WINNIPEG, capital of the province of Manitoba, in the Dominion of Canada, stands at the confluence of the Red River and the Assiniboine, in 49° 56' N. lat. and 97° 7' W. long., and 764 feet above the sea. Its name is taken from Lake Winnipeg (Ojibway, Win, “muddy,” and W⅛>i, “water ”). The waters of the Red River reach the lake 45 miles north of the city. For some five miles north of “the Forks,” as the junction of the rivers was formerly called, lay the old Red River colony of Lord Selkirk, founded in 1812 (see vol. xx. p. 315). Five fur traders’ or colonists’ forts have stood within the city limits:—(1) Fort Rouge (1736), of the French voyageurs; (2) Fort Gibraltar (1804-15), built by the north-west traders of Montreal; (3) Fort Douglas (1813-35), Lord Selkirk’s fort; (4) old Fort Garry (1821-35), of Hudson’s Bay Company; and (5) new Fort Garry (1835-82). The transfer of Rupert’s Land to Canada in 1870 led to the formation of the province of Manitoba. Then, too, Winnipeg was begun as a village, half a mile north of Fort Garry. The city is built on the prairie; a part of the site was swampy, but is being well drained. The city includes both sides of the Assiniboine, but on the east side of the Red River there is an independent corporation, the town of St Boniface, which is virtually a suburb. St Boniface, w ith 1449 inhabitants, was first settled by Lord Selkirk’s German De Meuron soldiers in 1817. The growth of Winnipeg has been remarkable. Living on its site in 1871 there were but 241 souls. As Canadian immigration increased the village grew, and in 1873 it was incorporated as a city, in the face of strenuous opposition by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The census of 1881 gave the city 7985 inhabitants. In the following year Winnipeg, as ...