One of the biggest attractions of Doors Open Winnipeg, the annual tour of significant city buildings, will not be open to the public this year.
Doors Open Winnipeg preview
The Vaughan Street jail, known for period-costumed tour guides who lead groups on trips back through time, will keep its doors closed next Saturday and Sunday, when the Heritage Winnipeg event is held for the fifth time. A recent engineer's report led the province to claim safety concerns and opt out this year.
History buff and recent graduate Chris Madden designed a Doors Open Winnipeg tour around the college's downtown campus.
But organizers are hoping a revamped tour at the Red River College Princess Street campus, which has been on the Doors Open itinerary since the event was first held in 2004, along with the opening up of some buildings to the public for the first time and an expanded theatrical tour of Government House, will make up for the loss of the jail.
Chris Madden, a recent Red River College graduate, created the new tour of the school's Princess Street campus for this year.
"I'm the guy who goes for a bike ride and stops to read all the historical plaques I see," says Madden.
The collection of 100-year-old building façades that developers saved when the college built its downtown campus make up Winnipeg's oldest remaining streetscape. Attending school there inspired Madden to develop the tour as his graduation-year independent project, required of all the school's Creative Communications students.
"The whole Exchange District is named for the building where we eat our lunch -- the original Winnipeg Grain and Produce Exchange," says Madden. He says that because of the history of the buildings and the work done to restore them, "the campus is a world-renowned landmark, and I really want it to get a lot of attention for being what it is."
Over the past year, Madden consulted libraries, city heritage officials, and staff at city and provincial archives. Local historical writer Randy Rostecki helped him, and Glen Gross at Corbett Cibinel Architects provided Madden with access to that firm's archival material on the Princess Street buildings they helped renovate.
The strength of Madden's 45-minute, 22-stop tour rests on details. The second stop draws attention to wood planks in the ceiling to explain the intricacies of millwork construction; stop 16 shows partitions that mark where brick walls once separated the five buildings that comprise the campus; stop 19 identifies an elevator door through which flames burst during a 1924 New Year's Day fire that burned for nearly 24 hours.
"I want to get an appreciation of why things are the way they are," Madden says, explaining his love of heritage facts and stories.
Guides at the Princess Street campus will offer tours departing several times per hour next weekend. With 14 volunteer guides over two days, Madden expects the tour to run up to 96 times.
Cindy Tugwell, Heritage Winnipeg's executive director, praises Madden for the work he has done on the campus tour.
"We depend on building stakeholders getting excited about Doors Open," says Tugwell, who describes the event as a partnership between the owners and the public, the stewards and the fans of participating buildings. "And I'm really excited that it's a graduate of the school taking the lead in this."
Tugwell saw her Doors Open planning time squeezed this year by the need to work on the preservation of the historic site at the Upper Fort Garry gate. That is again a tour stop again this year; new Doors Open attractions include the Ukrainian Labor Temple and the Customs Exchange House downtown, and the Winnipeg Police Museum in St. James.
"And Government House is back for the whole weekend," she says. Last year, when Heritage Winnipeg convinced the Lieutenant Governor to open his house for one day, the site hosted visitors who came all day despite the rain.
"The Lieutenant Governor loved it," says Tugwell. Next weekend, the house will open for the Saturday and Sunday tours, with guides in early 20th-century gowns and suits greeting visitors under garden tents, where they can all snack on lemonade and cookies.
"People love having a peek at these places," says Tugwell, who is looking forward to busy days at all 40 sites taking part in this year's event. "It's a gigantic open house to promote the city."
Playwright Danny Schur is also taking part in this year's event. The composer of Strike! The Musical will share details about the life of Mike Sokolowski, the Ukrainian immigrant killed during the culmination of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, during a walking tour that begins at Winnipeg's city hall courtyard and goes to the former Manitoba Hotel and "Hell's Alley."
For a complete list of buildings to see around the city and tour schedules, see the Doors Open Winnipeg website at: www.doorsopenwinnipeg.ca
ian.tizzard@freepress.mb.ca
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