Winnipeg Beach Podcasted

Dale Barbour will be featured on Episode 28: Winnipeg Beach of Sean Kheraj’s Nature’s Past podcast.

Broadcast on the NICHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment) website, Nature’s Past is a monthly discussion about the environmental history community and research in Canada moderated by Kheraj, a member of the History Department at York University.

Here’s the episode description:

“In the late decades of the nineteenth century, urban North Americans sought refuge from congestion, noise, and pollution. As the environmental problems of industrial cities grew worse, city councils across the continent established urban parks while federal governments in both Canada and the United States developed national parks systems. Parks, as constructed natural spaces, were just one option for city-dwellers seeking relief from polluted urban environments. Many flocked to the shores of oceans, lakes, and rivers where beach side resorts emerged as yet another recreational destination. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Winnipeggers turned to the shores of Lake Winnipeg to the north of the city in the hopes of finding an outlet for their leisure time. There the Canadian Pacific Railway established the beachside resort community of Winnipeg Beach. For more than half a century, Winnipeg Beach was one of the most popular recreational retreats for Manitoba’s urban population. Thousands of people enjoyed the lake views and boardwalk entertainments of Winnipeg Beach for many years until the community went into decline by the end of the 1960s.”

Dale Barbour grew up on a farm in Balmoral, Manitoba and made a few trips of his own to Winnipeg Beach as a youth. A former journalist, he is currently completing a PhD in history at the University of Toronto. Dale’s first book, Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900-1967, has recently been released through the University of Manitoba Press.