Canada Guide
Manitoba and Saskatchewan
MacKenzie Art Gallery
Address: Just off Albert Street at 23rd Avenue
Opening time: Daily 11am–6pm, Wed & Thurs until 10pm
Price: Free
The MacKenzie Art Gallery has several spacious modern galleries devoted to temporary exhibitions by modern Canadian artists, plus a good permanent collection. It's also the stage for the city's principal theatrical event, The Trial of Louis Riel (mid-July to Aug Wed– Fri; $12), whose text is based on the transcripts of the trial in Regina in September 1885. No other single event in Canada's past has aroused such controversy: at the time, most of English-speaking Canada was determined he should hang as a rebel, whereas his French-Canadian defenders saw him as a patriot and champion of a just cause. Though Riel was subject to visions and delusions, the court rejected the defence of insanity on the grounds that he knew what he was doing. As he exclaimed: "No one can say that the North-West was not suffering last year… but what I have done, and risked, rested certainly on the conviction [that I was] called upon to do something for my country." The jury found him guilty, but the execution was delayed while Prime Minister John A. Macdonald weighed the consequences; in the end, he decided against clemency.