Navigate to parking lot N and you’ll find yourself at the memorial avenue of elms planted by home economics students in 1922 for Winnipeg‘s students from the Manitoba Agricultural College who died in WWI. The site of the university was originally constructed for the Manitoba Agricultural College in 1906, which moved to Fort Garry in 1913 when it outgrew the campus. The provincial historic site became a school for the deaf and an army barracks before returning to its original purpose as a site for teaching.
The university, though, is older than its campus. Established in 1877, it was the first university in Western Canada. It would be heavily involved in both world wards with the military establishing training regimes for its students and enlisting most of their fit men to their ranks. Those who had eligible service even had their tuition waived.
As the oldest higher education institution in the region, its size doubled shortly after the war. This necessitated splitting the university into three and reorganizing its colleges from the 1960s to the 1980s. But despite its academic history, the university doesn’t have single public-facing exhibition. The University of Waterloo has three museums, the least Manitoba could do is to set up an agricultural education centre.
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