Back to the Future: Winnipeg’s Reinvention from Borderland Trade and Transportation Gateway to Globalized Trade and Transportation Hub

Winnipeg’s location at almost the geographical center of the North American continent has historically made it an important transportation focal point with connections that have integrated the city with places and regions beyond its southern Manitoba boundaries. Winnipeg is also both a borderland city, with historically important links to American centers to the south, and a regional gateway and hub, with strong connections to the rest of Canada. This paper explores the history of Winnipeg as a transportation and trading center and focuses on its early borderland associations with the upper Midwest and northern Plains, its emergence and decline as the major metropolis and gateway to the Canadian West, and its recent efforts to draw upon the past in order to reinvent itself as a Great Plains, North American, and global trade and transportation hub. In doing so, the essay adds to the pre-existing literature that exists regarding Winnipeg as a historical trade center by examining how governments and businesses have integrated and managed globalization processes and geographical features in their desire to make the city more competitive. In particular, it focuses on the role that Winnipeg’s inland dry port – CentrePoint Canada – plays in achieving this objective.