This November, the 112th Grey Cup takes over Winnipeg. Thousands will crowd into Princess Auto Stadium as the city fills with the rituals of the CFL: parkas, painted faces, frozen moustaches and foam fingers. From Regina come Rider-green onesies; from Calgary, cowboy hats; from Hamilton, striped tiger tails. Toronto fans wave tridents, BC Lions loyalists glow in orange.
For one weekend, the Grey Cup is less a championship than a prairie carnival – and yet that carnival is only part of Winnipeg’s appeal. Beyond the stadium is a city with a roster of experiences that make it worth staying longer.
Explore Winnipeg’s Inuit Art at Qaumajuq: Must-See Attractions 2025
The Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Qaumajuq houses over 14,000 contemporary Inuit artworks, including 7,500 carvings in the floating visible vault. Photo: Mark Sissons
Qaumajuq, the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s glass-walled expansion, houses the world’s most extensive public collection of contemporary Inuit art – more than 14,000 pieces, from stone carvings to prints and textiles. The visible vault alone contains 7,500 carvings suspended in glass, creating the impression of a floating archive. For decades, much of this art had been stored. Now it is on view, in a building whose name means “it is bright, it is lit” in Inuktitut.
Assiniboine Park Adventures: Tropical Biomes, Arctic Animals & Polar Bears in Winnipeg
The Leaf at Assiniboine Park features Canada’s tallest indoor waterfall and the country’s largest tropical biome, with butterflies drifting through four diverse biomes. Photo: Mark Sissons
Assiniboine Park is home to two of Winnipeg’s most ambitious attractions. The Leaf, part of the park’s Canada’s Diversity Gardens, is a glass conservatory where Canada’s tallest indoor waterfall crashes into a tropical garden. Opened in 2022 after more than a decade of planning, it includes the largest indoor tropical biome in the country. Four biomes – Tropical, Mediterranean, Boreal and Seasonal – allow visitors to move from orchids to olive trees in minutes. In the butterfly enclosure, monarchs and morphos drift through the air, sometimes landing on a shoulder or toque.
Assiniboine Park Zoo’s Journey to Churchill features Arctic animals across 10 acres. The standout: the Sea Ice Passage, a glass tunnel beneath the polar bear pool, where polar bears swim overhead, paws and fur pressing against the glass. Photo: Assiniboine Park & Zoo
Also within the park, the Assiniboine Park Zoo features Journey to Churchill, opened in 2014 and still the only comprehensive Arctic species exhibit in the world. Covering 10 acres, it recreates tundra, boreal and coastal environments and includes muskoxen, snowy owls, Arctic foxes and polar bears. The highlight is the Sea Ice Passage, a glass tunnel beneath the polar bear pool. From the tunnel, you look up as polar bears swim above, paws and fur pressing against the glass.
Relax and Rejuvenate in Winnipeg’s Nordic Spas This Winter
At Thermëa Spa Village Winnipeg, the Prairies’ first Nordic spa, guests move between heat and cold, letting centuries-old hydrotherapy slow winter days until the chill feels purposeful, not punishing. Photo: Mark Sissons
Thermëa Spa Village Winnipeg, the first Nordic spa of its kind in the Prairies, treats the cold as part of the experience. Guests move between saunas, steam rooms and outdoor pools as snow piles on cedar roofs and woodsmoke drifts across the paths. The rhythm is simple: heat, plunge, pause. Inspired by centuries-old hydrotherapy traditions, the cycle slows the pace of a winter day. After a few rounds, the cold feels less like punishment and more like the point.
Top Restaurants and Best Places to Eat in Winnipeg During Grey Cup Weekend
Nola’s braised beef shank roasted cabbage, 5-spice chestnut puree, mustard green relish, mushroom jus, coffee shoyu. Photo: Mark Sissons
Winnipeg’s restaurants continue to earn national attention. Deer + Almond, chef Mandel Hitzer’s inventive flagship, anchors the scene with playful small plates. Yujiro, a small spot in River Heights, is known for meticulous sushi and sashimi, while Nola, led by Emily Butcher, brings prairie ingredients into a modern kitchen with style and confidence – all three earned places on Canada’s 100 Best. In the historic Exchange District, the James Avenue Pump House occupies a former 1906 waterworks. Massive pumps and copper piping dominate the room, so dinner here carries the weight of the building’s industrial past.
Historic Hotels, The Forks & Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg
Built in 1913, the Fort Garry Hotel is Winnipeg’s grand railway landmark, its turrets and ballrooms having hosted royalty, rock stars and prime ministers. It is also said to be haunted. Room 202 is the most notorious, with reports of apparitions at the bed and phantom knocks in the night. Walk its long corridors and you half expect Jack Nicholson to step out with an axe – a hotel where grandeur and ghost stories share the same halls.
The Forks welcomes over four million visitors a year to its markets, restaurants and riverfront walkways. Photo: The Forks Winnipeg/Kristhine Guerrero
Nearby, The Forks marks the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, a gathering place that has been used for over 6,000 years. Today, it welcomes over four million visitors a year to its markets, restaurants and riverfront walkways. Rising above it is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), opened in 2014 as the first national museum built outside Ottawa.
From its glass ‘cloud’ exterior to the Tower of Hope, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights offers both striking views and thought-provoking exhibits. Photo: Mark Sissons
Designed by architect Antoine Predock, CMHR incorporates more than 1,300 panes of glass in its curved “cloud” exterior. Inside, alabaster walkways lead visitors past exhibits on the Holocaust, Canada’s residential schools and global campaigns for equality. The ascent culminates in the Tower of Hope, where expansive windows frame the rivers and prairie horizon.
Why Winnipeg Is the Perfect Grey Cup 2025 Destination and Beyond
The Grey Cup will bring its blizzard of jerseys, chants, and gridiron drama. But once the final whistle sounds, Winnipeg’s art, architecture, food, and history reward those who stick around – with vivid reminders that this prairie city’s character runs deeper than four quarters of football.
Plan ahead
For trip ideas, events and more ways to experience the city, visit tourismwinnipeg.com
