Winkler is a city in Manitoba, Canada with a population of 13,745, making it the 4th largest city in Manitoba, as of the 2021 Canadian census. It is located in southern Manitoba, surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Stanley, about one hundred kilometres southwest of Winnipeg and thirteen kilometres east of its "twin city" Morden. As the largest city in the Pembina Valley, it serves as a regional hub for commerce, agriculture and industry. Winkler is the third-fastest growing city in the province after Morden and Steinbach. History Pre-European settlement The land in southeast Manitoba upon which Winkler sits, was the traditional lands of the nomadic Ojibway-speaking Anishinabe people. They used their lands for hunting, fishing, and trapping. The Anishinabe knew no borders at the time and their land ranged both north and south of the US–Canada border, and both east and west of the Red River. On 3 August 1871 the Anishinabe people signed Treaty 1 and moved onto reserves. Early history European settlement in the Winkler area history dates back to 1876 when Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites began settling in the area known as the West Reserve, which had been set aside exclusively for the Russian Mennonites. The West Reserve as established two years after an earlier Mennonite Reserve called the East Reserve was founded east of the Red River. Many of Winkler-area's first settlers moved from the East Reserve. The first official Mennonite Brethren congregation was founded in Burwalde, near Winkler in 1888. In 1892, Valentine Winkler, a lumber entrepreneur and politician who owned and operated his own lumber business in nearby Morden founded the village of Winkler. Because Winkler's many customers from the Mennonite settlement wanted him to build a market in their vicinity, he persuaded the Canadian Pacific Railway to build a spur route on the northeastern edge of the settlement where Winkler had been established. Incorporation as a village Winkler was incorporated as a village on May 9, 1906. By that time, the flourishing village had become home to a number of German, Jewish and English merchants. The Mennonites began moving into the village soon after and by World War I, they outnumbered all other groups. Winkler experienced significant floods in 1916, 1917, 1933 and 1966. On Tuesday, March 22, 1966, several merchants in Winkler closed down their shops for the day when they found the street flooded and water up to their doorsteps. Most of