Qualla: Le Musee de Saint-Boniface: Bison Pelts on the Ceiling, a Rebel's Rope Under Glass

Le Musee de Saint-Boniface: Bison Pelts on the Ceiling, a Rebel's Rope Under Glass: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Broster, CC BY 2.0. Four Grey Nuns moved into an unfinished building in December 1846, with only the exterior walls of the first floor and a partial second-story kitchen floor completed. The Manitoba winter was already brutal. To survive it, the nuns hung bison pelts from the ceiling as insulation, turning their half-built convent into something between a construction site and a buffalo-hide tent. That improvised shelter still stands -- the second oldest building in Winnipeg, now Le Musee de Saint-Boniface Museum, a repository of Franco-Manitoban and Metis history that holds artifacts as intimate as locks of hair and as haunting as a hangman's rope.

Image: Peter Broster | CC BY 2.0

Le Musee de Saint-Boniface: Bison Pelts on the Ceiling, a Rebel's Rope Under Glass: Built Without Nails

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wpg guy, CC BY-SA 3.0. The convent was constructed using the Red River building method, a technique of interlocking timber also described as mortise and tenon or tongue and groove joinery. Not a single nail holds the structure together. Construction began in 1846 and finished in 1851, producing a build...

Image: Wpg guy | CC BY-SA 3.0

Le Musee de Saint-Boniface: Bison Pelts on the Ceiling, a Rebel's Rope Under Glass: The Grey Nuns on the Frontier

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brand03, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Grey Nuns who settled here were not cloistered contemplatives but frontier workers. They arrived in the Red River Colony at a time when the nearest city of any size was hundreds of miles away, winter temperatures plunged far below zero, and the local economy revolved around p...

Image: Brand03 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Le Musee de Saint-Boniface: Bison Pelts on the Ceiling, a Rebel's Rope Under Glass: Riel's Personal Effects

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ken Fielding, CC BY-SA 3.0. The museum's most powerful exhibit centers on Louis Riel, the Metis leader who led two resistance movements against the Canadian government and was executed by hanging on November 16, 1885. Under glass in Saint-Boniface, visitors encounter Riel's personal belongings with startlin...

Image: Ken Fielding | CC BY-SA 3.0

Le Musee de Saint-Boniface: Bison Pelts on the Ceiling, a Rebel's Rope Under Glass: From Convent to National Historic Site

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Khayman, CC BY-SA 3.0. The convent building was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1958. A year later, in November 1959, the municipality formally established the museum and appointed a board of directors. Since the late 1960s the building has been administered by municipal government -- ...

Image: Khayman | CC BY-SA 3.0