Paradise pushed aside for progress as old Winnipeg dairy farm faces wrecking ball

The pale yellow paint, protected from the elements for decades under plywood letters, is fading on the 90-year-old weathered-grey dairy barn at the south edge of Winnipeg.

Soon the Riverbend Dairy Farm barn and the neighbouring two-storey house will fall under the advance of a bulldozer and development.

"You know, it's progress, so you've got to accept it," said Lillian Gobert, the family matriarch, who lived at the St. Mary's Road property for 68 years until she was forced to leave in May 2021.

Built in 1932, the farm was a rural outpost for many years, surrounded by a smattering of other farms and market gardens. 

Now the city has crept up to the farm, with the River Park South neighbourhood shouldering against it.

For safety, due to increased traffic in the area, the nearby intersection of St. Mary's Road and the Perimeter Highway is getting a new interchange.

The farm now happens to be in the way and the property has been expropriated.

"I got taken away because of the new expansion," said Gobert, 87, who now lives a few miles east of the old homestead.

She moved to the farm in 1954, when she was 19, after marrying R. George Gobert. They raised four kids — three sons and a daughter — while entertaining school groups on field trips, customers buying fresh milk and bundles of relatives and friends.

"I always loved having people stop by and have a cup of tea or lunch or whatever. It was just like a main station and a lot of people just dropped by," Gobert said. 

Much of the property was shrouded by trees, creating a paradise behind that green screen, where the Gobert kids and their cousins and friends played, drove dirt bikes and lived around animals.

There was even a grass landing strip just north of the farm, called Gobert's Field, which R. George used for crop dusting.

"When the dairy was designed, they had a landscape architect design the yard, and it was gorgeous," said April Gobert, the lone daughter. 

It was full country living and the city was far off.