- 1732 – 34
La Vérendrye's canoes, the first European craft here according to the province, come out of the mouth of the Winnipeg River and follow the shore past Elk Island into the Red River.
- Around 1800
Fur brigades of the North West Company and the XY Company paddle this route between Montreal and the Red River.
- 1821
The North West Company joins the Hudson's Bay Company, the trade turns to Hudson Bay, and traffic on what the province calls the first Trans-Canada Highway falls away.
- August 1870
Colonel Wolseley's military expedition camps on Elk Island. One of its officers, Captain Huyshe, predicts in his book that the pure sands will become the "Brighton of Winnipeg Belles".
- 1871
Treaties establish reserves at Fort Alexander and at Brokenhead, the land on which South Beach now stands.
- 1914 – 15
The Canadian Northern Railway opens Grand Beach for recreation, with track north from Winnipeg to Balsam Bay, Grand Marais and the Victoria Beach district.
- 1920s – 40s
The railway resort grows a dance hall, a hotel, a boardwalk, a bath house, refreshment stands and a carousel. Picnics draw as many as 10,000 people on trains leaving the city every half hour. Grand Beach and Winnipeg Beach, across the lake, are the two great resorts for Winnipeggers.
- Mid-1940s
About 600 people have camps in the area, and the Canadian National Railway runs trains twice a day.
- 1950
The dance hall burns down and is not rebuilt, according to Wikipedia, as car ownership rises after the war.
- September 1961
The province acquires the railway's property, and train service to the resort ends after nearly half a century. The same year, the area becomes a provincial park.
- 1963
The tracks are removed, says Wikipedia. From then on, beachgoers arrive by car along Highway 59.
What the trains left behind
Walk the Boardwalk from the Locomotive Kiosk today and the province's interpretive signs show photographs from what it calls the Grand Old Days. The hotel, the dance hall and the carousel are gone; the beach, the dunes and the habit of a day trip from Winnipeg are not.
Why it matters for a stay at South Beach
The road replaced the railway, and the road runs past the resort. A Winnipeg family in 1925 took the train to the sand and the train home the same evening. A family in 2026 can drive up, swim, and sleep at South Beach rather than drive back in the dark. The idea of the lake as Winnipeg's summer escape is a hundred years old; only the bed has moved.
Sources: the province's Grand Beach park information is the main source for this entry. The 1950 fire and the 1963 removal of the tracks come from Wikipedia; treat them as secondary.
Where these notes come from (read 31 October 2026):