Rural Communities Deserve Same Opportunity as Winnipeg, says Manitoba Author

On The Road to Abandoned Manitoba, the third in Gordon Goldsborough’s series of books on historical sites in the province, visits nooks and crannies all over Manitoba in search of forgotten places and little-known stories. Goldsborough, president of the Manitoba Historical Society and recently retired professor at the University of Manitoba, published the first Abandoned Manitoba book in 2016 and also hosts a radio segment on CBC Radio on Abandoned Manitoba.

The series was born in 2007, when to kill some time on an unrelated trip to Westman, Goldsborough sought out an old bank vault that he’d heard existed in the area. It took some knocking on doors to finally find the location, and the experience made him want to make it easier for people to share and locate those kinds of sites. Before the book series, there was another project that idea sparked. In 2010 Goldsborough helped launch an interactive map on the Manitoba Historical Society Website that, as of December 2023, maps 9,502 sites across the province.

While his publisher planned a big book launch for the new book at McNally Robinson, the premier independent bookseller in the province, they hadn’t planned anything outside of Winnipeg. While that was an excellent start, for a book that was founded on getting out into all corners of the province, that wasn’t enough for Goldsborough.

"So much of this book is the rest of Manitoba besides Winnipeg,” said Goldsborough, “that I really feel strongly that we should have some kind of opportunity to share it with people around the province."

A packed crowd in Neepawa showed up to hear Goldsborough talk about his book and his adventures, a testament to his belief that rural crowds are a big part of his audience.