Assiniboine Forest – a forest or a park?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/01/2023 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is something to be said about sitting out in your backyard at night, in a city of some 800,000 residents, and hearing coyotes calling. It is almost unheard of to have over 700 acres of natural green space virtually unscathed by urban development.

Winnipeg is home to the largest natural urban forest in Canada, the Assiniboine Forest, located west of Tuxedo, which has served for generations as the gateway to Charleswood. Since the early 1900s it has been used by nature goers as a place to hike alongside wildlife, sightsee and connect with nature. But there was a time when the forest was prime for development.

In the 1920s the Town of Tuxedo had slated the forest for development. The plan went as far as to carve roads going north-south and east-west. These pathways are still visible scars used as a part of the forest’s 18 kilometres of managed trails. Development was only halted due to the Great Depression. It took some 40 years to eventually designate the Assiniboine Forest as a municipal natural park.

In 1990, the Rotary Club of Winnipeg-Charleswood stepped up to serve as the stewards of the Assiniboine Forest, committing thousands of volunteer labour hours and raising over $600,000 in funding for projects and initiatives. The Rotary Club has helped to make the forest a premier destination in Winnipeg, visited by over 170,000 people yearly.

Fast forward to 2021. The Rotary Club again proposed to fundraise, this time approximately $800,000. The dollars will be used to maintain the area as a managed natural urban forest, to add additional parking and to make improvements to the trail system.

Now a federal organization, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), is campaigning to make Assiniboine Forest a part of the National Urban Parks initiative, a new federal program.

Currently, as a community we do not know the details of what this could mean for the Assiniboine Forest when it comes to designation, governance and the administration as Parks Canada is still in the early stages of developing this policy. While this new concept could preserve the forest for generations to come, we must also be diligent in understanding what role the community would maintain.

Forest goers have made it clear over the generations Assiniboine Forest has existed that they do not want the space to look like a park with paved walkways, permanent structures and paid admission. Traditionally this is what federal parks have been all about. So, this begs the question, what’s in it for the feds?

A great deal of consultation must take place between all stakeholders to agree on what Assiniboine Forest will look like for our children and generations to come. One thing is for certain — unlike a hundred years ago, everyone agrees that the forest must remain a forest.