Collapsed walkway at Fort Gibraltar will be dismantled By: Tyler Searle Posted: 1:05 PM CDT Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023 Last Modified: 4:19 PM CDT Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023 Updates

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This article was published 05/10/2023 (1101 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Festival du Voyageur will dismantle and reconfigure parts of the Fort Gibraltar historic site, in the wake of the dramatic collapse of an elevated platform in May that injured a group of schoolchildren and a teacher.

During the non-profit organization’s annual general meeting Wednesday, festival president Eric Plamondon announced plans to tear down the fort’s walls and walkways.

“We won’t (reopen) until we’re in a place where we have full assurance and full confidence that the site is safe and secure,” he told the Free Press Thursday.

“And with the knowledge that we’ve acquired, we believe that one of the major steps that gets us there is the dismantling of the palisade. … Since the incident — and even before — we’ve been gathering information from different sources because our top priority is to make sure the site continues to be used and valuable.”

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The popular historic site and museum in Whittier Park has remained closed since May 31, when two sections of an elevated platform collapsed, sending 28 people crashing to the ground from a distance of approximately six metres. Seventeen Grade 5 students from St. John’s-Ravenscourt School and one adult had to be hospitalized.

The parents of one child, who was badly injured, filed a lawsuit in August against the City of Winnipeg, which owns the site, and the francophone festival, which operates it.

Plamondon could not provide specifics about the cost or timeline of the project, except to say efforts to remove the walls will begin soon and are expected to be complete before the annual Festival du Voyageur in February.

Tearing down the walls also presents an opportunity to de-colonize the fort, which the festival built in 1978 as a replica of two earlier fur-trading forts of the same name. The organization intends to redevelop the site with a new configuration after the 2024 festival, pending consultations with community members and stakeholders. he said.

“We are looking to reinvest in the site in a way that hasn’t been done in a really long time,” he said. “To re-engage in how the whole site can be configured for the deployment of culture, art and history. … Let’s put all that knowledge and understanding (together) … and see what the next iteration of that site can offer us.”

Plamondon would not comment on the lawsuit.

“I do hope there’s a time we will be able to comment,” he said. “We are a community-based organization and our values are transparency and authenticity, so as much as we can say, when we can say it, we will be there and we will do so.”

Plamondon described the fort as a place of cultural, provincial and national importance, and said he looks forward to the upcoming festival.

The event will help replenish the non-profit’s assets, which were diminished in the last fiscal year. The organization recorded a deficit of roughly $280,000 brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and risings inflation rates, Plamondon said.

Festival du Voyageur is not alone in its struggle, said Derrek Bentley, vice-president of the Société de la francophonie manitobaine.

“It offered a very unique venue within the city that I do feel like couples and photographers are losing with the dismantling of the walls, which are the biggest part of the fort.”–Destiny Gulewich

“There are lots of other non-profits facing similar situations,” Bentley said by phone. “Festival has been a pillar of the francophone community and Manitoba in general for over 50 years now, so I think following the different announcements they had to make last night was really just a show of support that the community … is there to rally around them in support.”

The prolonged closure of the fort has impacted finances as well, cutting into rental revenues typically generated by weddings and events.

Gibraltar Dining Corp., a catering service that has leased space within the venue for more than a decade, was forced to relocate to the St. Norbert Arts Centre.

Owner Shawn Brandson attended the meeting Wednesday night, but declined to comment on the news when reached by the Free Press. He was not consulted regarding the decision and is waiting to hear when the fort will reopen, he said.

“There’s nothing else like (Fort Gibraltar) in Winnipeg, and I would go so far as to say maybe in the province,” said Destiny Gulewich, a professional photographer who has documented five weddings at the fort.

“At first, no one wanted to hear that news. The fort has been consistently a key part of festival, but at the same time, especially with everything that’s happened, whatever needs to be done to ensure that everyone can stay safe and in security at all times — that’s what needs to be most important.”–Derrek Bentley

“It offered a very unique venue within the city that I do feel like couples and photographers are losing with the dismantling of the walls, which are the biggest part of the fort.”

The weathered wood enclosed the space, making it feel exclusive and creating an ideal backdrop for photographs — it will be difficult to replicate the atmosphere elsewhere, Gulewich said.

“I’m excited to see what (Festival du Voyageur) comes up with because it could be really amazing, but I do think they are going to have to very carefully marry anything new they put in, given the historic nature of the other buildings,” she said. “Modernizing it needs to be done tastefully.”

While the plan to remove the walls also came as a shock to Bentley, he supports the decision.

“At first, no one wanted to hear that news. The fort has been consistently a key part of (the) festival, but at the same time, especially with everything that’s happened, whatever needs to be done to ensure that everyone can stay safe and in security at all times — that’s what needs to be most important.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.