Want to journey back in time? Well, there’s an app for that now.

Visitors to the Upper Fort Garry Provincial Park in downtown Winnipeg just need to download a mobile app onto their smartphones to get an interactive tour.

“We knew we were going to do this from day one because we knew we couldn’t recreate the fort,” said Friends of Upper Fort Garry chair Jerry Gray, at the official ribbon-cutting Friday. “If you could rebuild the fort, you could walk around and there would be plaques saying, ‘Here’s what happened here.’ But we have an artistic interpretation of what’s left of the site but that’s all.

“We knew we had to have an app.”

That was back in 2006. Now, visitors can experience the park’s history with photos and facts from when the fort was active. The app is equipped with GPS to help highlight points of the interest in Manitoba’s only urban provincial park.

“Five-year-old kids will be able to do it immediately but once you do it, it’s easy and it makes the park much more interesting,” said Gray.

Built between 1835 and 1837, the fort was the centre of trade for an area that was larger than Eastern Europe and was the administrative and judicial body of the Red River Settlement, which was governed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. It is also where Louis Riel formed the provisional government which led to Manitoba joining Confederation. Upper Fort Garry was demolished between 1881 and 1888.

Winnipeg-based interactive design studio Pattern Interactive developed the app, which works with iPhones and Android devices.

“We love doing app development and we thought it would be a great way to showcase some of the work that we can do,” said Pattern Interactive owner Jeremy Choy. “But when we were going through the content and going over the details, there’s actually quite a lot of interesting information that I got sucked into. I got quite excited after I started diving into the project.”

Choy spent much of Friday’s event assisting people in downloading the app and helping them navigate their way through it.

“Once we started explaining it and showed them the technology, their eyes just lit up and they were quite excited about the app,” said the 34-year-old Choy.

“It was so easy,” said Faye Hellner, the spouse of board member Garry Hilderman, moments after Choy helped her with the app. “I was surprised.”

More interactive features are planned for the future, like audio tours, live interaction with a heritage wall and interactive learning tools.

But already, the app offers many different interpretations of the history of the fort.

“From day one, our theme has been many voices,” said Gray. “We don’t say this is right and this is wrong.

“People can read the stuff and form their own views. It’s great for that.”

glen.dawkins@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @SunGlenDawkins