Our research shows that Charles Blake won the North West Championship, the pre-cursor to the Manitoba Closed, on no less than 6 occasions. https://mbchesshof.org/champions/
Stephen Wright (with additional information from Tony Boron) fills in more biographical detail here.
The first Manitoba – Minnesota Match commenced on May 25, 1935. The most recent version of the match was held on-line on May 24, 2020. This is the latest in a series of different formats in which the match has been held over the years. Our dedicated page (a work in progress) on the history of the match is here.