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By Mary Agnes Welch
The Winnipeg Free Press
Wednesday, October 8th, 2003
ENVIRONMENTALISTS and Metis leaders fear the site of Louis
Riel's family grist mill could be lost in the shadow of a $10
million senior citizens complex.
Developers want to build a 165-unit housing project on a long,
skinny strip of land that backs onto the Seine River -- a location
long targeted by environmentalists for protection from development.
City planning staff approved the project, saying it fit with
the south St. Vital neighbourhood. The rezoning application will
next be the subject of a vote by city council's Riel community
committee. Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand
said he is concerned the construction could erase part of local
Metis history without exploring all options for the land, including
an interpretive centre highlighting St. Vital's Metis history
and the Seine's natural beauty.
Before he died in 1864, Louis Riel's father, known as "the Miller
of the Seine," and Benjamin Lagimodiere ran a grist mill along
the Seine River, a unique example of the entrepreneurial spirit
of the early Red River settlement.
Most water-powered mills at the time turned when water flowed
under a large wheel positioned to dip into the river. Using new
technology imported from the East, Riel's wheel was submerged
in the Seine. The river's current turned the wheel, giving it
more power than traditional mills.
Louis Riel also grew up on the river lot, which is due east of
Riel House on River Road. The land was used for farming before
and after the mill closed in the 1870s.
Four round millstones from the Riel mill now stand in front of
the St. Boniface Museum, but nothing remains at the site on the
Seine River.
The mill site is also not on any provincial or federal lists
of possible heritage sites.
The land's owners, C.O.F. Haven Inc., wouldn't build the seniors
complex right on the mill site, which was located in the Seine's
large, flat river valley. Instead, the complex would be built
close to St. Anne's Road, but it would block access to the shrubby
embankment and to the river behind it.
C.O.F. Haven has three other non-profit affordable-housing complexes
for seniors in town, most of which have long waiting lists due
to a shortage of condos and apartments for retirees.
C.O.F. Haven has already donated more than two acres of river
valley to the city to be used as public reserve park land, as
city planning laws require. The two acres along the Seine where
the mill was located will remain in its natural forested state.
Project architect John Synyshyn said a plan is in place to allow
public access to the site, though access directly off St. Anne's
will be blocked by the housing project.
Save Our Seine co-ordinator David Danyluk said the seniors housing
will effectively prohibit any rehabilitation of the site, including
construction of an interpretive centre to guide visitors through
the river's habitat and history.
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