City Hall Christmas Tree in 2021 (Source: classic107.com)
Every year, Winnipeg’s City Hall erects a large Christmas tree in its courtyard at the corner of Main St. and Market Ave. Until 2019, the City used a real tree that was usually donated by a local homeowner. Due to City of Winnipeg crews being busy with cleanup from the October 2019 snowstorm, they were unable to install the tree that year and the City began using an artificial Christmas tree. A 28-foot tree with a custom star topper and 15,400 LED lights was acquired for $40,000.
In 2021, the tree was extended to a height of 50 feet and it now has 64,400 LED lights and over 8,000 decorations. The extension cost $151,000 and required a new tree stand which was $25,000. The final price tag is close to $300,000 after factoring in the cost of decorations. The extension brings the tree to a height comparable to the real trees of years past, which were usually 40-50 feet tall. At nearly 10,000 pounds, the artificial tree is over twice as heavy as the real ones, which typically weighed around 4,000 pounds after they were decorated.
Back in 2015, I tried to find out more about the tradition of the City Hall Christmas tree, so I contacted 311, who referred my question to City Hall. After waiting two weeks without receiving a reply, I contacted them again. I was told that the Forestry Branch had placed a note in the file saying only that the tradition “wasn’t recent”.
A search of the Winnipeg Free Press archives proved more fruitful. In the “Anytime” column (a Q & A column) for Dec. 22, 1978, a Free Press reader asked where the City Hall Christmas tree came from and how many lights were on it. The answer stated that the annual tree came from various places and that an ad was placed in newspapers every year asking for the donation of a tree that was approximately 35′ (10.7 m) tall. In 1978, the tree came from the future site of the St. Vital Shopping Centre, which was beginning construction at the time. The advertisement for locally donated trees only began six or seven years earlier, which places the custom starting in 1971-72. A Parks & Recreation spokesman was quoted as saying that prior to this, “the city journeyed into the country for trees”.
Going back further, the old “Gingerbread” city hall had two large Christmas trees in front of the building every year until it was demolished in 1962. A Oct. 31, 1962 article in the Winnipeg Free Press stated that there would be no trees that year because there was no room for them now that the area was a construction site. It also stated that the trees had been an annual tradition for over 25 years, which would date the custom to the 1930s at the latest, and there are photos of a tree at City Hall in the late 1920s.
Old City Hall at Christmas (1929) (Source: Peel’s Prairie Provinces)
However, the first Christmas tree at City Hall seems to have been even earlier. A 69-foot fir tree with 1,000 lights was erected there in December 1915, as part of a fundraiser organized by the Returned Soldiers Association. The tree was lit by Winnipeg Mayor Richard Waugh, who was the president of the association, on the evening of Dec. 21. Live music was provided by a military band. The event was described as “Winnipeg’s first civic Christmas tree celebration” by the Winnipeg Tribune.
The event was repeated in 1916 and 1917, but appears to have ended with the war and not revived until years later.
Winnipeg’s first Christmas tree at City Hall (1915) (Source: Winnipeg Tribune)
[Note: This is a new version of a post that was first published in 2015. It was updated to reflect the City of Winnipeg’s transition to artificial trees and new findings of a city hall tree during WW I. The original version contains more information about the City’s selection criteria for a real tree.]
Manitoba at Christmas 