Provincial Heritage Site No. 31
On the invitation of Archbishop Tache of St. Boniface, and Father Ritchot of St. Norbert, five Cistercian monks of the Trappist Order from the Abbey of Bellefontaine, France, founded this first monastery in western Canada in l892.
Construction of a Romanesque Revival church began 11 years later. The connecting monastic wing was built in l905, and the guesthouse in l9l2 on the foundations of the first church.
Since, over time, urban encroachment was affecting their contemplative way of life on the wooded banks of the La Salle River, between 1975 and 1978 the monks moved to a farm near Holland, Manitoba.
In 1983 the vacated church and monastic wing were gutted by fire. The ruins were subsequently preserved under a joint project of the Canada-Manitoba Agreement for Recreation and Conservation on the Red River Corridor, the City of Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba. It was officially opened as a Provincial Heritage Park in 1987.