The history of the Assiniboine Forest is intertwined with that of Assiniboine Park, and in fact the forest technically is part of the park. Assiniboine Park opened in 1909, after the river plots of land were purchased in 1904 from previous owners. Most of the land had been owned by the Munroe Pure Milk Company, but it was not contiguous and there were plots owned by five other landowners. At that time, the City closed deals with all landowners, without resorting to expropriation. By 1914, the landscaping of the garden beds and roads in Assiniboine Park was completed.
Because the river was a primary means of transportation for the pioneers, land allotments along the river had been laid out with a narrow area of river frontage extending two (and later four) miles south from the river. In the parish of St. Charles, the 1874 survey lot numbers started at Kenaston, and on the south side of the river were numbered 1 through 80, from east to west. It was typical for the rivermost end of these lots to be used for housing, stables, farm buildings, and the gardens. Further south of that (for properties on the south side of the river) would be an area of undeveloped bushland where the landowner would be able to collect wood. Further south still, extending to Four Mile Road, was an area of natural prairie where the landowner could harvest hay.
Click here to access the City of Winnipeg's web page, History of Assiniboine Forest.
Here we take an interesting diversion, not entirely related to the Assiniboine Forest. In 1975 a river lot to the immediate west of Assiniboine Park was expropriated by the City in order to enlarge the park. This was Lot No. 28 in the parish of St. Charles, which had been in the Chapman (and previously, Bourke) family since 1885. Like the other river lots, it was a narrow property. It spanned roughly the area between the Aspen Trail and Chalfont, and originally had extended south from the Assiniboine River for four miles. However, at the time of expropriation, only the northernmost section of the lot remained. The Chapman family believes that the section south of Roblin was sold to the City of Tuxedo around 1912 to raise money to build a larger house.
George Thomas Chapman (1861-1940), who had married into the family owning this land, was a market gardener, the Reeve of Assiniboia, and later the Reeve of Charleswood for almost the whole period from its inception in 1912 until 1926, when he retired from political life. G.T. Chapman had donated land for St. Mary's Anglican Church in the early 1920's, and had donated the land for Chapman School. Public service was in the blood.
After his death in 1940, his son Walter operated a nursery and garden on the site just north of Roblin. Today, there are many spruce trees in the North Forest. One has to wonder whether these are somehow a legacy from the nursery.
The original house built on the Bourke (Chapman) property was a log cabin, and was no longer present when this photo was taken. Two later houses are visible in this photo - a smaller wooden one built in 1902 and a larger brick house built in 1914. The former is a little hard to spot, but is at the bottom left of the open field closest to the river. The latter is visible just to the left of river in the lower right corner of the aerial photo, surrounded by trees, and very near the site of today's volleyball courts.
The brick house is shown in the following 1938 photo. This is the house which was funded by the sale of the southernmost part of the property to the City of Tuxedo. The house was taken down after expropriation. Some of the concrete from the foundations from the Chapman buildings is still present in Assiniboine Park.
My thanks go to George E. Chapman for providing these photos and information about the property. Additional information is available from the Charleswood Historical Society. Click here for a link to their web site.
End of diversion. Back to the forest.
Further development of the Assiniboine Forest happened over the next few decades. The Eve Werier Waterfowl Pond was constructed in 1980, and the nearby Charleswood Rotary Boardwalk in 2002. Since 1990, the Winnipeg Charleswood Rotary Club has been the custodian of the Forest.
Click here to access the Charleswood Rotary Club's web site, The Assiniboine Forest Today.
In 2004, a Tall Grass Prairie Restoration Area was created on the site of a former landfill near the conjunction of the Preston and Harte trails. A year later, a Wetlands area was constructed to the east of the rise in the Preston Trail a little further north.
In 2000, a Piper Navaho airplane coming from Flin Flon crashed into the Assiniboine Forest. I believe this happened in the North Forest, fairly close to Chalfont. Nobody on the flight was seriously injured. The pilot, on his cellphone, guided the emergency crews to the site by observing their sirens and lights.
The Assiniboine Forest is of course prone to fires. In September 2012, a grass fire took two days for firefighters to put out. It was believed to have started in a residential area just west of the South Forest near the Harte Trail, but spread to a wide area in the forest. Firefighters had to extend hoses down trails in the forest to reach the hot spots. In May 2014 there was a brush fire in the South Forest. Officials commented that grass and brush fires were common at that time of the year in the Assiniboine Forest. In June 2019, a wildfire in the South Forest cause heavy smoke in south Winnipeg. At the time, it was believed to have started inside the forest and burned outwards towards homes and railway tracks.
Further information related to this topic, although related to the forest in only a minor way, can be found in Photos & Fragments of Charleswood History by Len & Verna van Roon, and Assiniboine Park: History and Development by the City of Winnipeg (1972). Both are available from the Winnipeg Public Library.