Perhaps nowhere has a village so suddenly sprung up into a city as at Winnipeg, which first obtained notoriety by the advent of Lord Garnet Wolseley, then a young man, who came to suppress the rebellion raised there by a half-breed of the name of Riel, a daring young French Canadian, wily as a savage, brilliant and energetic. In 1870 he appealed to the prejudices and fears of the half-breeds, and in a few days had 400 men at his back. Owing to the clemency—perhaps mistaken—of his captors, Riel escaped the punishment due to his crimes. In 1873 he was enrolled as a member of Parliament, notwithstanding that at one time a reward of 5,000 dollars had been offered for his apprehension as a murderer.
The name of Winnipeg was then little known outside Manitoba. It was built by traders, who wished to rival Fort Garrey, then the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and to carry on a free trade on their own account. After the suppression of the rebellion, Manitoba had a local Parliament, which met at Winnipeg, and also sent its representatives to the Dominion Parliament. The place grew rapidly, though even at that time Mr. Mackenzie, Sir John Macdonald’s political opponent, declared that a cart track was good enough for Manitoba for many years to come. In 1875 the total population was 3,031 assessed and 2,000 non-assessed, which was a pretty respectable increase, considering that in 1869 there were hardly a hundred settlers in the place. As late as 1876 the sport of wolf-hunting was carried on by several of the inhabitants just outside the city. Now it has churches, banks, schools, manufactures, and mercantile men of great energy and high standing; and has become, especially since the Pacific Railway Company has made it one of their great stations, the gateway of the North-West. Settlers came crowding in from all quarters, and in ten months, in 1878, 600,592 acres of land were located. In 1879 Winnipeg boasted of a street extension of 83 miles, and then came the bridge over the Red River to render the town easy of access to all new-comers. Intoxicated with success, what the Americans call a ‘boom’ was created a year or two since, which seemed to have made everyone lose his wits. There was no end to speculation in town lots; merchants, tradesmen, professional men, could think of nothing else. The bottom, however, soon fell out, and at this time Winnipeg is in rather a depressed state; but it is clear, from its peculiar position, that this depression can only be temporary. It is destined to be the great distributing and railway centre of the vast North-West. The town has now a population of 26,000, and three daily papers, besides weekly ones. Ten years hence, it is predicted, she will be ten times her present size. Her wharves will be lined with steamboats; her river-banks with elevators; industries and manufactures will spring up in her midst, and her streets will be fuller of life than they are to-day.