Fort Garry Hotel

Probably Winnipeg's classiest hotel (certainly on the outside), the Fort Garry is a wonderful 13 storey building, finished in 1913. It irresistibly drew me in, I knew I had to explore it.
A bit nervous walking into the fancy lobby, I took the main staircase up to the mezzanine, then to the third floor, where I grabbed an elevator up to the ninth. My goal was to top the building's steeply peaked metal roofs, but upon arriving at the tenth floor, I was faced by a set of keycard access-only french doors. Not to be defeated, I went back down to the ninth, and managed to take a stairwell up to the tenth, emerging into some back service areas. I entered a deserted, closed-off hallway, where the hotel rooms were locked off and used for storage. A sign proclaiming "Security" pointed to a room jammed full of christmas decorations. Trying every door I could find, I was surprised to find a closet door unlocked. No ordinary closet, though- this one held a steep ladder going up to an open trap door! Excited, I emerged at the top into a small room, crammed with a bunch of junk & shelves. Upon closer inspection, I realized the room held the workings of an old printing press! Typecases and drawers, containing hundreds of thousands of individual metal letters, were at a main desk, which still had a set page block of type sitting on it. The old press itself was nearby, and I spotted a few old rollers. This was definitely one of the coolest, most unexpected things I'd ever found.
Unfortunatly, the room offered little else. A door leading to the roof from here was locked from the outside, so I had to settle for the view from the tiny windows before heading back down through the trap door. I managed to reach the other side of the glass doors, and was about to explore the rest of the hotel floor, when I saw that I'd set off a motion detector- so I went back down to the stairs (in hindsight, I should have kept exploring that floor!).
Finding myself on about the seventh floor? I came upon some employees-only doors, one of which was unlocked. Past this, I entered a large room used to store tables, bars, and some kitchen serving equipment. Voices down a nearby hallway kept me from going further, so I tried a door near the back of the room with mechanical noise emanating from behind it. This led into a tiny mech space, and I almost missed the ladder near the back that went up to a hatch in the ceiling. This was luckily unlocked, and I popped it open and found myself on one of the lower rooftops at the back of the hotel, just below the peaked metal caps. After taking a quick photo, I shut the hatch, and returned the stairwell.
I was really starting to enjoy the hotel, now that it had shown a few of its secrets. Further down, the service staircase suddenly became fancy, with carpeting, and I emerged into a huge, lavishly appointed and recently vacated conference room. There were still water glasses and china sitting out, but I enjoyed having the the huge, golden room to myself. I meandered about, hoping to find some leftover snacks, but finding none and sensing the hotel employees would soon be back to clean up, I went back to the stairs.
Deciding it was time to head for the basement, I went back through the main lobby level on the service stairs, passing several employees as I descended. I stepped out into the main laundry area, where I got strange looks from several employees, but no one said anything as I went into the staff locker room to use the washroom. Then, locating a suitable back door, I crept nervously into the hotel's carpentry shop, which looked busy but momentarily empty. I went through a set of double doors, which led to a stairwell that descended into a lower level mechanical room. Although it obviously wasn't the main boiler room, a pair of large machines roared away in the semi-darkness. Another door at the far end of the room led to some odd storage rooms, piled with a diverse assortment of junk: spare parts, exit signs, old mini-bars, lampshades. Somewhere along the line, a door had locked behind me, so my only alternative was to take a different staircase up to a smelly service hallway. A freight elevator barred the way at one end, so I went through some large, double doors at the opposite side of the hall.
Totally unprepared for what lay ahead, I stepped right into the hotel's busy kitchen. Cooks worked over stoves, knives, and flames, and the head cook (engaged in conversation with someone) gave me a look as he walked past. Obviously out of place, I panicked, and stumbled blindly past a few dead-ends in the dishwashing area, until I found an exit that went up near the front lobby.
Taking a moment to calm down, I went through the lobby and down a public staircase into a basement bar/lounge area. I slipped past an ongoing seminar to look for some back doors, but they were all locked up. Heading back into the main lobby, I walked around a huge, empty convention room for a while, admiring the fancy walls, window decorations, and large chandeliers. I spotted a service entrance at the back, but realized it would only lead me back into the basement where I'd just escaped from.
After that, I figured the hotel staff and a good number of the convention attendees had seen me go up and down the stairs one too many times, so I went back out onto the street.