Selkirk is a city in the western
Canadian province of
Manitoba, located about 22 km northeast of the provincial capital
Winnipeg on the
Red River, near () . As of the 2006 census, Selkirk had a population of 9,515.
The mainstays of the local economy are
tourism, a local
steel mill, and a major
mental health facility. A
vertical lift bridge over the Red River connects Selkirk with the smaller town of
East Selkirk. The city is connected to
Winnipeg via
Highway 9 and is served by the
Canadian Pacific Railway. Like all places in Manitoba, Selkirk has telephone
Area code 204, and the city has the
postal code prefix R1A. The city mostly borders the
Rural Municipality of St. Andrews, except to the east, where it borders the
Rural Municipality of St. Clements across the Red River.
The city was named in honour of
Scotsman Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, who obtained the grant to first establish a colony in the Red River area.
History
The present-day city is near the center of the 160,000 square mile (530,000 km<sup>2</sup>) area purchased by the Earl of Selkirk from the
Hudson's Bay Company. The first settlers of the
Red River Colony arrived in 1813. Although the settlers negotiated a treaty with the
Salteaux Indians of the area, the commercial rivalry between the Hudson's Bay Company and the
North West Company gave rise to
violent confrontations between the settlers and the trading companies.In recognition of the Earl's...
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