Manitoba Provincial Heritage Site No. 56
Grey Nuns' Convent
494 Taché Avenue,
Saint-Boniface
Designation Authority: Honourable Bonnie Mitchelson,
Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship
Present Owner: The Grey Nuns of Manitoba Inc.
The former Grey Nuns' Convent is recognized historically as the headquarters of a French-Canadian religious order who came to the Red River Settlement in 1844 to provide important works of education and charity. It served as a mission house and provided the Grey Nuns with facilities for the caring for the aged and for orphans, treating the sick and instructing children. It was the first institution of this kind in the West.
The two-storey hipped roof structure was constructed of white oaken logs and took nearly six years to construct (1846–1851). The result was a magnificent two-storey Red River frame building which skilfully combined the rectangular symmetrical plan and hipped roof adopted by the Hudson's Bay Company with French Canadian design influences introduced by its designer, L'Abbé Louis François Laflèche. It is an outstanding example of early Red River frame construction and one of the oldest dwellings still in use in the Prairie Provinces.
