Canadian city Winnipeg celebrates its indigenous culture to earn place on tourist map

Some of my closest friends have travelled thousands of miles from around the world for a rare weekend reunion. I am playing tour guide for them in Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba province, in the heart of the Canadian prairies. It’s the place our family referred to simply as “the city” when I was growing up on a farm a few hours drive away.

I left Winnipeg to live abroad more than two decades ago and, although I’ve known the city all my life, I’ve never before thought of it as a tourist destination. Canadians jokingly call it Winterpeg, because the season is especially cold and long.

It’s a fly-over city in a fly-over province. There are seven Canadian cities larger than Winnipeg, and some people remember its name only from jokes on American television shows – it’s the place writers use when they need to insert a remote, inconsequential city into a script.

But now I need Winnipeg to make a good impression, and the fact it’s the spiritual home of Winnie-the-Pooh is not going to cut it. (A Canadian soldier bought a black bear cub on his way to the first world war, naming her Winnie, after his hometown. The animal ended up in London Zoo, where writer A.A. Milne saw her and was inspired to create the children’s book character.)

Where should we stop for lunch? Is a trip on the water taxi worth their time? Which bits of history are of interest to a first-time visitor?