Assiniboine Park & Zoo

The Winnipeg Public Parks Board was formed in 1893, and the City bought the land in 1904. Frederick Gage Todd, a former apprentice and associate of Frederick Law Olmsted, prepared the original plans, and George Champion, the city's first parks superintendent, continued the work in 1907. Parks Canada says the park and zoo opened to the public on Victoria Day 1909 (it dates the park's establishment to 1904); Wikipedia gives 1908 in one place and 1909 in another. Todd's geometric Formal Garden at the southeast entrance dates from 1907. A pavilion designed by John D. Aitchison was completed in 1908, with a dance hall, banquet hall and catering facilities and a 27-metre tower holding the park's water system. It burned in May 1929, and the present pavilion, by Northwood and Chivers, opened in May 1930. The first footbridge, built in 1908, proved too narrow according to Wikipedia; the Manitoba Legislative Library dates a footbridge over the Assiniboine River connecting the park to Portage Avenue to 1931, while Wikipedia gives a bridge linking the park to St. James as opening in May 1932. In the 2010s the Conservancy ran a ten-year, three-phase renovation plan whose cost the Manitoba Legislative Library puts at $200 million; the Nature Playground, which opened in 2011, was an early piece of it.

Sources differ on the zoo's start: Parks Canada dates the combined park and zoo to 1904 and Winnipeg's Legislative Library says the zoo started that year, while Wikipedia's park article says July 1908; one Wikipedia article adds that the Parks Board bought native deer, bison and elk to begin the collection. Admission was free at first, and fees were introduced by City Council on 26 May 1993. A wild orphaned polar bear cub named Carmichael was added in 1939. Toucan Ridge, which occupies the former Tropical House built in 1971, reopened in April 2011 as the first new exhibit of the redevelopment, and the Kinsmen Discovery Centre opened in March 1990 where Aunt Sally's Farm petting zoo had operated from 1959 to 1989. The Conservancy has run the zoo since 2008.

Journey to Churchill became a permanent area in July 2014 and represents northern Manitoba habitats with polar bears, seals, muskox, reindeer and snowy owls. In its Gateway to the Arctic, the Sea Ice Passage is an underwater tunnel where visitors see polar bears and seals through clear walls. The Leatherdale International Polar Bear Conservation Centre inside the exhibit opened in January 2012; Wikipedia says its conservation work includes mapping polar bear denning areas and studying bears with the University of Manitoba, and the zoo has also run a head-starting program for the endangered Poweshiek skipperling butterfly since 2017. The zoo was accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in 2014. Check the zoo for what animals and exhibits are currently open.

Leo Mol was born in 1915 in Polonne, in present-day Ukraine, studied sculpture in Leningrad, and arrived in Winnipeg in December 1948. His commissions included a Taras Shevchenko memorial in Washington, D.C., statues of Terry Fox in 1982 and a John Diefenbaker statue on Parliament Hill in 1985. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1989 and died on 4 July 2009. He donated more than 300 works to the City of Winnipeg, and the garden opened on 18 June 1992; it has been expanded twice since, and Wikipedia gives its area as about 1.2 hectares. The garden also contains the Corona School schoolhouse, moved there in 1995, and it is a quiet counterpoint to the zoo.

The English Garden was established in 1926 to 1927 and covers nearly three acres. The Lyric Theatre, an outdoor stage beside the pavilion, opened in 1999 and continues a bandshell tradition dating to the 1920s. Assiniboine Forest, the park's wild side, is described on Wikipedia as over 280 hectares of old aspen and oak, wetlands and tallgrass meadows with about 18 kilometres of trails and a resident white-tailed deer herd. It was preserved as a municipal nature park in 1973, and a riparian forest restoration project began there in 2006.

The Leaf, which opened in late 2022 to replace the old conservatory, is a separate venue with its own admission. KPMB Architects of Toronto designed it with Architecture49 and HTFC Planning & Design, and Canadian Architect describes four interior biomes, an ETFE cushion roof in place of glass and an open-loop geothermal system. The earlier conservatory dates are reported inconsistently, with a first building in 1914 and replacements in 1968 or 1970 depending on the source. A Canada's Diversity Gardens plan was part of the same project, and the Pavilion also houses art galleries.

• The park is large, with maps, a trolley and accessibility information on the Conservancy's site.
• Check assiniboinepark.ca for current hours, tickets and seasonal events.
• Winnipeg winters can be severe, so dress warmly.

The Forks and the Exchange District are a short drive east. A Voyzo private vehicle and driver with door-to-door pickup can cover the park's different areas without much walking.