Finally! Thank you Bartley, thank you
With Friends like these, does Upper Fort Garry need enemies?
Campaign no gain
By: Bartley Kives
Updated: March 15, 2008 at 06:35 AM CDT
Whenever somebody issues an urgent plea to "save" some sort of precious thing, you had better think twice about that special something in question.
All around the globe, kind-hearted, caring people are being wooed by earnest websites to do everything from "save the children" to "save the rainforest" to "save the black-tailed prairie dog" -- all noble and worthy causes -- as well as join rather more dubious campaigns, which include the quirky, the sarcastic and even the outright ridiculous.
At savethedeli.com, you can help preserve "the cultural heritage and taste of Deli throughout the world, for future generations to enjoy and savour." True enough, a world without chopped liver or pickled herring is a world no child should ever experience.
Meanwhile, savethehumans.com advocates the precise opposite of its name. And at zapatopi.net, dim-witted conservationists are encouraged to "save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus," which of course does not exist.
Here in Winnipeg, nobody is urging you or anyone else to save a nonexistent species of arboreal mollusc, kill off the human race or preserve endangered delicatessens.
But you are being exhorted to "save Upper Fort Garry," an 19th-century trading post that was dismantled in stages in the 1880s. And this campaign is not a hoax, despite the fact the ability to travel back in time is currently beyond the technological means of anyone in this city -- including well-meaning fundraisers and wealthy philanthropists.
Make no mistake, what used to be Upper Fort Garry -- land currently sitting below a surplus city building at 100 Main St., the Grain Exchange Curling Club on Fort Street and a patch of asphalt on Main Street itself -- is arguably Winnipeg's most important historic site. The former fort is both the birthplace of this city and this province as a whole, given its role in the Red River Resistance led by Louis Riel.
But the fort itself can not be "saved" any more than Riel himself can be saved, seeing as the man swung from the gallows near Regina in 1885.
And I say this not because I have any problem with efforts to build a heritage park at 100 Main St. and connect the historic site to The Forks.
In fact, I wholeheartedly support this effort -- just not the ridiculous rhetoric that's enveloped the debate, thanks to an effective but disingenuous public-relations campaign waged by some of the park's supporters.
If you listen to the Friends of Upper Fort Garry, the volunteer group advocating the creation of a $12.5-million heritage park that would cover both 100 Main St. and a second parcel of surplus city land at the corner of Fort Street and Assiniboine Avenue, the evil powers that be at City Hall are trying to pave over paradise.
Ever since last spring, when city council's downtown development committee voted to sell that second parcel to an apartment building developer, the Friends have been crying foul, even though that very same original vote called for the city to enter into negotiations with the group to build a heritage park on the rest of the site.
So what was wrong with building a heritage park on Main Street, with an apartment building located to the immediate southwest?
The answer: The Friends had a plan to place an interpretive centre where the new residential building would be erected, and did not want to see that plan altered by the city's decision.
Of course, that decision was revisited in the fall, after an archeological survey found Upper Fort Garry's former footprint a little further to the west, encroaching on the land to be sold to Crystal Developers.
Faced with a vote to lower the sale price to Crystal, the downtown development committee changed tacks and voted to allow the Friends of Upper Fort Garry to develop the entire site -- provided they raise $10 million by April Fool's Day and purchase the Grain Exchange Curling Club.
At the time, the Friends said this would not be a problem. After all, some of Winnipeg's most prominent citizens -- well-meaning fundraisers and wealthy philanthropists included -- had agreed to place their names on a piece of paper endorsing the Friends' cause.
But there's a big difference between agreeing to see your name on some charity letterhead and actually ponying up a big pile of cash. This is what Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz suspected when he signed on to the plan to give the Friends a few scant months to come up with the money.
Katz basically called the Friends on a bluff -- and now it looks as if the mayor has won.
With two weeks and two days to go before the deadline, the Friends of Upper Fort Garry have all but conceded they can't raise the cash. Hence the recent, more urgent campaign to "save Upper Fort Garry" -- even though nobody is proposing to build anything but a heritage park at the former fort's site.
Allow me to repeat this: There is nobody in Winnipeg advocating anything other than the creation of a heritage park at 100 Main St. What the Friends and their supporters are quibbling over is the second parcel of land, at the corner of Fort Street and Assiniboine Avenue.
Both Katz and Manitoba Premier Gary Doer consider the Friends' plan to be too big and too expensive. But they're willing to go along with a smaller park at 100 Main St. -- and the same can be said about Crystal Developers.
The Friends know this, but they're still sticking with their original plan, even though a park could be created with much less cash and rancour if they would only compromise.
But they would rather sit back and watch Winnipeggers get spun into believing Upper Fort Garry is in danger, when in fact their all-or-nothing game is the only thing that truly imperils the park.
Unless we hear a little less jingoism and see a little more pragmatism from the Friends over the next two weeks, their cause is all but doomed.
In the mean time, long live Upper Fort Garry -- and long live the Canadian Prairie tree octopus.
bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca
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