Description of Historic Place

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Building is a two-storey wooden branch bank built at Sherridon in the 1930s and moved in 1953 to another remote mining and service centre in northwestern Manitoba, Lynn Lake, where it occupies a corner lot on a commercial street. The municipal designation applies to the building.

Heritage Value

The modest Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Building, domestic in style and proportions, is a good example of Manitoba's frontier banking history, when small branches were opened in isolated northern settlements to support early resource development. The building's informal design and basic materials and construction ' unconventional in comparison to the classical brick and stone banking halls found in the South ' reflect a thrifty, pragmatic response to the exigencies of exploration and resource extraction in remote areas. That the bank served in two mining towns, Sherridon and Lynn Lake, also is significant. It recalls the creation of Lynn Lake as Manitoba's first nickel mining community and the concomitant mid-twentieth-century feat of hauling 208 buildings by tractor over a 260-kilometre winter ice road after Sherritt Gordon Mines Ltd. decided to move its operations north from Sherridon to Lynn Lake. This simple, resilient structure, which housed the Commerce into the late 1960s, has remained locally prominent, occupied by other businesses and, more recently, as part of a museum complex.

Source: Local Government District of Lynn Lake By-law No. 1048, May 26, 1992

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the site character of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Building include:
- the visible location at the corner of Sherritt Avenue in Lynn Lake's commercial district, with the structure set flush to public sidewalks on its front) and sides and some open space to the rear

Key exterior elements that define the building's vernacular design and construction include:
- the simple rectangular two-storey form, of basic wood-frame construction, set close to grade
- the striking, forward-facing gambrel roof with a shallow shed-roofed dormer
- the fenestration throughout, including the front's symmetrically aligned main-floor windows with transoms and three upper-storey openings, the irregular arrangement of vertically rectangular windows on other elevations and the paired dormer openings
- the recessed and centred front entrance
- the one-storey vault addition, clad in red brick, at the rear corner
- the minimalist finishes and details, including the stucco siding, asphalt shingles, deep eavestroughing, architrave-framed front windows, tall red brick chimney, etc.