Quick facts
- Location
- Downtown Winnipeg, where the Assiniboine meets the Red River
- Best time
- Year-round; skating January–February, market open daily
- Entry
- Free (market and grounds); CMHR has entry fee
- Days needed
- Half day to full day
The Forks has been a meeting place for at least 6,000 years. Archaeological evidence — arrowheads, fire pits, bone fragments, trade goods — shows that Indigenous peoples gathered at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers through successive cultures and centuries, trading, camping, and fishing in a place where two navigable waterways met. When European fur traders arrived, they used the same site for the same reasons. When settlers came after them, they built a city around it. The Forks is the reason Winnipeg exists where it exists.
Today, the site is a 56-acre urban park and market complex in the heart of downtown — one of the most successful cultural redevelopments in Canada. What was a railyard as recently as the 1980s is now a destination that draws millions of visitors a year: a market with food vendors and artisan shops, a major human rights museum, a riverside walk, an ice skating trail in winter, and a quality of public space that most Canadian cities struggle to replicate.
The Forks Market
The market complex is the physical heart of The Forks, occupying two former railway station buildings — Johnston Terminal and the Market building itself — and a newer structure. Inside, the emphasis is on food, with dozens of vendors offering everything from Métis bannock and Mennonite borscht to Vietnamese bánh mì, Ethiopian injera, and artisan coffee. The food hall is excellent as a multicultural snapshot of Winnipeg, which is one of Canada’s most ethnically diverse cities despite its modest size.
Permanent vendors operate alongside rotating pop-up spots; the market is busiest on weekend mornings and during summer events. Upstairs in Johnston Terminal, a curated selection of local artisan goods, books about Manitoba and the prairies, clothing, and craft work supports shopping with genuine local character.
The market’s character is resolutely local rather than tourist-oriented: these are the places where Winnipeggers actually shop, eat, and meet. The food quality is high, prices are reasonable, and the atmosphere is unpretentious.
Canadian Museum for Human Rights
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is the most architecturally striking building in Winnipeg and arguably in all of western Canada. Designed by architect Antoine Predock, the building rises from the earth in a combination of stone, glass, and alabaster, with internal ramps spiralling upward through galleries that deal with genocide, civil rights, Indigenous rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and the universal history of human struggle for dignity.
The museum is a federal institution — one of a handful of national museums outside Ottawa — and its mandate is broad: to explore human rights as a global and ongoing project, not simply as historical events. The galleries are serious, sometimes difficult, and often moving. The Stolen Lives gallery on the Indian Residential School system is one of the most important exhibitions of its kind in Canada.
Allow 2–3 hours for a thorough visit. The building’s interior spaces — particularly the glass Fog of War installation and the alabaster Garden of Contemplation at the summit — are as impressive as the exhibitions. Entry is approximately CAD $20 for adults; there are regular family days with reduced admission.
The Esplanade and waterfront
The Esplanade is the riverfront promenade connecting the market buildings to the river’s edge, with views across the Red River to the historic Exchange District buildings and the city’s skyline. In summer, the waterfront hosts paddleboard and canoe rentals, and a water taxi runs up the Red River to Provencher Bridge and the Saint-Boniface neighbourhood on the opposite bank.
The walk along the Esplanade is one of Winnipeg’s genuine urban pleasures — the scale is human, the river has presence, and the sight of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights from the water’s edge is genuinely dramatic.
The Forks skating trail (winter)
When the Red and Assiniboine rivers freeze each January — usually by the second or third week of the month — the City of Winnipeg maintains a groomed and lit ice skating trail connecting The Forks with the Osborne Village neighbourhood upstream. The trail stretches for several kilometres along the frozen river surface, with warming huts at intervals and a skate rental operation at The Forks itself.
Skating on the river at night, with the city lights reflecting on the ice and the CMHR lit from within, is one of Winnipeg’s most distinctively northern experiences. The trail is free to skate; skate rentals cost a modest fee. Conditions depend on temperature — in mild winters (temperatures above -10°C for extended periods) the trail can be closed or reduced in length.
Historical and archaeological context
Beneath The Forks site, a decade of archaeological excavation in the 1990s uncovered evidence of continuous habitation stretching back to at least 4,000 BCE. Objects from multiple Indigenous cultures — Archaic, Woodland, and Plains — were found, demonstrating that the Forks functioned as a genuinely multiethnic gathering place over millennia.
Interpretive panels throughout the grounds explain this history, and the Manitoba Museum (a short distance from The Forks) provides deeper context on the region’s Indigenous and European history. The Forks National Historic Site designation reflects this heritage, though the site’s commercial activity can make its historical weight easy to overlook.
The York boat and canoe displays near the river reference the fur trade era; the reconstructed section of palisade fence marks the approximate location of one of the early HBC posts. These are modest installations but worth pausing at.
Festivals and events
The Forks hosts a year-round calendar of events. In summer, Winnipeg’s Pride parade ends here, outdoor concerts occupy the amphitheatre, and the Winnipeg Folk Festival (held at Birds Hill Park outside the city but closely associated with The Forks scene) draws major acts. In winter, Festive Forks at Christmas and various New Year’s celebrations fill the grounds.
The Festival du Voyageur in February — held primarily in Saint-Boniface across the river but spilling into The Forks — is Western Canada’s largest winter festival, celebrating Métis and French-Canadian heritage with snow sculpture, traditional food, and live music. It is among the best reasons to visit Winnipeg in winter.
Getting there
The Forks is at the southern end of downtown Winnipeg, easily accessible on foot from most central hotels. Parking is available on site (paid). Winnipeg Transit buses serve the area; the Portage and Main intersection is a 15-minute walk north. A rental car is not necessary if you are staying downtown.
Find Winnipeg tours and cultural experiences on GetYourGuideRelated reading
- Winnipeg: things to do
- Saint-Boniface: Winnipeg’s French quarter
- Winnipeg food scene: where to eat
- Winnipeg weekend itinerary
- Prairies road trip: 7 days
The Forks succeeds because it does not try to be something it is not. It is a public market in a historic building by a significant river in a Canadian city that takes its own culture seriously. For visitors, it is both the logical first stop in Winnipeg and the place you find yourself returning to on the last morning, picking up one more maple pastry and watching the river move past toward Hudson Bay.