The convent was constructed using the Red River building method, a technique of interlocking timber also described as mortise and tenon or tongue and groove joinery. Not a single nail holds the structure together. Construction began in 1846 and finished in 1851, producing a building with a basement, two full floors, and an attic. The Grey Nuns who commissioned it had arrived in 1844, living initially with Bishop Norbert Provencher until their own quarters could be started. The completed convent would serve the community in a remarkable succession of roles -- orphanage, school, seniors' home, and the first incarnation of St. Boniface Hospital. Each transformation reflected the growing needs of the Red River settlement, and each left its mark on the building's interior.

The Grey Nuns who settled here were not cloistered contemplatives but frontier workers. They arrived in the Red River Colony at a time when the nearest city of any size was hundreds of miles away, winter temperatures plunged far below zero, and the local economy revolved around pemmican and fur pelts. Their convent became a social services hub long before that term existed, absorbing orphaned children, educating local families, and providing medical care that would eventually grow into a full hospital. The building they occupied was itself an act of resilience -- begun before it could be properly finished, insulated with animal hides, and standing through nearly two centuries of Manitoba weather without the benefit of a single iron fastener.

The museum's most powerful exhibit centers on Louis Riel, the Metis leader who led two resistance movements against the Canadian government and was executed by hanging on November 16, 1885. Under glass in Saint-Boniface, visitors encounter Riel's personal belongings with startling intimacy: locks of his hair, his revolver, his shaving kit, his moccasins. Then the display turns darker -- pieces of the rope used to hang him, the white hood placed over his head before the execution, and the coffin on which his body was laid afterward. Riel was born in Saint-Boniface and his grave lies nearby at the Saint-Boniface Cathedral. The museum's collection transforms a political figure into a physical presence, making abstract history uncomfortably tangible.

The convent building was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1958. A year later, in November 1959, the municipality formally established the museum and appointed a board of directors. Since the late 1960s the building has been administered by municipal government -- first the city of Saint-Boniface, then the City of Winnipeg following the amalgamation of 1971. Today Le Musee de Saint-Boniface Museum is dedicated to preserving Franco-Manitoban and Metis culture, telling the story of the French-speaking communities that helped shape Manitoba from the fur trade era through Confederation and beyond. The building itself remains the most compelling artifact in the collection -- a nail-free timber structure that has outlasted every other building of its era in Winnipeg except the 1831 store at the Seven Oaks House Museum.