Canadian Nature Centre Promotes A Cleaner Lifestyle
Fort Whyte Alive In Winnipeg Offers Dynamic Outdoor Experiences For The Holidays So To Strengthen The Bond Between Humans And Nature
In the late 1800’s the Canadian west was growing. The nation’s first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, was completed in the late 1860’s and was granted a monopoly from the Canadian government over transport in western Canada. This monopoly was soon to be challenged, by business interests in Winnipeg.
“The Winnipeg business community wanted a north and south rail line to St. Paul and Minneapolis, they found the funds and materials to build it and hired construction crews and started building”, stated Barret Miller, special project interpreter at Fort Whyte Alive. “The Hudson Trade Company had used the red river for a trade route for hundreds of years, so there were pretty strong north and south trade ties, but there weren’t north and south train lines”.
The construction of another railway in Manitoba directly challenged the monopoly granted to the Canadian Pacific Railway and William Whyte, the director of operations for the CPR, in western Canada decided to act.
“Instead of stopping construction through court injunctions or buying them out, he went and hired some of the roughest, toughest men he could find to stop the construction. The Winnipeg business community, not to be outdone, hired their won group of tuffs. There was out and out corporate fighting with fists and bottles. No one was shot, but there were shots being fired. The summer of 1888 was pretty hot out here on the prairie”, claimed Barret.
As the stand-off went on, Whyte ordered armored locomotives to place on site. “So, these were basically tanks on tracks. As soon as they were installed, to give his tuffs a base of operations, the newspapers began calling them Fort Whyte”, explained Barret. Eventually, cooler heads prevailed, the police broke up the stand-off and the north south rail line was built.
Today, the site houses Fort Whyte Alive, a non-profit operation dedicated to honoring the human and natural history of the red river valley and Manitoba. “It’s a natural green gem at the edge of the City”, claimed Barret. “We have boardwalks so you can walk through a swamp and marsh without getting your toes wet. On our boardwalks, you can expect to see waterfowls close up and personal. If you’re coming out for activity, there’s canoeing, kayaking, fishing, row boats, and sailing. I do a bison safari where we get within feet of our thirty-five bison on a tour bus. A lot of our clientele come to see the bird life. A famous birder once told me he saw as many birds at Fort Whyte as he did any place in a day. In the winter, we don’t shut down, you can see everything by snowshoe. We’re open 364 days a year and it’s always a good time!”, stated Barret.
One of the major focuses of Fort Whyte Alive is education. In addition to their educational day camps, they work closely with the Manitoba curriculum to provide educational opportunities for school children. “Our school programs run every year from September through June. Thirty-five thousand visitors every year come as part of a school field trip. We actually help teachers by teaching Manitoba curriculum outside on the landscape. It’s one thing to know in theory that the first nation of people depended on the bison. It’s another thing to sit in a teepee and feel how warm that is, while you watch the bison out the door of the teepee”, explained Barret.
Along with the school programs, Fort Whyte Alive is home to Fort Whyte Farms, a small vegetable and livestock operation whose tagline is ‘Growing Youth, Food, and Community’. “Fort Whyte Farm is a place where people can learn about good food, growing their own, how good nutrition works, and how they can find good local things to eat in a place that is frozen six months of the year. The actual operations of the farm are done by at-risk youth from inner city Winnipeg. It boosts their confidence, it boosts their employability, and it turns around lives. I’ve met people who are now successful adults, who were not on that pathway when they got involved with working on Fort Whyte Farms”, stated Barret.
The Winnipeg area and the Red River Valley have a significant history. “There have been people using the Red River Valley since the glaciers receded 10,000 years ago. We are in the homeland of the Dakota, the Plains Cree, and the Anishinaabe people and we work with those communities to interpret their cultural heritage”, claimed Barret.
One of the highlights of Fort Whyte is the teepee encampment. “The teepee encampment is a living breathing space. Teepees are the shelter of the prairies. Each of the indigenous tribes built their teepees slightly differently, but that idea of the cone shaped tent that’s easy to move and resistant to prairie wind, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, that’s found all over the great plains of North America”, explained Barret.
With natural and historical opportunities abound, Fort Whyte Alive has something for everyone. “Our tagline is ‘Human Nature’. We talk about how human nature relates to nature and how you really can’t have one without the other. We talk about how the natural world supports us and who we need to look after it”, said Barret.
Jared Langenegger
A graduate of New Mexico State University with B.S. in wildlife and fisheries science, Jared spent 15 years working in fisheries and parks management. He enjoys camping, fishing, hunting, painting, and wood working.
Make Sure To Check Out:
Fort Whyte Farms, which is a program tha has been working with youth from diverse cultural backgrounds in Winnipeg since 2003. The Market at FortWhyte Farms is the place to buy fresh, naturally-grown, in-season produce when you visit FortWhyte Alive.