercenaries hired by Thomas Douglas, Lord Selkirk, to protect his fledgling

Red River Colony The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hudson's Bay C ...

were among the area's first European settlers. With the founding of a Roman Catholic mission in 1818, St. Boniface began its role in Canadian religious, political and cultural history: as mother parish for many French settlements in Western Canada; as the birthplace of

Louis Riel Louis Riel (; ; 22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885) was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political leader of the Métis people. He led two resistance movements against the Government of Canada and its fir ...

and fellow

Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derive ...

who struggled to obtain favourable terms for Manitoba's entry into Confederation; and as a focus of resistance to controversial 1890 legislation to alter Manitoba's school system and abolish French as an official language in the province (see

Manitoba Schools Question The Manitoba Schools Question () was a political crisis in the Canadian province of Manitoba that occurred late in the 19th century, attacking publicly-funded separate schools for Roman Catholics and Protestants. The crisis was precipitated by a se ...

French-speaking French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in N ...

religious order A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practic ...

s, including the Sisters of Charity of Montreal (better known as the Grey Nuns), who arrived in 1844, founded the early educational, cultural and social-service institutions, such as St. Boniface Hospital, the first in Western Canada. Early French-speaking missionary Catholic priests in the region founded the Collège de Saint-Boniface (dating to 1818) to teach Latin and general humanities to the local boys; it is now the

Université de Saint-Boniface The Université de Saint-Boniface (USB) is a French-language public university located in the Saint Boniface neighbourhood of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. An affiliated institution of the University of Manitoba, the university offers general and sp ...

. St-Boniface was incorporated as a town in 1883 and as a city in 1908. The early economy was oriented to agriculture. Industrialization arrived in the early 20th century. The Union Stockyards, developed 1912–13, became the largest livestock exchange in Canada and a centre of the meat-packing and -processing industry. By the early 1900s, numerous light and heavy industries were established. Redevelopment of the Stockyards site as a housing and retail area by Olexa Developments of

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

is scheduled for 2020. It is planned that in the first phase of the development, 600 housing units are to be constructed. In the 1950s and 1960s the neighbourhoods of Windsor Park and Southdale developed into residential areas. In 2016 Windsor Park had a population of 10,050 and Southdale had a population of 6,450. In 1971, Saint-Boniface was amalgamated, along with several neighbouring communities, into the City of Winnipeg. As one of the larger French communities outside

Québec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen ...

, it has often been a centre of struggles to preserve French-Canadian language and culture within Manitoba.

Places and culture

The St-Boniface area covers the east-central and southeastern part of

, including ('Old St. Boniface'). It also includes the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

's Symington Yards, a major rail-handling facility; and the Union Stockyards, which were once the largest of their kind in Canada.

Neighbourhoods

The St-Boniface city ward, represented by City Councillor Matt Allard, is composed of the following neighbourhoods: Archwood, Dufresne, Central St-Boniface, Holden, Island Lakes, Maginot, The Mint, Mission Industrial, Niakwa Park, Niakwa Place, North St-Boniface, Norwood East, Norwood West, Southdale, Stock Yards, and

. The ward mostly corresponds to the community area of St-Boniface and neighbourhood clusters of St-Boniface East and West, which are used by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultu ...

for demographic purposes. However, while the community area—or clusters—include all of the neighbourhoods of the city ward, it also extends eastward past Lagimodière Boulevard to Plessis Road, thereby including the neighbourhoods of Dugald, Royalwood, Sage Creek, Southland Park, St-Boniface Industrial Park, and Symington Yards.

Culture

St-Boniface is home to the

Festival du Voyageur The Festival du Voyageur is an annual 10-day winter festival that takes place in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The event is held during each February in Winnipeg's French quarter, Saint-Boniface, and is western Canada's largest winter festival. I ...

, held annually in February outdoors at Whittier Park and Fort Gibraltar, as well as Cinémental, the city's annual francophone film festival. Also in the area is the (CCFM; the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre), which features an art gallery, theatres, meeting rooms, and a community radio station; Le Musée de Saint-Boniface Museum, a local museum dedicated to Franco-Manitoban culture and history; and Le Cercle Molière, a French-language theatre group and Canada's oldest theater company. The is a

heritage centre A heritage centre, center, or museum is a public facility – typically a museum, monument, visitor centre, or park – that is primarily dedicated to the presentation of historical and cultural information about a place and its people, and of ...

housing the largest Franco-Manitoban archives in Manitoba, as well as the (SHSB), the oldest

historical society A historical society (sometimes also preservation society) is an organization dedicated to preserving, collecting, researching, and interpreting historical information or items. Originally, these societies were created as a way to help future ge ...

in western Canada.

Landmarks

The area features such landmarks as the Boulevard Provencher,

, Fort Gibraltar, Lagimodière-Gaboury Park, the Provencher Bridge, the

, St. Boniface Cathedral (including the grave of

in its churchyard), St-Boniface Hospital, and the

. The House of Archbishop

Alexandre-Antonin Taché Alexandre-Antonin Taché, O.M.I., (23 July 1823 – 22 June 1894) was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest, missionary of the Oblate order, author, and the first Archbishop of Saint Boniface in Manitoba, Canada. Early life Alexandre-Antonin Ta ...

, which is now used for administrative purposes by the Archdiocese of St. Boniface, is one of the oldest stone buildings in

western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada– ...

Notable people

* Louis Bétournay – lawyer and judge * Mud Bruneteau – professional hockey player *

Len Cariou Leonard Joseph Cariou (; born September 30, 1939) is a Canadian actor and stage director, best known for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in the original cast of '' Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'', for which he won the Tony Award ...

– Broadway theatre actor * Earl Dawson – politician and president of the Manitoba and Canadian Amateur Hockey Associations * Bryan Fustukian – radio disc jockey, concert promoter and performer * Tony Gingras – right-winger for the Winnipeg Victorias * Butch Goring – professional hockey player * George R. D. Goulet – best-selling Métis author * Bob Hunter – Greenpeace co-founder * Ambroise-Dydime Lépine Métis military leader during the Red River Rebellion * Earl Mindell – writer and nutritionist * Dorothy Patrick – actress *

Jim Peebles Phillip James Edwin Peebles (born April 25, 1935) is a Canadian- American astrophysicist, astronomer, and theoretical cosmologist who is currently the Albert Einstein Professor in Science, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is widely rega ...

- cosmologist and Nobel Prize winner *

– Métis leader and founder of Manitoba *

Sara Riel Sara Riel (October 11, 1848 – December 27, 1883) was the first Métis Grey Nun from Red River. She is best known as the sister of Métis leader Louis Riel. Born in 1848 in the Red River settlement to parents Jean-Louis Riel and Julie Lagimodiè ...

– first Métis member of the Grey Nuns *

Gabrielle Roy Gabrielle Roy (March 22, 1909July 13, 1983) was a Canadian author from St. Boniface, Manitoba and one of the major figures in French Canadian literature. Early life Roy was born in 1909 in Saint-Boniface (now part of Winnipeg), Manitoba, an ...

– French language author * Lucille Starr – (née Savoie) singer *

Jonathan Toews Jonathan Bryan Toews ( ; born April 29, 1988) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL). Nicknamed "Captain Serious", Toews was selected by the Blackhawks with the ...

– professional hockey player

Media

Winnipeg's three Francophone radio stations, CKXL-FM,

CKSB-10-FM CKSB-10-FM (88.1 MHz) is a Canadian public radio station serving the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region in Manitoba. It is owned by the Société Radio-Canada (CBC) and airs the Ici Radio-Canada Première network, concentrating on news and talk in F ...

and

CKSB-FM CKSB-FM (89.9 MHz) is a public radio station in Winnipeg, Manitoba, owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It carries Radio-Canada's Ici Musique network, airing a mix of adult album alternative (AAA), classical music and other genres. ...

, are located in St-Boniface and are licensed there, a legacy of when St-Boniface was a separate city. The French-language weekly newspaper ''La Liberté'' is also based in St-Boniface.

Sports

St-Boniface is represented by the St. Boniface Riels hockey team which plays in the

Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League The Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League (MMJHL) is a junior ice hockey league in Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1970, the league was operated as an independent league. MMJHL affiliated with Hockey Manitoba and Hockey Canada in the mid-1990s. Teams ...

(MMJHL). The St-Boniface Riels were founded in 1971. They play at the Southdale Arena and have won five MMJHL championships: 1971–1972, 1972–1973, 1984–1985, 1985–1986, 2014–2015.

Notes

References

External links

Tourisme RielSaint Boniface Heritage Centre
{{coord, 49.900, N, 97.100, W, display=title, type:city_region:CA_source:GNS-enwiki French communities Neighbourhoods in Winnipeg Shopping districts and streets in Canada Manitoba communities with majority francophone populations Former municipalities now in Winnipeg St._Boniface