Explore Osborne Village! immerses kids in neighbourhood

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This article was published 09/04/2021 (1960 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Osborne Village is being added to a suite of tours aimed at helping kids notice the buildings and history in Winnipeg neighbourhoods.

The Winnipeg Architecture Foundation is working with artist Kaj Hasselriis on their latest children’s activity guide project, Explore Osborne Village!, joining previously published neighbourhood booklets about Broadway, The Forks, the Exchange District and more.

“I love this area. I can imagine the buildings as old friends, talking to each other,” Hasselriis said on a sunny spring day recently in Osborne Village. “It has such wonderful, historical things going on here. For example, the Gas Station Theatre used to be a gas station. It started in 1914 with just one pump, as many people didn’t own cars at the time.”

Hasselriis drew an 11-by-17 inch colour map showing Osborne Village from the Assiniboine River south to Confusion Corner, and featuring familiar neighbourhood icons such as the Evergreen Towers, the castle-like Roslyn Apartments, the steeple of Augustine United Church and the clock on the top of the Osborne Village Courtyard building at the corner of River and Osborne.

He then sprinkled it with all sorts of fun icons showing food and murals, sports fields and Pride flags, Canadian flags and friendly trees. “I like to say my art is ‘screen-free’ in that I draw using a pencil, then ink it with a sharpie and colour it with markers from Artists’ Emporium,” he said. “As you can see, I’m into bright colours.”

In comparison to the map Hasselriis drew for the Explore Central Park! children’s activity guide, the Osborne Village map is massive. “My biggest challenge was the scale of the neighbourhood. The buildings have such character. I walked around the neighbourhood, deciding how to capture things. I knew I wanted as many of the buildings on the map as I could fit.”

The other children’s activity guides feature scavenger hunt-style questions. For example, the Explore Central Park! map gets kids to look for the animal featured on the Waddell Fountain.

“The Osborne map has so much on it, because there’s so much going on in the Village,” Hasselriis said. “I didn’t have room for speech bubbles on the map, so the questions for the kids will go among the descriptions of the buildings,” he said, adding sample questions might run along the lines of, “Look at the three towers on Evergreen Place. Which one is different?”

Hasselriis said a lot of the fun of making this guidebook was delving into the history of the area. “Osborne started as a fairly rich area, with businessmen building these large mansions, many of which lasted through the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike and the Great Depression. Many got demolished or chopped up into suites inside, but you can still see them,” he said. “When I was walking around, I noticed a giant green Buddha on a mural I’d never paid attention to before. There are so many little things that pop out when you’re paying attention. Kids love that kind of detail.”

Along with getting kids and their guardians exploring the neighbourhood, Hasselriis is hoping local businesses will print the map and put it up on their walls. “The last trip I did before the pandemic hit was a backpacking trip in West Africa. The last stop was in Saint-Louis in Senegal. Someone had drawn a cartoon map of the town and distributed it. I love the idea of seeing maps on the walls, so I’d love to see the community put this one up.”

The goal of the activity guide series is to get children engaged in looking at buildings and other aspects of their surroundings, said Susan Algie, executive director of the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation (WAF).

“Each guide has a write-up about the notable buildings in the area, with facts that children would find interesting,” she said. “The guides invite children to explore their neighbourhoods and be creative, too, by drawing their favourite buildings.”

Algie said the foundation, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the awareness and appreciation of Winnipeg’s built environment, received a $5,000 Winnipeg Wellness Grant from Coun. Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) toward the production of the Explore Osborne Village! guide.

The Explore Osborne Village! An architecture tour for kids guide will be available on the WAF website at www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/kids/ in a downloadable PDF in English, French, Tagalog and Ojibwe.