Winnipeg Fire and Winter Cold

Winnipeg emergency services in deadly winters cold is a pretty miserable task. And a deadly one as well. Over the years Winnipeg firefighters have been hurt or killed trying to do their jobs. In recent weeks we have seen several residential apartment hit by fire and in some cases the damage looks greater than the structure can withstand. The heavy ice on a burnt out building is something to behold.

And so it was in 1987 when the Young United Church kitty corner to Broadway and Sherbrook Street burned down a few days after Christmas services on December 27. Most of the church was destroyed save for one tower which remains to this day.

In the 1980s many of the residential buildings in this areas had been converted to rooming houses. It was a tough area and on the verge of collapse as crime and arson plagued the area. Violence was common. Young United served this community as poverty and despair looked to move further west into Wolsely and down Sherbrook and Maryland towards Misericordia Hospital.

Alcohol was a huge factor but ritalin mixed with other things became a problem as a street drug. Police were up and down Furby and Young Street near the church not to mention ambulances and fire trucks. It was not difficult to see the entire city at the cusp of failure as the 1980 recession dragged.

In this time money was poured in from the Core Area Inititative, The Forks was just about to kick off as well as North Portage with Portage Place, Investors Group etc. Still, it was easy to feel like it was putting one finger in a dike only to have something else happen and not being able to stop the flood.

I walked past Young United Church regularly from 1983 to 1988 and again in the 1990s. If you missed the Academy bus, it was possible to walk from the The Bay and into River Heights before the next one came. Many times I just walked back from University of Winnipeg to home as a matter of course.

The church was a beautiful building. A few churches in the area were like that though. You just took it for granted. When I started back to school in January in my final year at U of W, the icy remains of the church looked incredible. However, the loss of the church itself struck me even though it was never one I attended.

One tower was preserved and the re-built but there was no way to restore the glory of the old building. I miss it. The above picture is from 1966. As you can see there has been a Shell station on the corner for decades. The top picture from 1987 shows gas was 39.9 cent a litre.

At least there were no human fatalities in the fire at Young United. In so many other cases in winter fires, firefighters and citizens have lost their lives.