Winged Victory was erected by the Canadian Pacific Railway in the memory of its employees who were killed during the First World War. It was unveiled by Lieutenant Governor James Albert Manning Aikins on 28 April 1922. The Winged Victory (also referred to as Angel of Victory) stood before Winnipeg's Canadian Pacific Railway Station at 181 Higgins Avenue. In 1989, the monument was moved to the Canadian Pacific office building on Henry Street. It was moved to its current location at Deer Lodge on Portage Avenue in June 2003.
The Canadian Pacific Railway commissioned three Winged Victory statues from Montreal sculptor Coeur de Lion MacCarthy to commemorate the 1,116 employees it lost in the First World War. All three statues were unveiled simultaneously on the same date. The statue depicts an angel carrying a deceased soldier to heaven at the moment of his death. The angel originally held a laurel wreath, the symbol of victory, in her upraised hand. The other two identical memorials are in Montreal and Vancouver.
After the Second World War, the dates 1939-1945 were added and after the Korean War, the dates 1950-1953 were added to the inscription.
Coeur de Lion MacCarthy, the son of sculptor Hamilton McCarthy, produced numerous commemorative works after the First World War, including: Winged Victory in British Columbia; Great War Memorial and Lethbridge Cenotaph in Alberta; Winged Victory in Manitoba; County of Brome War Memorial, Verdun Victory Memorial, Monument to the Brave and Winged Victory in Quebec; Clifton Hill War Memorial and Woodstock Cenotaph in Ontario.
