Winnipeg’s wasted youth. Not ‘wasted’ in the squandered sense of the word, but as in ‘hammered,’ ‘loaded’ or ‘shit-faced.’ Yes, in its early days, the ’Peg was one drunk city.

Death and Debauchery, the newest addition to The Exchange District BIZ’s Historic Walking Tours, details the Peg’s booze-fuelled past and the murder and mayhem that resulted from a few too many.

“We have nine tours right now that we offer and we wanted to do something different this year that was still educational, but was a bit more fun and branched out from our other tours,” says Jarrett Storey, manager of marketing and communications at the Exchange District BIZ. “Our tours are really great for people who are new to the city, travel writers and school groups, but with this one we thought, ‘Why not do something that’s more for the adults, something a little bit racier?’”

Written by Peg City history buff Matthew Komus, the Death and Debauchery tour is certainly risqué. While walking the Exchange one will learn of freak shows at the Royal Albert Arms, animal abuse on Adelaide, prostitution in Point Douglas, easily escapable jails, loose security at the Electric Railway Chambers, successful and not-so-successful executions in Old Market Square and of course, good ol’ political corruption.

“The first mayor of Winnipeg was a really interesting guy,” Storey says. “Francis E. Cornish, he was a provincial magistrate as well as being the mayor. He was caught being drunk and disorderly in public and actually presided over his own trial. He’s in the docket as a prisoner and walks up to the judge’s bench and reads to himself what he’s being accused of, pleads guilty with an excuse and then lets himself off for good behaviour. There’s some interesting scandals and corruption in the early days, which gave us the reputation at the time as ‘The Wickedest City in the Dominion.’”

With the Exchange District BIZ in the business of promoting our downtown national historic site, one might think it would be counterproductive to expose the area’s seedy underbelly. Not the case, says Storey.

“We just wanted to have some fun with the idea of crime and punishment,” he says. “It was a pretty easy decision. We did some research about what other cities are doing to attract visitors and locals and crime tours are really popular. We already knew about some of the more minor scandals but when we started really reading into it, we thought we have to share this. People have reacted to it in a huge way. Our draw in tours is actually up 500 to 600% from last year so it’s pretty obvious this is a really good move for us.”

You have until Aug. 27 to check out the Exchange’s deepest, darkest, drunkest secrets. Tours are available from Monday to Friday by calling 942-6716 or email walkingtours@exchangedistrict.org.

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