St Boniface Cathedral - Winnipeg, MB
Posted by: 
elyob
N 49° 53.350 W 097° 07.340
14U E 634871 N 5527998
There is no parking on site.
Waymark Code: WM12NQH
Location: Manitoba, Canada
Date Posted: 06/23/2020
Views: 6
I had been sent to the
Centre du patrimoine for a few days of research concerning Métis history. That week there allowed me to spend quality time on site at the cathedral. The grounds of the cathedral are also part of this heritage status. The cemetery here is the oldest and most significant Catholic cemetery in Western Canada.
DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE
St. Boniface Cathedral, composed of the stone ruins of a 1905-08 basilica implanted with a smaller 1972 church, is located in the heart of St. Boniface, Winnipeg's French district. The provincial designation applies to the cathedral and the grounds it occupies, including the historic cemetery.
HERITAGE VALUE
St. Boniface Cathedral was the largest and most elaborate Roman Catholic cathedral in Western Canada, as well as the best example of French Romanesque architecture in Manitoba. Although ravaged by fire in 1968, the cathedral's ruins remain an excellent example of the style, typified by round-arched openings and classical detailing. Designed by Montreal architects Marchand and Haskell, this was the third cathedral (and fifth church) built on the site where in 1818 Father Joseph-Norbert Provencher established the first permanent Roman Catholic mission west of the Great Lakes. Situated across the Red River from the Hudson's Bay Company's trading post, Provencher's facility became the nucleus of francophone St. Boniface and of Roman Catholic missionary activity in the Red River Settlement and beyond to the Pacific and Arctic coasts. In 1972 a church designed by Franco-Manitoban architect Etienne Gaboury was opened within the remains of the 1908 basilica. The complex juxtaposes old and new, with the basilica's heavy limestone facade, sacristy and walls providing a base for the modern building of wood, glass and weathering brown steel. This site also holds one of Western Canada's oldest and most historically significant Roman Catholic cemeteries.
Source: Manitoba Heritage Council Minutes, June 12, 1993