Winnipeg - Arts, Culture, and Tourism

Arts, Culture, and Tourism

The Forks (a National Historic Site of Canada) attracts four million visitors a year. It is home to the Citytv television studio, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, the Winnipeg International Children's Festival, and the Manitoba Children's Museum. It also features a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) skate plaza, a 8,500-square-foot (790 m2) bowl complex, the Esplanade Riel bridge, a river walkway, Shaw Park (home to the Winnipeg Goldeyes), and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (scheduled to open in 2013).

The Winnipeg Public Library is a public library network with 20 branches throughout the city, including the Millennium Library.

Winnipeg has a large independent film community. It has also hosted a number of Hollywood productions: Shall We Dance? (2004), the Oscar nominated film Capote (2005), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Horsemen (2009) had parts filmed in the province,and Goon (2011) was filmed in Winnipeg, Brandon, and Portage la Prairie. The National Film Board of Canada and the Winnipeg Film Group have produced numerous award-winning films. There are several TV and film production companies in Winnipeg: the most prominent are Farpoint Films, Frantic Films, Buffalo Gal Pictures, Les Productions Rivard and Eagle Vision. Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, an independent film released in 2008, is a comedic rumination on the city's history.

Winnipeg the Bear, which would later become the inspiration for part of the name, Winnie-the-Pooh, was purchased in Ontario, by Lieutenant Harry Colebourn of The Fort Garry Horse. He named the bear after the regiment's home town of Winnipeg. A.A. Milne later wrote a series of books featuring the fictional Winnie-the-Pooh. An Ernest H. Shepard painting of "Winnie the Pooh", the only known oil painting of Winnipeg’s adopted fictional bear, is displayed in Assiniboine Park. It was purchased at an auction for $285,000 in London, England, in 2000.