Qualla: Fort Garry Hotel

Fort Garry Hotel: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wpg guy, CC BY 3.0. When the Fort Garry Hotel opened its doors on December 10, 1913, with a grand ball that drew Winnipeg's social elite, it was the tallest building in the city -- thirteen storeys of Indiana limestone and grey granite crowned by steeply pitched copper roofs that gave the prairie skyline its first taste of French chateau grandeur. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway had spent two years constructing what was meant to be an irresistible inducement: sleep here, ride our trains. One block away stood the railway's own Union Station, and the message was clear. Winnipeg was no longer a frontier outpost. It was a destination.

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Image: Wpg guy | CC BY 3.0

Fort Garry Hotel: A Castle on the Prairie

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dano from Winnipeg, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Montreal architects George Ross and David MacFarlane designed the Fort Garry after the model of Ottawa's Chateau Laurier, making it Manitoba's only example of the chateauesque architectural style that defined Canada's grand railway hotels. The exterior combines the romantic silho...

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Image: Dano from Winnipeg, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Fort Garry Hotel: Fire, Taxes, and a One-Dollar Sale

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Herb Neufeld, CC BY 2.0. The Fort Garry's first century was not kind. On December 7, 1971, at 1:30 in the morning, fire broke out on the seventh floor and damaged the top ten storeys. Fifty firefighters battled the blaze for two hours while 95 guests were evacuated; remarkably, only one man was hospitali...

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Image: Herb Neufeld | CC BY 2.0

Fort Garry Hotel: The Ghost of Room 202

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0. No account of the Fort Garry is complete without Room 202, the hotel's most famous -- and most fictional -- resident. The story goes that a woman, upon hearing of her husband's death in a car accident, hanged herself in the closet of the room many years ago. The tale has made the...

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Image: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Fort Garry Hotel: Voices from the Seventh Floor

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jessica Losorata, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before the fire and the ghost stories, the Fort Garry played a quieter but historically significant role in Canadian broadcasting. Between 1923 and 1932, the hotel housed the Winnipeg studio of CNR Radio, the precursor to CBC Radio. Using the original CKY transmitter on 665 kHz -...

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Image: Jessica Losorata | CC BY-SA 4.0