Back to the Future: Winnipeg’s Reinvention from Borderland Trade and Transportation Gateway to Globalized Trade and Transportation Hub

ABSTRACT

Winnipeg’s location at almost the geographical center of the North American continent has historically made it an important transportation focal point with connections that have integrated the city with places and regions beyond its southern Manitoba boundaries. Winnipeg is also both a borderland city, with historically important links to American centers to the south, and a regional gateway and hub, with strong connections to the rest of Canada. This paper explores the history of Winnipeg as a transportation and trading center and focuses on its early borderland associations with the upper Midwest and northern Plains, its emergence and decline as the major metropolis and gateway to the Canadian West, and its recent efforts to draw upon the past in order to reinvent itself as a Great Plains, North American, and global trade and transportation hub. In doing so, the essay adds to the pre-existing literature that exists regarding Winnipeg as a historical trade center by examining how governments and businesses have integrated and managed globalization processes and geographical features in their desire to make the city more competitive. In particular, it focuses on the role that Winnipeg’s inland dry port – CentrePoint Canada – plays in achieving this objective.

KEYWORDS:

• Borderland
• gateway
• hub
• corridor
• CentrePort Canada

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The territory was divided into North Dakota and South Dakota in 1889.

2 In 1905, Saskatchewan and Alberta were created as provinces out of a section of the Northwest Territories.

3 The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) was formed in 1996 with the merger of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroads. At that time, the company acquired a short-line existing within the city of Winnipeg from which they service local customers who ship grain and produce to the U.S. In 1999 the Manitoba facilities became known as the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (Manitoba), operating as a subsidiary of BNSF. The railway maintains running rights along the CN tracks to Emerson where it connects to the BNSF main line. Source: BNSF Railway (n.d.) See references.