Literary, Architectural, And Popular Approaches to the History of Winnipeg (Review Essay) (Essay‪)‬

Even before Winnipeg had celebrated its first decade of existence Alexander Begg and Walter Nursey had already begun the process of telling the story of the city(1)--and thirteen decades later there is no sign that the propensity for writing books on Winnipeg's past is declining, as witnessed by the success of such recent works as Jim Blanchard's Winnipeg, 1912 and David Arnason and Mahri Mackintosh (eds.) The Imagined City: A Literary History of Winnipeg. However, with only a few notable exceptions, ever since the spate of publications associated with Winnipeg's centennial celebrations in 1974 and Alan Artibise's 1977 contribution to the History of Canadian Cities series, (2) precious little attention has been paid to Winnipeg in the years following the Depression. Thus, it is refreshing to come across a number of works that deal almost exclusively with this more recent period of Winnipeg's history. At first glance the three works examined in this essay would seem to have little in common. The first, Russ Gourluck's Going Downtown: A History of Winnipeg's Portage Avenue, is patently a work of popular history on what he describes as the "golden age" (1930-1980) of Winnipeg's retail and entertainment district. The second, Winnipeg Modern: Architecture 1945-1975, is a collection of essays that are primarily academic examinations of Winnipeg's modernist "built environment" and the architects whose vision helped to transform the cityscape during this crucial thirty-year period. The third and final work under consideration, The Winnipeg Connection: Writing Lives at Mid-Century, is a compilation of critical commentaries and literary pieces pertaining to, or emanating from, Winnipeg (in one way or another) in the middle of the twentieth century. But aside from the obvious sharing of a temporal framework, all three are also marked by a genuine and often unabashed affection for Winnipeg. Still, this is less important than their shared focus upon Winnipeg during a period of profound change: a time when the very shape and form of the city was being altered and when new social, intellectual, and economic trends were creating and recreating Winnipeg's collective identity.