Selkirk, Manitoba
City in Manitoba, Canada
Selkirk is a city in the western Canadian province of Manitoba, located on the Red River about 22 kilometres (14 mi) northeast of Winnipeg, the provincial capital. It has a population of 10,504 as of the 2021 census.
The mainstays of the local economy are tourism, a steel mill, and a psychiatric hospital. A vertical lift bridge over the Red River connects Selkirk with the smaller town of East Selkirk. The city is connected to Winnipeg via Highway 9 and is served by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The city was named in honour of the Scotsman Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, who obtained the grant to establish a colony in the Red River area in 1813.
History
The present-day city is near the centre of the 160,000-square-mile (410,000 km2) area purchased by the Earl of Selkirk from the Hudson's Bay Company. The first settlers of the Red River Colony arrived in 1813. Although the settlers negotiated a treaty with the Saulteaux Indians of the area, the commercial rivalry between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company gave rise to violent confrontations between the settlers and the trading companies. In recognition of the Earl's importance in bringing settlers to the region, the town was named Selkirk and incorporated in 1882.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Selkirk, Manitoba” is city in Manitoba, Canada. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Selkirk, Manitoba and City, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “city in Manitoba, Canada” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1018239. VIAF identifies the subject as 130183400. The Library of Congress control number is n80073403. Authority coordinates are 50.144, -96.884. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1813 and 1882.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Selkirk, Manitoba”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Selkirk, Manitoba primary sources, Selkirk, Manitoba archive and Selkirk research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Selkirk, Manitoba”?
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Selkirk, Manitoba” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.