How St. Vital’s Sunset Boulevard got its name

What’s in a street name?

It appears my recent columns on how St. Vital Street names came to be have sparked a lot of interest.

Sheila Rodgers, who now lives in Lethbridge, Alta., wrote to remind me that Sunset Boulevard was a name suggested by her father, Wally Munroe, a First World War veteran. Raised in Portage la Prairie, Munroe was wounded twice in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917. Shortly after taking up residence on Crystal Avenue West, Munroe learned that St. Vital was about to rename roadways west of St. Mary’s and since he liked to paint watercolours, especially of sunsets, he submitted the name Sunset Boulevard.

Sheila and her brothers, Lorne and Gilbert, dropped by the St. Vital Museum in June 2008 to check out their father’s First World War Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders dress uniform. The siblings hadn’t been together as a group since 1975.

Lorne left the family’s Cunnington Avenue home when he was 12 to study the cello. Like his father in the First World War, the younger Munroe was wounded twice during the Second World War, during the landing at Anzio, Italy.

In 2008, he retired after a 32-year career as principal cellist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

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The St. Vital Museum has added a birch bark canoe and a Red River cart to its display collection.

The canoe has been on display for a couple of years but the cart was only added recently. It comes with a storied history of how Métis traders and hunters earned a living in the 1800s.

Owner Satch Dheilly needed eight months to build the cart for the 2002 World Indigenous Games here in Winnipeg. In 2003, the cart was driven by Floyd Lépine from the Métis grave yard at Pembina, N.D., to Santa Clara, Man., a journey that took a month. The following year, the cart was part of a commemorative journey to Batoche, Sask.

The cart and canoe are on display at the St. Vital Museum, Tuesday through Saturday, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The museum now offers tours in French and English.

Bob Holliday is a community correspondent for St. Vital. Email him at docholliday90@me.com