Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Forest  is the largest urban forest in Canada, at 285 hectares, and home to a variety of wildlife, dozens of songbirds and hundreds of plants, some rare. But it might have ended up looking like any other suburban area in the city, if not for the stock market crash in 1929. Many of the 18 kilometres of trails — bordered today by Roblin and Shaftesbury boulevards, Wilkes Avenue and Chalfont Road — follow the old road cuts from a neighbourhood once cleared but never developed. …According to the Manitoba Historical Society, developments closer to the city centre attracted the investors who might otherwise have been interested in Tuxedo. …In 1972, Tuxedo amalgamated with Winnipeg and 12 other suburbs, and in 1973 the forest was preserved as a municipal nature park. …The Charleswood branch of Winnipeg’s Rotary Club has been custodian of the forest for nearly four decades, maintaining and adding to the amenities.