Map - Gimli, Manitoba (Gimli)

Gimli is an unincorporated community in the Rural Municipality of Gimli on the west side of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. The community's first European settlers were Icelanders who were part of the New Iceland settlement in Manitoba. The community maintains a strong connection to Iceland and Icelandic culture today, including the annual Icelandic Festival. It was incorporated as a village on March 6, 1908, and held town status between December 31, 1946, and January 1, 2003, when it amalgamated with the RM of Gimli. Census Canada now recognizes the community as a population centre for census purposes. The 2021 Canadian census recorded a population of 2,345 in the population centre of Gimli.

The town's settlers sustained themselves primarily from agriculture and fishing. Gimli maintains a strong connection to the lake today, tourism has played a part in the town's current economic sustainability. Gimli Beach is a popular spot in the summer while the Gimli Harbour is the largest harbour on Lake Winnipeg and in Western Canada between Ontario and the Pacific Coast.

The first European settlers in Gimli were Canadian Icelanders. Icelandic immigrants began settling the area in 1875. The Icelandic settlers arrived from Kinmount, Ontario, and settled at the site of Gimli, the new home of New Iceland. Volcanic eruptions in Iceland at the time spurred additional immigration to the Gimli and New Iceland area. Three hundred people left Iceland, arrived in Ontario and took a ship to Duluth, from there they made their way to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and took a steamer up to the mouth of the Assinboine. 75-100 people stayed in the Winnipeg area while the rest made their way to Lake Winnipeg on flat boats and one York boat to save money.

In 1875, the settlers landed south of Gimli at Willow Island and then had to walk and carry the remaining goods to the current site of Gimli. A second group of approximately 800 would follow in their footsteps the next year. Three town sites were chosen in New Iceland to be surveyed, Gimli was measured as approximately 1 mile of lakefront and half a mile in depth. Of the three towns, Gimli, Lundi, and Sandvik, Gimli is the only one remaining and the only one to have developed exactly as planned. In 1876 the community was hit by a severe outbreak of smallpox. The community of Gimli in New Iceland developed a unique constitution of by-laws for local government which remained in effect until 1887 when provincial municipal laws began.

The Canadian Pacific Railway reached Gimli in 1906 and soon the town and surrounding region became a tourist and vacation destination for people from Winnipeg. By the 1930s the south shore area of Gimli began to see cottages replacing farmland.

During World War II an area west of the community was appropriated by the Royal Canadian Air Force to construct a training facility. RCAF Station Gimli was opened in 1943 and remained in operation until 1945. The Station was reactivated in 1950 and was closed again in 1971.

In 1983, the Gimli Industrial Park Airport became famous when an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel over southern Manitoba and successfully glided to a landing at Gimli Motorsport Park. The aircraft in that incident became known as the Gimli Glider.

The Town of Gimli amalgamated with the Rural Municipality of Gimli in 2003, turning the former town into a population centre within the rural municipality. In 2006, Icelandic-Canadian poet David Arnason contributed a naturally washer-shaped "lucky stone" from the shores of Lake Winnipeg at Gimli to the Six String Nation project. The stone was inlaid on the seventh fret of Voyageur, the guitar at the heart of the project, by Sara Nasr.