1909 – Ecole La Verendrye, Winnipeg, Manitoba

One of Winnipeg’s grand schools from the city’s boomtown era is La Verendrye School. Though residential and business areas quickly grew up around it, when it opened in 1909, La Verendrye was on the outskirts of the city. Based on a design by chief school architect J.B. Mitchell and constructed of local materials, La Verendrye School is an eclectic mix of Queen Anne, Romanesque Revival and Neo-Georgian architectural styles. Its exterior is dun-coloured brick with Tyndall stone trim set on a raised limestone foundation. Mitchell was instrumental in improving the fire safety of schools in Canada.

“In the La Verendrye school, it will be noted that all entrances lead directly to a central corridor. It will also be noticed that the manner in which the stairways are entirely cut off from this central hall, by fire walls, is a worthy feature. There are no great winding, massive wooden staircases leading down directly into the main rorridor. up which the flames can shoot, and thus cut off safe exit from the building. It will be seen that there are no steps in the entrance halls, leading down from the ground floor to the grade line. These halls lake the pupils directly out to the open, all steps to grade level being on the outside of the building.”
Construction, November 1909

A gym was added onto the south side in 1964 removing the entrance porch on that side, unfortunately precluding the building from being named a heritage site. In the late 1980s, the school was saved from demolition by an area parents’ group. Named after early Quebec explorer, Pierre Gaultier de Verennes, La Verendrye School is one of a handful of early schools not named after stalwarts of the British Empire.

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