Succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples lived in the area for thousands of years before European exploration. It was an area of historic Ojibwe occupation. Fur traders and European mercenaries hired by Lord Selkirk to protect his fledgling Red River Colony were among the area's first European settlers. With the founding of a Roman Catholic mission in 1818, St Boniface began its role in Canadian religious, political and cultural history – as mother parish for many French settlements in Western Canada; as the birthplace of Louis Riel and fellow Métis who struggled to obtain favourable terms for Manitoba's entry into Confederation; and as a focus of resistance to controversial 1890 legislation to alter Manitoba's school system and abolish French as an official language in the province. French-speakingreligious orders, including the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, who arrived in 1844, founded the early educational, cultural and social-service institutions, such as St. Boniface Hospital, the first in Western Canada. Early French-speaking missionary Catholic priests in the region founded the Collège de Saint-Boniface to teach Latin and general humanities to the local boys; it is now the Université de Saint-Boniface. St Boniface was incorporated as a town in 1883 and as a city in 1908. The early economy was oriented to agriculture. Industrialization arrived in the early 20th century. The Union Stockyards, developed 1912–13, became the largest livestock exchange in Canada and a centre of the meat-packing and -processing industry. By the early 1900s, numerous light and heavy industries were established. Today the Stockyards site will be redeveloped into a housing and retail area Olexa Developments of Calgary beginning in 2020. In Phase 1 of the development, up to 600 housing units would be constructed. In the 1950s and 1960s the neighbourhoods of Windsor Park and Southdale developed into residential areas. In 2016 Windsor Park had a population of 10,050 and Southdale had a population of 6,450. In 1971, St. Boniface was amalgamated, along with several neighbouring communities, into the City of Winnipeg. As one of the larger French communities outside Québec, it has often been a centre of struggles to preserve French-Canadian language and culture within Manitoba.
Winnipeg's three Francophone radio stations, CKXL-FMCKSB-10-FM and CKSB-FM, are located in St. Boniface and are licensed there, a legacy of when St. Boniface was a separate city. The French-language weekly newspaper La Liberté is also based out of St-Boniface.
Sports
St. Boniface is represented by the St. Boniface Riels hockey team which plays in the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League. The St. Boniface Riels were founded in 1971. They play at the Southdale Arena and have won five MMJHL championships: 1971–1972, 1972–1973, 1984–1985, 1985–1986, 2014–2015.
