Downtown Christmas lights display dates back nearly a century

Winnipeg

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/12/2023 (641 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The tradition of a coordinated downtown Christmas lights display on Main Street and Portage Avenue began in 1929 when the Winnipeg Board of Trade, the forerunner to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, polled its downtown members to see if they were interested in paying a small levy to create “a spirit of cheer and good-will throughout the city.”

Despite the onset of the Depression, its members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the idea and the Board purchased spruce boughs intertwined with lights that hung between street lamps along the sidewalks of Main Street, between City Hall and Graham Avenue, and Portage Avenue, between Main Street and Memorial Boulevard. Winnipeg Hydro provided a discounted electrical rate and the Manitoba Electrical Association paid for strings of lights that crossed over the street.

The lights were a great success but there was no repeat of the program in 1930 due to a severe drought that caused electricity shortages in the city. They returned the following year, and when the Board of Trade discontinued the program in 1933 due to the economic pressures of the Depression, the city stepped in to ensure the tradition continued until sometime during the Second World War.

Downtown’s Christmas lights were revived for a new generation in 1956 by the Downtown Business Association and Winnipeg Hydro. Decorations consisted of illuminated spruce trees, wreaths, and painted signs depicting Christmas scenes that ran along the newly established centre medians on Portage Avenue and Main Street that were created when the streetcar system was abandoned.

The first “curlicues,” a decoration that many Winnipeggers will fondly remember, were purchased by the Downtown Business Association in 1959.

The curlicues were strings of lights long enough to cross over the entirety of Portage Avenue and Main Street. Each string contained around 1,000 bulbs that took the shapes of stars, snowflakes, and spirals. The lights did double duty in Winnipeg’s centennial year of 1974 when the bulbs in the spirals and snowflakes were changed to blue and gold, the city’s colours, and remained up for the entire year.

A new era came in 1999 when the curlicues were retired in favour of more efficient LED lighting.

The city’s current arsenal of downtown Christmas lights consists of 750 figures, such as elves, poinsettias, snowflakes, and angels, that mount to lamp posts. There are also five animated vignettes that line the centre meridians of Main Street and Portage Avenue made from nearly eight kilometres of LED rope lighting.

Though the downtown lights display has changed greatly in appearance over the decades, it continues to remind Winnipeggers that the holiday season is just around the corner.