Electricity Caused Travellers’ Hotel Demise

September 4, 2020

This article was done in partnership with the Lac du Bonnet & District Historical Society. It appeared in the August 27, 2020 edition of the Lac du Bonnet Clipper.

The Travellers’ Hotel, located where the Sunova Credit Union is today, was built in 1927 by the Shapland family.

Les Shapland, and his wife, Lillian, worked for the CPR. They also owned and operated the Holiday Beach resort and ran a houseboat up to McArthur Falls for sightseeing tours on weekends and holidays. Les purchased the land for the hotel from Alex McIntosh, choosing a location at the edge of the village, near the new CPR station.

With the arrival of the road along Milner Ridge in 1926, Lac du Bonnet was opened up to the new era of “motor tours” and cars full of tourists arrived. The area’s first bus, operated by Stuarts Bus Line, ran daily into Winnipeg.

The Travellers’ Hotel held its grand opening on New Year’s Eve 1927, when the Shapland’s hosted a “free-for-all” party for the occasion. Eventually, Les took over the restaurant in the dining room and Lillian became the first woman to serve beer in the parlor.

In 1930, the Shapland’s sold the Travellers’ Hotel to J.L. Gaudry. Newspaper advertisements from the early 1930s boasted fully modern, large comfortable rooms with hot and cold running water, along with electric refrigeration for the hotel.

Then, at 2 a.m. on August 10, 1935, tragedy struck. The porter discovered a large fire in the hotel’s basement. He ran upstairs through thick smoke to raise the alarm, awakening the Gaudry family and the hotel’s fifteen guests. With no time to gather belongings, all were evacuated moments before the fire blocked the exit.

With the hotel past saving, residents created a bucket brigade to prevent the spread of fire to neighbouring businesses. Forestry personnel brought a hose to expedite water from the river. The flames were visible from miles away.

Pilots from the nearby Manitoba Government Air Service, Wings Ltd., and Canadian Airways bases moved their planes to a safe distance further down the river to protect them from the blaze.

Within two hours, the entire hotel, along with Jack Park’s attached barber shop and pool room, was destroyed. Initial reports were that the fire was caused by the electrical connection of a mangle (a machine with a set of rollers used to wring water from laundry). The surrounding buildings were spared any damage.

The Travellers’ Hotel was never rebuilt. In 1947, Lac du Bonnet’s first movie theatre, the Walbec, was built on the lot.

References:

“Fifteen Escape Death in Hotel Fire.” Winnipeg Tribune, Aug. 10, 1935.

“Guests Make Escape When Hotel Razed.” Winnipeg Free Press, Aug. 12, 1935.

“Advertisement: Walbec Theatre.” Springfield Leader (Lac du Bonnet, MB), Oct. 28, 1947.

“The Shaplands, Lac du Bonnet Residents for Thirty-six years, Move to Florida.” Springfield Leader, Aug. 10, 1954.

Aileen Oder, ed., Logs and Lines from the Winnipeg River: A History of the Lac du Bonnet Area (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1980), 167, 235-237.