Grand Beach and the surrounding area has a very intertesting history. A book was published a few years ago that retold the story with great detail. The book was written by Susan Lemoine and Tim Barnfather and funded by the Manitoba Natural Resources.

The name of the book is "Grand Beach - The Grand Old Days" Here is an piece of that story. Lake Winnipeg has been alternately sparkling in serenity and unleashing its fury on the silent shore for thousands of years. Many beaches dot its shoreline, but the largest, and most beautiful of all, is Grand Beach. The 3 kilometres of white sandy beaches are located only 80 kilometres from Winnipeg, making Grand Beach an attractive destination. In 1783, La Vérendrye had dubbed this area Grand Marais, meaning Big Marsh.

Today both French and English titles exist side by side, giving tribute to both beach and lagoon which combine to give the area a unique charm. Grand Beach is on the historic La Vérendrye Trail. The Canadian Northern Railway completed laying the track to Grand Beach and developed a resort in 1916. For the next 15 years the resort enjoyed the post-war construction boom.

Even during the depression, Grand Beach was the only resort in Manitoba to realize a profit. Bathing suits were first rented out at the bath houses on the beach. When waterlogged, these sagging, wool garments added considerable extra weight to the poor swimmers.

Times changed, and swimsuits got smaller and more practical. Body building and bathing beauty contests developed, and tanning became a deliberate art.

The grandest of all the building at Grand Beach was the Dance Pavilion. Rumour has it that this was the largest Dance Hall of its time in the Commonwealth. Until its destruction by fire in 1950, this was the major source of entertainment and the central meeting spot of the resort community. Entire families and all age groups would enjoy the music of the band hired by the railway for the entire season. Admission was originally free, but in the Twenties "Jitney" (a nickel a dance) dancing began.

A boardwalk was built over the years that extended from the station to the lagoon along the beach front. Hot and crowded during the day, lit up at night, the boardwalk provided sure footing for shoe-clad feet and food for hungry beach-goers. The first hot dog and soft drink stand was built in 1923. Under the boardwalk the shade was welcome. Treasure hunters could be rewarded with some loose change. Itinerant travellers found the boardwalk an ideal shelter. They say Sandy is the name given to a girl-child conceived under the boardwalk. Whatever the recreational preference, the boardwalk offered a variety of diversions.

The carousel was an awesome and magical building. Filled with hand-crafted animals: studs, mares and ponies, whirling in an endless circle to the tinkling music, their manes flying, teeth bared, hooves raised, forever frozen in time.

Going back even further... Historian W. L. Morton provided a general description of the Grand Marais fishery supporting the Red River Settlement in 1850:

Among the occupations of Red River and the sources of its food, fisheries played a small but not unimportant part. Like the fall hunt, they were a means by which the improvident or the unfortunate made some provision for the winter. The waters of the Red and Assiniboine were, of course, available to anyone who wished to try his luck and vary his diet, and yielded catfish, pickerel, pike, goldeyes and sturgeon in abundance. But the fall fisheries were two. One was at Grand Marais on Lake Winnipeg, and was reached by boat or by trails down the east side of the delta. This fishery was used by the Swampies [Swampy Cree] of the Indian village, and the half-breeds and Métis of the Lower and Upper Settlements. It was a whitefish fishery and fish taken by net there were cured, as in the north, by being hung entire, head downwards, so to drain and dry in the cool October air.