Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but when, in North America, women picketed in front of the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote, they were jailed.

And by the end of the first night in jail, those women were barely alive.
Forty  prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing
went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of
‘obstructing sidewalk  traffic.’

(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above
her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping
for air.

(Dora  Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed  her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,
Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the  women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15,  1917,
when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his
guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right
to vote.

For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their
food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited.  She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

All women who have every voted, have ever owned property, have ever enjoyed equal rights need to remember that women?s rights had to be fought for in Canada as well.  Do our daughters and our sisters know the price that was paid to earn rights for women here, in North America?

2009 is the 80th Anniversary of the Persons Case in Canada,
which finally declared women in Canada to be Persons!

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know, so that we remember to celebrate the rights we enjoy.

?Knowledge is Freedom: hide it, and it withers; share it, and it blooms? (P. Hill)

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In The Magna Carta Manifesto, Peter Linebaugh takes a moment in our ancient past and makes it a contemporary beacon in the social history of advancing human rights. He puts the 1215 Magna Carta at the centre of a complicated network of the legal, constitutional, cultural and political efforts to assert the primary importance of public rights and property to political history.
Linebaugh takes the signing of the Magna Carta as a formative moment in history, that captured principles which have been fought for and which continue to be fought over around the world. “Behind the event lay powerful forces of pope and emperor, dynastic intrigues of France and England, wicked deeds of progrom and bigotry in the name of God Almighty, the disintegrating effects of the money economy and the multifaceted popular defence of the commons.” (p. 24) He situates the Magna Carta and what he believes is an equally significant parallel document of the time, the Charter of the Forest (1217), as key icons in the advancement of public or collective rights over what he generically calls “the commons”.
The book traces the use and possibly the abuse of the principles embedded in these two documents through history and to different parts of the world – the United States, Mexico, Nigeria, England, India. Linebaugh ties together a number of forces that compete over private versus public property, and exposes how this competition relied on these principles or distorted them according to contemporary standards. In effect, he traces how the principles of the Magna Carta have evolved according to forms of subsistence production, resource accumulation, industrialization and the development of capitalism.
For example, Linebaugh writes, “The dissolution of the monasteries took place in 1536, a massive act of state-sponsored privatization. More than any other single act in the long history of the establishment of English private property, it made the English land a commodity.” (p 49)
The book traces how the Magna Carta and its principles of collective rights has fed legal and constitutional struggles that led to The Habeas Corpus Act (1679), the abolition of slavery in England (1807), the Declaration of Independence (1776), the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) and other important rights achievements. He also traces how peasants and working people fought for their rights to the commons through popular revolts in Germany (1548), England (1632), Mexico (the 1800’s) and the Unites States (1770’s).
How women were denied their rights as citizens in a process that is closely aligned to the competition over the commons, is highlighted. His commentary on women and jury duty for example, exposes the gap between constitutional icons and chauvinistic idolatry that have plagued women through the 20th century. “The devaluation of women’s work and the degradation of her body related directly to the enclosures of open fields, the loss of commons, and the depopulation of villages. Prostitution becomes the synecdoche for commodity production. She is a proletarian (she has “no external thing to lose”). She becomes prostituted and cheated simultaneously by the commodity.” (p.65)
With a rather sweeping generalized approach to finding cause and effect, the author progresses through history and writes about key formative moments. “At the dawn of modern capitalism in the sixteenth century, Magna Carta was ignored for two reasons. First the centralized monarchy of the Tudors tended to monopolize force, where the Magna Carta tended to hedge the power of the king. Second, in the sixteen century the commodity began to become the local, national and imperial form of economic accumulation, replacing the many forms of communing. But in the seventeenth century this changed, as Magna Carta took on its modern form – the protector of individual rights and free trade – just as private property (the legal form of commodity) was reconciled during the English Revolution with mixed forms of political power.” (p.171)
It is also an important contribution of this book, to note that the Magna Carta lost its essence in the USA as the founding fathers constructed the institutional means to colonize aboriginal land then commodify industrial labour. While treating the great charter as a constitutional icon, Linebaugh shows how the Magna Carta was idolized to the point that the “idol destroys what it purports to preserve.” (page 243)
If there is any deficiency in this book, it is the attention allotted to the linking of political advocacy in the 20th century to the contribution of the Magna Carta. There are many contemporary examples of people striving to regain the commons or collectively gaining their rights that could have been examined. In particular, I would have liked to read more about the process of economic globalization that has shunted the commons aside as corporate interests have succeeded in promoting finance capitalism and its required individualization. I think there could have been more written on how the foundations of western democracy, embedded in the principles of the Magna Carta, are being eroded by economic globalization and its undermining of sovereignty, unionization, social programs and the fair distribution of wealth and opportunity.
I think the book could have reflected on how progressive organizations (unions, non-governmental agencies, public interest organizations, community groups) around the world are fighting globalization and in effect promoting a return to principles of the commons. I think we need to expose and examine how corporate efforts to promote privatization (of public services and state enterprise), to downsize government (shift power to international bodies like the World Trade organization) and to open up natural resources to the power of the marketplace are taking private control of public assets, much like royalty had done for centuries. And the historical path of the development of human rights that has been laid out in the book, could also include some analysis of how communication technologies have redefined the commons and the ability of advocates to promote the principles of the Magna Carta.
However, for anyone engaged in the struggle to claim back public control over private interests – corporate, cultural, class, or state – this is an insightful book. For anyone trying to understand the process of achieving personal security in a world dominated by an ideology of ‘might is right’, this is useful reading. For people around the world seeking ways to protect our environment, guard our water or promote renewable energy, this is a basic resource. For those interested in situating the struggles of aboriginal people for their cultural and legal autonomy, to appreciating the value of the International Court, this is fundamental reading.
I found Linebaugh’s depiction of how human rights have developed instructive and oddly reassuring. This analysis helps clarify the progress, albeit slow and incremental, of human rights. This account exposes some of the frailties and frustrations that people have encountered and continue to encounter in social advocacy. And in a subtle way, this book creates its own commons, a historically and geographically unbounded collective of living and dead, who committed themselves to sharing the benefits of society in opposition to those who chose to concentrate those benefits in the hands of the few.

Dennis Lewycky
Winnipeg, CANADA
March 2009
words 1,200

Politics in the Park:

Winnipeg’s Victoria Park During the General Strike

by Anna Penner,  Balmoral Hall, Winnipeg

Manitoba History, Number 40, Autumn / Winter 2000-2001

The following essay was the winner of the Manitoba Historical Society’s 1999 Edward C. Shaw “Young Historians” Award.

Gray and empty, the old thermal power plant stands behind the Centennial Concert Hall. Each day hundreds of people drive past it, never even taking a second glance. It has been years since it operated, and today it stands waiting as the city decides what will happen with the land. However, beneath this desolate building, there was once a park which eighty-one years ago became the meeting place of thousands of workers fighting for their rights during The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Although today the park has been destroyed, sacrificed in the desire for more building space, it is important to remember what it was and what it stood for. This park was Victoria Park, and during the six weeks of the General Strike, it became a place where the striking workers and their supporters could speak and be heard.

Victoria Park had been part of Winnipeg since 1900, when it had been named in honour of Queen Victoria. Located at the end of James Street, near the Old Labour Temple and two blocks from City Hall, the park was carefully tended, and a popular place, particularly in summer. One day after the Winnipeg General Strike began officially at 11:00 A.M. on the 15^th of May, 1919, on the morning of May 16^th, this peaceful park was filled with thousands of workers, all listening as Reverend William Ivens spoke. William Ivens was a socialist, who had been a minister until he was expelled from the ministry because he would not accept the authority of the Church. He was a member of the Central Strike Committee, had founded the Labour Church and was also the editor of the Daily Strike Bulletin. In his first speech at the park, Reverend Ivens urged the workers riot to give up their fight, saying “If you will but stand firm for a short time, we will bring them cringing on their knees to you saying: ‘What shall we do to be saved?’” [1] He would repeat this message several times during the strike. In the six weeks of the Strike, every Sunday, Ivens would hold services of his Labour Church at the park. In these services news of the strike was relayed and prayers were said. Sounds of the workers singing the Labour Hymn could often be heard in Victoria Park: “When wilt thou save the people, Lord; O god of mercy, when?; The people, Lord, the people; Not crowns and thrones, but men.” [2] This was the prayer of the thousands of families who gathered in the park to listen and to hope for their victory.

Roger E. Bray speaks to a crowd of strikers at Victoria Park, 13 June, 1919.
Source: Foote Collection, Provincial Archives of Manitoba

The people who started the General Strike, were the workers of the Metal Trades Council. The employers had refused to bargain with the Union, and the metal trades workers felt this was unfair. They were also being denied their basic rights, such as a fair wage. They went on strike and asked other workers in other industries to strike with them out of sympathy. On May 6, the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, which represented the labour unions, took a vote to see whether or not they would support the workers and join the strike. Over eleven thousand voted to join the strike, and only five hundred had voted against. The Council set the beginning of the strike for 11 A.M. on Thursday, May 15^th. The first workers to leave their jobs were the telephone workers. They left work at 7:00 A.M., and were not replaced, but most of the workers stopped at 11:00 A.M., the time that had been set. The buses stopped running, the post office shut down, restaurants were abandoned by their employees, even elevators stopped. Between 25,000 and 30,000 workers in both the public and private sectors walked off their jobs. Winnipeg was without things such as mail, taxis newspapers, telegrams, telephones, janitor service, or barbers. At the beginning of the strike there was also no gasoline, milk or bread, and very little meat. The waterworks employees remained at work, with permission of the Strike Committee, but the water pressure was reduced, so as to provide only for basic necessities. The City stopped.

Because of the large number of workers participating in the strike, it was very hard to get information to all of them. The strike board produced their own newspaper, “The Daily Strike Bulletin,” however it was necessary for all the workers to meet. Victoria Park provided an ideal space for this, because of its space and location. Because it was located so close to downtown, it also provided a good point from which marches and parades could begin. Daily mass was held at the park, but it was not only to pray, but for the workers to join together in solidarity. The workers were told to keep off the streets; but it was warm and any excuse to get out of their homes was welcome. The meetings at Victoria P

ark, offered a good opportunity to do this. The meetings were open, and often instead of sermons, people heard discussions on what the workers deserved, and how long the strike could last. The speaking stages were make-shift, often little more than a wooden platform. People would speak from the back of pickup trucks, or from among the crowd. People would dress in good clothes, and entire families would come to the park. As the labourers listened to their leaders, children would enjoy the chance to play outside. These meetings were not only a social occasion; they were tremendously important both morally and organisationally.

On Sunday evening, May 25 a Labour Church meeting was held at the park. There were over 7,000 workers there, and they were angry. The government had issued an ultimatum; if the workers did not go back to work by 10:00 A.M. on May 26, they would be discharged, losing the rights to pension and forfeiting any rights of employment. The workers were also told that they would have to sign an agreement saying that they would never again take part in a sympathetic strike, and that they would sever all connections with the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council. On the morning of May 26, after the meeting in the park which had lasted for most of the night, of the 7000 employees present at the meeting, only 16 postal workers went back to work. It was this type of meeting at the park, which made the strikers informed and united, allowing the strike to continue despite threats and fear.

Victoria Park was also the place where the workers parades often began and ended. Because it was located only two blocks from City Hall, it was a perfect place in which to organise and rally.

It was not really until May 31, that the public demonstrations began. Soldiers returning home from the war had arrived to a state of social unrest, they saw the workers and government fighting and felt not enough was being done. Thousands of these former soldiers, along with many civilians, confronted Premier Norris on Friday May 31, demanding collective bargaining, so that the strike could come to a peaceful end. Around 2,000 managed to enter the Legislative Building, while about 10,000 more stood outside. Premier Norris however, felt that he could not take action, and instead advised the soldiers to remain calm and collected. The soldiers then marched to City Hall, to meet with Mayor Gray. He gave the soldiers similar advice, keep out of the fight and stay calm. Still not satisfied, the soldiers gathered in Victoria Park, having overturned a Coca-Cola wagon on the way. Here they discussed the events of the day, and what they felt should be done. This was just the first of many demonstrations that would congregate in Victoria Park, before or after their exhibitions. In fact, just two days later on Monday, June 2, another parade formed, starting in Victoria Park. This time they proceeded along Portage Avenue to the Legislative Building and once again they met with Premier Norris, but with the same unsatisfactory result as previously.

Crowd in Victoria Park during the General Strike, 1919.
Source: Foote Collection, Provincial Archives of Manitoba

On June 3 a parade formed again in Market Square, just behind the City Hall, but soon returned to nearby Victoria Park, where Roger E. Bray, a socialist who had become the spokesman for the returned soldiers, announced that the soldiers had met with the Premier also with unsatisfactory results. The parades became more and more outspoken, at times bordering on violent expression. On June 5, Mayor Gray had become increasingly alarmed at the possibility of trouble, issued the first proclamation forbidding parades, saying; “In virtue of the authority vested in me, I do hereby order that all persons do refrain from taking part in any parades.” [3] The proclamation had stopped the parades temporarily, and on June 7, the Mayor addressed a large meeting in Victoria Park.

Although the parades may have instilled confidence, they had also gone against the strike committee’s policy of inaction, and throughout the rest of the strike, order was never really re-established, and there were increasing signs of an approaching crisis. Tension was rising on both sides, and the public was becoming irritated with what seemed like a long, drawn out battle. On June 10 people began to grow violent. A crowd formed around the corner of Portage and Main and started to jeer at and push two people who had been on guard at the intersection. Many other temporary soldiers, recruited to keep order during the strike came to control the mob, however, the crowd retaliated with sticks and stones. Some of the soldiers suffered broken bones.

Mayor Gray tried to reason with the crowd, but the anger felt during the strike was mounting. At the same time, a large parade was being formed in Victoria Park, presumably with the intention of moving to Portage and Main. Mayor Gray managed to locate the leaders of this parade, and told them, under the threat of force, to cancel the parade. The parade was canceled, but the crowd on Main Street did not disperse until after 6 o’clock in the evening. An article in the Free Press the next day called the actions of the protesters “murderous assaults by riotous aliens,” [4] and the Tribune called the protesters “enemy ruffians.” [5] These reports are said to have destroyed any remaining chance for success, but the strikers did not give up hope yet.

Thursday June 12 was ‘Ladies Day’ at the Soldiers Parliament in Victoria Park. Women strikers, and the families of strikers sat in the seats near to the central platform, while the male strikers stood at the rear. Several prominent strikers spoke, including Roger Bray, F. J. Dixon, and J. S. Woodsworth, who was later to become the founder of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the precursor to the NDP. Later that evening a Labour Church meeting was held in the park. A band opened the services, and familiar hymns were sung. This was to be the last truly peaceful meeting at the park.

Shortly after midnight on the morning of June 17, a frantic woman phoned the Chief of Police, Chris Newton. The North-West Mounted Police had permission to arrest her husband, George Armstrong, who was one of the leaders of the strike. The police chief said he could do nothing, there was a warrant. The plan to arrest the strike leaders had been created mainly by two men, Senator Gideon Robertson, the Federal Minister of Labour and A. J. Andrews, a prominent Winnipeg lawyer and head of the Committee of One Thousand, an anti-strike group of many business people and professionals. Warrants were issued so that all leaders of the strike could be arrested and confined. George Armstrong was one of these leaders. He was taken to Stony Mountain Penitentiary that June morning. William Ivens and R. B. Russell were two of the other strike leaders arrested. For the strike leaders, and for most of Winnipeg, these arrests came as a surprise. Later that morning a meeting was held at Victoria Park, which was filled with emotion and anger, but the strike had lost its leaders, and was losing its strength. Sympathy strikes were being held in many parts of Canada, but the arrests of the strike leaders meant that these strikes would not continue for long. Those who were anti-strike knew the impact this would have. On June 19^th Prime Minister Robert Borden sent a message to Senator Robertson saying “warmest congratulations upon your masterly handling of a very difficult and complicated situation.” [6] Bail was granted to the leaders on June 20, but only on the condition that they would take no further part in the strike.

By this time, most of the strikers had agreed to go back to work, but there was to be one final battle. This came mainly not from the Strike Committee, who feared further arrests, but from the soldiers. The soldiers met in Market Square on the evening of June 20, and decided to have a silent parade the next day. On Saturday June 21, this parade, which became the final riot was held. This day has become known as “Bloody Saturday.” Mayor Gray had renewed the ban on Parades, saying that the civic authorities have “absolutely committed themselves to the breaking up of any demonstrations.” He also warned that “any women taking part in a parade do so at their own risk.” Even these threats were not enough to stop the final parade from taking place. Early that Saturday morning many of the leaders of the strike including William Ivens, Robert Russell, John Queen, A. A. Heaps, George Armstrong, and Roger Bray were released on bail. A final meeting between the leaders of both sides failed to produce a cancellation of the demonstration, which was set to begin at 2:30 that afternoon. Crowds began to form along Main Street between City Hall and Portage Avenue. Mayor Gray requested emergency assistance from the Mounted Police. The crowds of strikers and supporters collided with the group of North-West Mounted Police, Bloody Saturday had begun.

Crowd at Victoria Park during the General Strike, 1919.
Source: Foote Collection, Provincial Archives of Manitoba

The mounted officers rode into the crowd on Main Street, swinging baseball bats. Mayor Gray read the Riot Act on the steps of City Hall, but the riot continued. At this point the police drew their guns and fired into the crowd. It is still unknown whether the strikers or the police fired first, but it is known that two civilians died. Mike Sokolowiski, who was a tinsmith, died instantly, and Steve Schezerbanowes would die later as a result of gangrene from gunshot wounds. The fighting continued, and became most violent in a place called “Hell’s Alley,” which ran between Market Avenue and James Avenue. Here twenty-seven people were injured. Before the riot was over, there had been ninety-four arrests, and hundreds of minor injuries. The workers were unable to fight the government any more, and the Winnipeg General Strike came to an end.

The next day a meeting was held in Victoria Park, but this one was filled not with prayers for success, but mourning for the dead and for the loss of the strike. Meetings were still held in the park, but they had lost their force, now they were just meetings to discuss the imminent end to the strike. On June 24 the Western Labour News which had done so much to rally and guide the strike was banned. On the same day, the authorities heard that another parade was being formed in Victoria Park, and the park was closed. Mayor Gray and the soldiers stood by, watching the 400 people present in the park at that time file out.

Two days later on June 26 at 11:00 A.M., the strike was officially called off. The metal workers returned to work, without a pay increase, while the telephone workers had to reapply for their jobs. These telephone workers were denied seniority protection, and were only rehired after pledging that they would never again take part in a sympathetic strike. In the end, 119 telephone workers, 403 postal employees and 53 firemen were denied a return to work. The efforts of the workers had not succeeded, at least at that time.

Despite the seeming failure of the strike, it has managed to change the working conditions in Winnipeg. Since 1919 many issues have been discussed and fought over, with different results, but workers have found power and strength. The courage that the workers displayed during the Winnipeg General Strike is something that will not be forgotten, because the workers finally fought the unfair treatment to which so many people, both in Winnipeg and around the world are subject to. Some see the strike as a riot filled with disorder, but others see it as a call for independence, equality and fairness. Whichever way we choose to see the strike, we cannot deny that it played a huge role in the history of Winnipeg, as did Victoria Park. Now, 81 years later a thermal plant covers the land where the workers stood, and it is time to question whether, as we built over and forgot Victoria Park, did we also forget what the workers had fought for? The effects of the strike can still be felt today, but very rarely is proper tribute paid to those who effected these changes. We have entered a new millennium, and it is a time for growth and change, but it is also a time to remember what so many of our parents and grandparents struggled for. The land that was once Victoria Park is now to be transformed again, but today its fate remains undecided, it is in the hands of the highest bidder. Perhaps the land will become the site for an apartment block, or office towers, or maybe one day another park will stand in its place, including a museum of Labour History in Manitoba. A park such as this would not only be a place where a new generation could voice their opinions and ideals, but also a tribute to the people who have changed and molded the history of Manitoba and all of Canada risking all they had worked for to do so.

Many places were important in the strike, but Victoria Park was the central place where workers came together with one strong voice. It would become a symbol of justice, equality and extreme bravery, and would later be renamed Liberty Park. Although today it has been destroyed, the memory of the voices of the workers fighting for their rights in the park still sounds clear; “When wilt thou save the people, Lord; O god of mercy, when? The people, Lord, the people; Not crowns and thrones, but men.”

Notes

1. Preliminary Hearing: The King vs. William Ivens et al., testimony of William E. Davies.

2. The Labour Hymn.

3. Excerpt from the Riot Act.

4. Manitoba Free Press, June 11, 1919.

5. Western Labour News, June 11, 1919.

6. Robert Borden, Ibid., June 19, 1919.

Bibliography

Bumsted, J. M., The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. An Illustrated History, Winnipeg Watson and Dwyer Publishing, 1994.

Masters, D. C., The Winnipeg General Strike, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950.

The 1997 Canadian Encyclopedia Plus, CD ROM, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1997.

http://timelinks.merlin.mb.ca

Still Images Section, Provincial Archives Manitoba, Winnipeg

Archives and Special Collections, University of Manitoba.

Victoria Park Remains Contested Territory

Ninety years ago, the competition between public rights and private property erupted into the 1919 General Strike, when the trades unions confronted employers over their right to bargain collectively for wages. While the face of this competition has changed over the decades and today it is not nearly as climactic, the opposing forces are still competing over Victoria Park.

Very likely, most Winnipeggers don’t even know where Victoria Park was located. The Park was one of Winnipeg’s three major parks, bought in 1893 and designed as meeting places for Winnipeg’s rapidly growing working families. It is where a new condominium development is now being constructed on Waterfront Drive, between Amy, James, and Pacific Streets.

It became a significant meeting point during the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, as the Labour Temple located two blocks west on James Street was too small to hold the crowds that came out to take part in this dramatic event. This is where the Strikers met every day to get reports on negotiations with the City and to plan the day’s events.

After the Strike, City Council sold the this plot of land to Winnipeg Hydro to build a steam heating plant – an act that can only be seen as official revenge. The steam plant was decommissioned in 1990 and demolished a few years later. Then City Council approved the plan to build a condominium complex on the land in 2004, sealing its fate – the land would never be used for public purposes again.

Last year, a small group of labour and community individuals under the auspices of the Winnipeg Labour Council responded to a call from the City of Winnipeg for “expressions of interest” to develop the area around the Alexander Docks, immediately to the east of where Victoria Park was. The group offered the City a way to retain the historical significance of the area.

They proposed a commemorative monument for the area around the Docks, they called “A Place to Rendezvous and Remember”. The proposal was for a virtual museum, commemorative band shell and amphitheatre, café, parking area and landscaping that would extend Juba Park up to the Scots monument. Their efforts followed a City Planning exercise for North Main in 1997 that recommended a commemoration of the 1919 Strike and the allocation of funds to develop the Park as a historic site.

The 2008 proposal was encouraged by officials in the Planning and Property Development Department, who then rejected all proposals at the last moment. Another proposal to build a river ecology interpretive centre and office building was also initially encouraged and then rejected.  Both proposals were made to the Standing Policy Committee on Property Development in March last year, but were again rejected.

Instead, Centre Venture was instructed to try and to get the two competing proponents to merge their proposals. The two groups made efforts to do so and were prepared to work together towards a modified proposal that would integrate both historical and ecological themes. However it seems that officials were really not interested in either of these proposals, and were actively courting another potential partner with a proposal that had not participated in the call for Expressions of Interest. This third party and proposal had a more commercial concept in mind for the area and one that could therefore generate more revenue than the other two proposals.

Senator Rod Zimmer and another unnamed group came forward with a plan for a $10 million restaurant and banquet hall development for the Docks area. However, by December of last year he was unable to secure the financing required and lost the option on the land. Instead of coming back to the two parties who had sound ideas for the land, City Council once again announced they were looking for private sector development partners.

Today Victoria Park exists at www.victoriapark1919.ca. It is a virtual Park, but the internet site is trying to be what the original park was for the people of Winnipeg – a place for people to meet and exchange views. The site is being maintained by people who believe it is important to have public places to exhibit a people’s history, to remember the contribution of common working people to the development of this city, and to be able to express their views and insights about what is happening in the city and in the world around them.

The fact that the Park is not a physical location is significant though, as it retains a place in the ongoing competition over land as a public versus private asset. Victoria Park is no longer a geographic part of Winnipeg, but it is a part of the competition between those who believe in retaining public access and control of property versus those who want to parcel out property to individual interests. Victoria Park may never be mentioned in City Hall, but it is present whenever elected and hired officials plan to sell off city property or when they propose private companies take over ownership of public infrastructure.

The thinking in City Hall today seems reminiscent of what guided the officials in 1919 – that private interests should lead public interests (ironically, it was other Winnipeg City Councils that pioneered the provision of many public services at the turn of the century – garbage collection, water, electricity and gas). The Mayor and most of the Councillors seems to think that private profit is a greater motivator and guarantor of public services, than city government under the watchful eye of elected officials. The current City regime has contracted out, sold off or given away assets of the City in the guise of seeking efficient and cost effective services. They have ignored offers of help from individuals and organizations who seek public benefit rather than private profit, and thus they may have been able to destroy Victoria Park, but they can not destroy the will of those seeking to protect the assets that should be kept public.

April  2009

THE ANSON NORTHUP

by George Siamandas

On May 19, 1859 the Anson Northup became the first steamboat to successfully launch on the Red River reaching Fort Garry on June 10. It arose out of a sense of opportunity that St Paul Minnesota businessmen saw in the Red River district and the Canadian North West. They were encouraged by the Hudson Bay company’s interest in pursuing this American route over their traditional Hudson Bay route. In January 1859 the St Paul Chamber of Commerce offered $1,000 to whoever could put the first riverboat on the Red and get it to Fort Garry. When the prize was raised to $2,000 Captain Anson Northup took on the challenge.

RIVER TRANSPORTATION ON THE RED

For centuries the aboriginals had used the rivers for transportation and so did the fur traders. Prior to this north south route most traffic had been through Hudson Bay. But by the 1840s well developed cart trails were active between red River and St Paul. By 1856 half the goods reaching Red River came through St Paul. Brigades of Red River carts were bringing up machinery for a textile mill and agricultural equipment like reapers and mowers. The emerging system of the railroad, the steamship and then the red river cart proved more efficient than the HBC’s Hudson Bay route. Even the HBC saw these benefits and began to be supportive of this north south route. The challenge was out to replace the red river cart with steamboats on the Red as they had been active on the Mississippi since the 1820s.

THE ANSON NORTHUP ORIGINS

It was actually comprised of parts of an earlier boat called the North Star that had been dismantled the previous winter at Crow Wing on the Mississippi. Thirty men worked with 13 yokes of oxen and 17 teams of horses to drag the machinery and fresh lumber the 150 mile distance over the winter’s snows. It was reassembled at LaFayette on the mouth the Sheyene River on the Red and renamed the Anson Northup and launched on May 19, 1859 just as the flood waters were receding. It was 90 feet long and had a beam of 20 feet. It was powered by a one hundred horsepower engine. It was modest example of a riverboat looking much like a house boat with a smoke stack and the paddle wheel on the stern. Only on the second level was there room for a deck. The entire first deck went for the storage of wood, much of which was cut as the boat travelled north along the river.

It was truly a voyage of enterprise, and the ship was not lacking in enterprising individuals who wanted to get in on the ground floor of what would later become a boom town. Among the group of first arrivals was the man noted for having begun the corner of Portage and Main and that was Henry McKenny. McKenny went on to introduce lumbering in the 1870s.

RIVER TRAVEL ON THE RED

It had its ups and owns. The Red is a shallow river with many bends. The 1860s the first decade of operation were noted as very low river levels making it a challenge to make it to Fort Garry. Along with problems with the Indians in 1861 and 1862 this early venture had its growing pains. Through the 1870s steamships proliferated. Many immigrants came to Winnipeg in that decade. But the competition and coming of the railroad meant the end of these ships. By the end of the 1870s a period of less than 20 years, the steamboat era on the Red was over. Ironically a steamship brought the first locomotive to St Boniface in 1878.

After refurbishment in Nettley Creek the ship was sold to Burbanks and then to Hudson Bay Co in 1861. Unfortunately it sank that year at Cooks Creek just as winter was coming on. Parts were salvaged and its engine is thought to have gone on to power a flour mill at St Francois Xavier.