Getting to Winnipeg is easy!

Here are your options for getting to Winnipeg:

Getting to Winnipeg by Plane

By commercial carrier, you will arrive at James Armstrong Richardson International Airport. Just west of downtown, the airport is open 24-hours a day year-round.

Flight times from:

Getting to Winnipeg by Car

From Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal (with stops) it is a 2- to 3-day drive to Winnipeg. If you are coming from the U.S., it will take about an hour to drive from the Canada/U.S. border (neighbouring states are North Dakota and Minnesota) to Winnipeg.

The highway (Trans-Canada from east or west; Highways 75 or 59 from the south and Highways 6, 7, 8 or 59 from the north) will bring you to the Perimeter Highway, which is Winnipeg’s ring road.

Getting to Winnipeg by Train

VIA Rail’s Canadian travels coast to coast, making a stop at Union Station on Main Street, close to major downtown hotels.

VIA’s Hudson Bay will take you from Union Station north to Churchill, Manitoba’s arctic seaport, famous as the place to see polar bears and arctic wildlife in their native environment.

If you are traveling from (or to) the U.S., VIA makes connections with Amtrack routes.

Getting to Winnipeg by Bus

The Grayhound Canada bus terminal is at Richardson International Airport. You can get off the bus either at the terminal or downtown (at Winnipeg Square).

If you are continuing on, the ticket desk (and the terminal) are open daily from 6:30 a.m. to midnight.

Other inter-city bus companies serving Winnipeg are Beaver Bus Lines, Grey Goose and Brandon Air Shuttle.

Getting to Winnipeg -- Where is it?

Winnipeg is the city closest to the centre of North America and the capital of Manitoba, Canada.

Out here, we tend to measure distances in time rather than kilometers or miles, so Winnipeg is about a day’s drive from Minneapolis, Minnesota or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. You can get here from Toronto in two days (three if you want a more leisurely pace), which is also about the distance to Calgary. Or Chicago.

Three days behind the wheel will get you to (or from) Vancouver or Montreal.

These travel times are approximately the same if you are coming here by train.

Substitute hours for days and you have the approximate time to make the same trip by air. You’ll arrive at James Richardson International Airport, which used to be one of Canada’s mid-century modern architectural treasures, but sadly it is about to be demolished and so, in the short term at least, Richardson Airport is a construction zone.

Taking the optimistic long view, we will have a larger, more efficient terminal some time in 2010 (that’s the promise) with improved services including more places to shop (and, we hope, park).

In the meantime, the place is difficult if you rely on a wheelchair or are mobility-challenged, through there is a golf-cart shuttle (run by volunteers) between the terminal and the parking lots.

What time is it right now in Winnipeg?

Winnipeg is in the Central Standard Time Zone (6 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time).

This means that, if you are comparing Winnipeg time to that in other major North American cities, right now it is one hour earlier in Winnipeg than it is in either Toronto or New York. It's two hours later here than in either Vancouver or Los Angeles. The time in Winnipeg is the same as in Chicago or Mexico City.

We have Daylight Savings in Manitoba, meaning that the clocks move forward by one hour in spring, and back an hour in autumn.