Fort George and Buckingham House Provincial Historic Site

05/29/2026

Handle with Care - Legacies of Confederation

In this video Canada's History goes behind-the-scenes at the Manitoba Museum to view and to touch artifacts and specimens.

Watch now: in this video Canada's History goes behind-the-scenes at the Manitoba Museum to take a look at and touch artifacts and specimens. 

05/27/2026

School program forecast:
The Fort George & Buckingham House Forecast for May 27, 28, & 29:
This week we expect a large wave of young scholars filling the historic site while they explore what life was like in 1792. If you’d like a personal tour, please plan to arrive after 2:30 pm.

05/20/2026

Fort George Forecast:
100% chance of school programs from May 20, 21 and 22.
During this exciting time we invite all other guests to join us for tours after 2:30 pm on weekdays and on weekends to receive personalized tours!

05/16/2026

The flag is flying and we are open for business!
The Fort George & Buckingham House visitor centre is now officially open for the season. Come by for a tour!

Open Wednesday- Sunday, 10 am – 5 pm.

Open on holiday Mondays, including Monday, May 18th, 2026.

05/15/2026

Looking for a good Canadian history podcast? May we introduce “In Hindsight” with Dr. Donald Smith!

Fur trade historian Michael Payne (who did lots of work on the history of Fort George & Buckingham House) has this to say about the “In Hindsight” podcast series:

“It seems as if every news outlet, political pundit, and true crime enthusiast has a podcast competing for our attention. Many are based on historical material, but relatively few are produced by academic historians or historical societies, museums, archives, or university departments. This is unfortunate in the current age of misinformation and dubious expertise. There should be much more space in the online universe for historical podcasts based on careful archival and contextual research.”

In Hindsight is produced by the Ontario Historical Society but contains a great deal of western Canadian history.

Michael Payne quote from Prairie History, Winter 2024.

Canadians of the past were prisoners of their cultural values just as their latter-day judges are of today’s beliefs. In each episode I try to understand, and to help the listener understand, the individual in the context of their own times.

05/13/2026

We’re almost ready to open the doors for the summer season!

Mark your calendars for this Saturday, May 16 at 10 am, when Fort George & Buckingham House opens its doors for summer 2026. We look forward to seeing you!

05/10/2026

Beautiful drone shot of Buckingham House…you can see that the space the buildings took up was fairly limited. That’s because they needed space for canoe and boat building and to keep their horses.

Note that special permission needs to be granted before any drones can fly over Fort George & Buckingham House Provincial Historic Site.

05/08/2026

Small notes of spring springing up at Fort George & Buckingham House. What are your favourite signs of spring? What signs of spring do you think were most welcome to the people of the fur trade?

05/06/2026

If you had to list the dangers associated with making canoes, would you add “stabbed in the back” to that list?

We wouldn’t have, but that is exactly what happened here 233 years ago today. The company journal records that on May 5, John Flett was “hurt by an awl that ran into his back.”

Awls (the skinny item in the middle of the files pictured below) were used for making holes in birchbark to sew through. We’re not sure how it “ran into his back.”

05/03/2026

How did you spend your Saturday? 233 years ago on May 1 at Buckingham House, 4 men were busy making canoes and 3 were searching for roots for sewing birchbark on those canoes. This photo shows spruce root in various stages of preparation for use as sewing thread on canoes.

05/01/2026

An early visitor to the visitor centre. Does the early bunny get the best grass? She seemed shy when we offered a guided tour so we encouraged her to go exploring on her own.