BP Archives looking for local history

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Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Photo courtesy of Heritage-Neepawa Land of Plenty-1883-1983. The Neepawa Ice Palace circa 1938, was constructed annually at the intersection of Mountain Ave. and Hamilton St. It was designed by J. J. Harper and was made using the last blocks of ice cut by the "Ice Man", Melvin Murray, and taken from Park Lake. The Neepawa ice business generated an annual turn over well into the thousands of dollars and in 1920, Murray put up a large quantity for the C.N.R. and shipped over 50 car loads to different points for general use. That year, he cut about 5,000 tons of ice.

By Norma Forsman 

Archivist and the Beautiful Plains Archives board

The Beautiful Plains Archives which is located in the Beautiful Plains County Court Building is looking to add to their large collection of records of the history of the Beautiful Plains area. These records could be from the business community, schools, churches, sports, service clubs, theatre, choirs, music groups, festivals, medical, political, artists, musicians, writers, local television station and many more. Our communities have been built and still are being built on the activities and programs of all of these groups.

Valuable archival records can include minute books, membership lists, financial statements, lists of board/executive members, photos, scrapbooks, newspaper write-ups audio or video records that show the mission and the projects that have contributed to our communities and to our residents.

The Beautiful Plains Archives Board would like to encourage you to contribute your history to the local archives so that it can be preserved and used for future reference.

The archives are in need of financial support to be able to make them more accessible to the public. We want to be able to have more administration time to assist groups and people to preserve their history, to promote the archives through fundraising, newsletters and developing of a website. The Beautiful Plains Archives is a registered charity for financial donations.

The archive’s board of directors decided, on Nov. 22, to organize two fundraising events for 2017: a calendar depicting the Beautiful Plains area and a Canada Birthday Tea in May 2017. More information will be made available in the local newspapers.

Currently, the archive is open on Fridays from 9 am to 12 noon to assist you with accepting your material or having your documents and photos scanned. We welcome questions. 

The Beautiful Plains Archives board of directors is: Marjorie Goodwin, Helen Drysdale, Don McGillivray, Ron Forsman, Ernie Gawaziuk and Dennis Ranger. 

To contact the archive you may phone 204-841-0409 or email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or use PO Box 67, Neepawa, MB, R0J 1H0.

Everyone is welcome to come to visit the archives and view what has already been collected.