11/01/2026
A little piece of history . . when we could turn back time. lol ⏰
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19fiTuZjBq/
🕰️ WHEN MANITOBA HAD TWO DIFFERENT TIMES — AND THE NIGHT WE FINALLY STOP TURNING BACK THE CLOCK
Imagine leaving Lac du Bonnet for Winnipeg in 1916 and discovering that somewhere along the way, you'd lost an hour. Not because your watch had stopped. Not because you'd crossed a time zone.
But because Winnipeg had decided to live in a different time from the rest of Manitoba.
On March 20, 1916, Winnipeg city council voted 8–7 to introduce daylight saving time. It was the middle of the First World War, and supporters argued that moving clocks ahead would conserve electricity and increase productivity.
The decision wasn't popular with everyone. Railways and commodity markets still operated on standard time. Rural Manitoba hadn't made the change. Neither had communities such as Selkirk and Brandon.
For people travelling between the city and the countryside, time itself had become a matter of geography. The experiment was so troublesome that Winnipeg repealed it in 1917. But the argument refused to die.
Winnipeg tried daylight saving time again in 1937. Voters rejected it that November by approximately 31,000 votes to 25,000. During the Second World War, the federal government brought daylight saving time back, and by 1946, Winnipeg voters had changed their minds.
Meanwhile, eastern Manitoba was developing around industries where keeping time mattered enormously.
The CPR had reached Lac du Bonnet in 1901. Railway schedules connected the settlement to Winnipeg. The Pinawa generating station, built in the early 1900s, helped power a rapidly growing province. Logging camps, construction crews and railway workers all depended on knowing when a shift began, a train departed or supplies were expected.
Yet Manitoba's communities continued to disagree over what the clocks should say.
By 1962, the confusion had become serious enough that municipal organizations were demanding action. The Rural Municipality of Rosser formally called for uniform time across Manitoba, pointing out that two different times were being observed in the province.
Finally, on May 12, 1963, Manitoba adopted province-wide daylight saving time. For the next six decades, turning back the clock became an autumn ritual.
Every year, there was one strange hour when time repeated itself. At 2 a.m., clocks returned to 1 a.m. An hour that had already passed began again.
And now, on Halloween night, October 31, 2026, that peculiar piece of Manitoba history comes to an end.
Tomorrow morning, our clocks will not fall back. Manitoba is adopting permanent daylight saving time, officially called Manitoba Standard Time.
The clock will pass 2 a.m. and keep going. Perhaps that's the eeriest part of this Halloween.
For more than a century, Manitobans have argued about what time it should be. We've voted on it, legislated it, rejected it and brought it back. We've even lived in a province where neighbouring communities couldn't agree on the hour.
Tonight, we finally stop trying to turn back time.
And somewhere in an old house along the Winnipeg River, there's probably a clock that hasn't been changed in decades.
For all we know, it might finally be right. 👻
