West Region
The community of St. Claude is so proud of its French roots that area residents have been celebrating France’s Bastille Day (July 14) for more than a century. You may well wonder a massive pipe graces the town entrance. This landmark was constructed in recognition of the area’s first settlers, who were from a town also called St. Claude, located in the Jura region of France and internationally renowned for its pipe manufacturing!
French immigrants began arriving in the area in 1892. In time, immigrants from Switzerland, Belgium, England, Ukraine and the Netherlands also settled there.
Today, St. Claude is a bustling community with many tourist attractions, including the Manitoba Dairy Museum and the Gaol Museum. You can see what a typical country lock-up looked like at the turn of the last century and have your picture taken behind bars! When you “get out of jail,” visit the town church, an unusual structure designed by renowned Franco-Manitoban architect Étienne Gaboury, who was born in the La Montagne region.
A visit to Manitoba means travelling through Treaty 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 territory and communities signatory to Treaties 6 and 10, the original lands of the Anishinaabeg, Anish-Ininiwak, Dakota, Dené, Iiniwak, and Nehethowuk and the homeland of the Métis Nation. Its ongoing existence is thanks to these ancestors and their present day relatives who continue to love and care for the land.
