{"id":640030,"date":"2026-05-01T04:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T04:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640030\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T04:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T04:36:20","slug":"tea-room-in-pre-confederation-heritage-house-north-of-winnipeg-reopens-after-decade-long-hiatus-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640030\/","title":{"rendered":"Tea room in pre-Confederation heritage house north of Winnipeg reopens after decade-long hiatus"},"content":{"rendered":"

A historic house that predates Confederation is reopening north of Winnipeg, a decade after structural issues forced it to close.<\/p>\n

The Captain Kennedy House tea room and museum \u2014 named after a M\u00e9tis community leader and Arctic explorer \u2014 is open again thanks to $1.4 million in restorations and years of construction work to ensure the 160-year-old space is safe for visitors<\/a>, the province said in a Thursday news release.<\/p>\n

“I understand it was pretty gruelling, because they did a lot of structural foundation [work],” said Musette Fowke, the owner and operator of the Heritage Tea Room, which will operate in Captain Kennedy House.<\/p>\n

The building was shuttered in spring 2015 after an inspection found structural problems. The tea room was privately run, but as it’s located within River Road Provincial Heritage Park, the province is technically responsible for upkeep.<\/p>\n

At the time, the province estimated it could take 2\u00bd years and $1 million to restore.<\/p>\n

Once Manitoba Parks completed the renovations to the provincially designated heritage building, the department issued a public tender for a commercial operator, which Fowke won.<\/p>\n

Among other changes, work was done on the basement, new accessible washrooms were put in and the kitchen was remodelled, said Fowke.<\/p>\n

“The renewal committee that had been engaged really wanted to be open and pushed … long and hard to really honour William Kennedy’s legacy,” she said. “The property and the house means so much to the community.”<\/p>\n

It was named after William Kennedy, who was born at the fur-trading post Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan River in 1814. His father was a Scottish-born Hudson’s Bay Company chief officer and his mother a Mushkegowuk woman.<\/p>\n

\"Captain<\/p>\n

(Musette Fowke\/Submitted)<\/p>\n

Kennedy studied in Scotland before returning to work as a Hudson’s Bay clerk in 1833. He could never rise in the ranks as a M\u00e9tis man due to racial barriers in the company, according to Parks Canada.<\/a><\/p>\n

He got experience at several remote outposts in northern Labrador and Quebec before leaving the HBC in 1846 to lend his voice to a growing chorus of critics of the company.<\/p>\n

Kennedy called on Britain to stop the United States from encroaching north, and wanted the Red River Settlement to be a part of British North America.<\/p>\n

\"Captain<\/p>\n

Tea room owner and operator Musette Fowke says due to building code changes since the closure, the reopened Kennedy House will have fewer museum components accessible to the public. (Submitted by Musette Fowke)<\/p>\n

He was critical of the Hudson Bay Company’s poor treatment of First Nations, Inuit and M\u00e9tis people, and was also a leader who provided guidance through the first rocky years of Confederation.<\/p>\n

Kennedy also led an unsuccessful search in the Arctic for Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition in 1851-52.<\/p>\n

He took up residence at what was then called Maple Grove, now Captain Kennedy House, when it was built in 1866.<\/p>\n

Local church volunteers opened the tea room in the 1970s, and in the early 2000s a museum was opened.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Manitoba Environment Minister Mike Moyes thanked the Kennedy House Renewal Committee, Red River North Tourism and the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews for their restoration advocacy.<\/p>\n

The restoration is a “testament to our shared heritage and the enduring legacy of the Kennedy family,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"Fowke<\/p>\n

Fowke said Mother’s Day reservations were nearly full as of Thursday. (Submitted by Musette Fowke)<\/p>\n

Fowke said the building has a lot of lore that attracts visitors from near and far, including a TV production team that reached out because they wanted to film a ghost hunter show inside.<\/p>\n

The property’s English garden, tucked along a path by the Red River, is also a draw, she said. For others, the connection to the property is more sentimental.<\/p>\n

“Usually I get a very personal story that connects them \u2026 to the house,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Maybe they have somebody that was married here or had photos taken here or who got engaged here or who used to come here with their grandmother.”<\/p>\n

Despite still being in the process of opening, Fowke said word of her new business got around, starting with one or two posts on social media in recent days (not by her).<\/p>\n

“The response and demand was enormous, and within minutes we became overbooked for our initial soft launch,” Fowke said, adding most of the Mother’s Day reservations were snatched up as of Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“A lot of things have already been booked up in the upcoming weekend, so I think there’s a lot of excitement and a lot of buzz.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A historic house that predates Confederation is reopening north of Winnipeg, a decade after structural issues forced it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,238890,238892,238891,238894,238893,22073],"class_list":["post-640030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-captain-kennedy-house","tag-kennedy-house","tag-musette-fowke","tag-tea-room","tag-william-kennedy","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}