St. Boniface Museum seeks final $1.5M for restoration

One of Winnipeg’s oldest surviving buildings needs your help to ensure it can celebrate a big milestone.

A fundraising campaign relying on the public’s support is now underway to finish restoring one of Manitoba’s oldest surviving buildings.

On Friday, the charitable foundation dedicated to supporting the St. Boniface Museum kicked off the campaign, which hopes to raise $1.5 million for the building on Taché Avenue.

Cindy Desroches, executive director of the St. Boniface Museum, said about $4.5 million has been raised so far over the past two years.

“I think there was a hope that a lot of what we needed, and I would say closer to 100 per cent, would have been covered by government funding,” Desroches said.

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“It has seen the city evolve and grow from dirt roads to what we see now, and I think that so many people in our communities have roots going back to when Winnipeg started and to when St. Boniface started,” Desroches said.

Constructed between 1846 and 1851 using oak logs, the building was originally home to Grey Nuns that arrived from Montreal, Que.

“Their mandate was to help with education and to help care for people. So it was really around nursing,” Desroches said. “But then the needs within the community required them to expand and evolve, which meant that the building was also used as an orphanage.”

She said the building has had a variety of uses over the years, including serving as a senior home, a nursing school and the first location for the St. Boniface Hospital.

In November 1958, the building was designated a national historic site and opened in 1967 as a museum following years of retrofitting. The building also has provincial heritage designation and is recognized by the City of Winnipeg as a historical resource.

Desroches is hopeful that the building, which has been closed to the public since 2024, will open again in September 2026 for its 175th anniversary.

In the meantime, the museum is running its gift shop and Louis Riel exhibit inside the old St. Boniface City Hall at 219 Provencher Boulevard.