Making Friends in Winnipeg

Greetings from Manitoba! Steve, the kids and I are on vacation in Winnipeg, known as the cultural cradle of Canada.

Why Winnipeg, you ask? Well, why not Winnipeg? We had several reasons for choosing this city over other options: we wanted to explore another city in Canada with the kids; it’s relatively close to home, but has the mystique of another culture (can you say ketchup-flavored potato chips?); it has a French district, where Louisa could try out the French verb tenses she learned at camp; it’s a cool place, temperature-wise, to visit in August; and it’s in the midst of its annual cultural festival called Folklorama, which sounded like fun.

These all factored into our decision. But another reason was that it would allow me to follow the trail yet again of my musical great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs.

The kids with mini G., the extremely portable version.

G. Oliver visited Winnipeg in mid-July of 1899, about nine months after he began directing the Crookston city band. The 24-member band traveled to Winnipeg by train on July 14 to perform for “America Day” during the city’s big Summer Exposition.

Mini G inserting himself into an 1894 photo of Winnipeg’s Main Street.

The Crookston band, together with North Dakota bands from Grand Forks and Grafton, played a concert at the City Hall square that included the songs “God Save the Queen” and “Yankee Doodle.” In the evening, the Crookston band marched along Main Street and serenaded the offices of the three daily newspapers, the Manitoba (Winnipeg) Free Press, the Tribune and the Telegram.

An article from the Crookston Daily Times

The front of Winnipeg’s old City Hall, built in 1886.

We walked along Main Street on Sunday to get to the Manitoba Museum, so we must have covered much of the same ground the band did in 1899. Back then, cars were not yet on the scene; people rode on bicycles, in horse-drawn wagons or on trolleys, which went into service in Winnipeg in 1892.

I couldn’t determine whether any of the old newspaper buildings are still standing; some buildings in the now-historic Exchange District weren’t built until after 1899 (Winnipeg’s building boom began around that time and ended with the beginning of World War I). It was fun to imagine what the area looked like at the turn of the last century, when G. Oliver visited.

And as it turned out, our visit to the Manitoba Museum aided us in that imagining, because it has a turn-of-the-last century exhibit complete with a silent movie theater and a backdrop of the Winnipeg City Hall – the perfect setting for photos of mini G. Oliver.

Seb, Louisa and Elias are inside the theater, watching Charlie Chaplin in Shanghied.

The morning after our museum visit, I visited the Millennium Library, just a block from our hotel, to see if the Winnipeg newspapers had covered the Crookston band’s visit. The only newspaper the library had on microfilm was the Free Press (it’s also the only one that still is in operation), and I did find a few articles about the Exposition and the band.

A brief article on July 15 mentioned the newspaper serenade: “The Free Press staff was treated to a surprise last evening in the shape of a courteous serenade on the part of the Crookston band. The visitors, who by their fine music and individual popularity, have done credit to the town they come from, discoursed several selections in excellent style, and well earned the hearty applause with which the large concourse of listeners greeted their efforts.”

The same issue, a larger article about America Day at the Exposition said, “The Americans were accompanied by three brass bands, the Crookston city band, the K.P. Band of Grand Forks and the Grafton Military band. The last two bands played in the city but did not play at the fair. The Crookston band, however, was present at the exhibition both in the afternoon and evening and by its capital music made itself very popular with the Winnipeggers. They played an excellent programme of music in the evening and then massing with the Citizens band played for the various platform attractions.”

The Crookston Band in 1899; G. Oliver is in the center.

The article continued by explaining that many Winnipeggers went to the train depots to see off the visitors from the United States, and it concluded with this sentence: “The Americans during the past few years have made themselves extremely popular in Winnipeg and are always sure of a good time.”

Although I think it would be a stretch to say that Steve, the kids and I have made ourselves extremely popular while we’ve been in town, we have met some kind and helpful people, and we certainly have had a good time. Thanks, Winnipeg!