Provincial Heritage Site No. 82, Camp Hughes Military Training Site
NE 34-10-16 W, 10 kms west of Carberry, R.M. of North Cypress
Established 1909 (used until 1934)
National Historic Site of Canada, Designated in 2011
Camp Hughes was a Canadian military training camp. It was actively used for Army training from 1909 to 1934 and as a communications station from the early 1960s until 1991.
Camp Hughes was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 2011. It features an intact World War I battlefield terrain, which was created for training purposes by the Canadian Department of Militia between 1915 and 1916. It is now one of the only World War One era trench systems remaining in the world.
The site was developed to its fullest extent in 1916 when the facility accommodated over 27,000 people, making it the largest community in Manitoba outside Winnipeg.
History: In 1909, a Canadian military training camp named “Camp Sewell” was established at this site. It started as a city of tents and covered a large area. The camp name was changed in 1915 to “Camp Hughes” in honour of Major-General Sir Sam Hughes. Extensive trench systems, grenade and rifle ranges, and military structures were built at Camp Hughes between 1915 and 1916. During World War I, more than 38,000 troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force trained at the camp. Many of the soldiers who trained at Camp Hughes were later involved in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in France on April 9, 1917.