5 visits to add to your life list during Manitoba's 150th
The province is vast. Go see some of it this year.
Whether you've lived in Manitoba for 16 seconds or have spent your entire life in the province, you probably haven't seen much of the place.
That's because Manitoba is big. It's larger than France, Spain or Ukraine. It could swallow up three Cambodias, five North Koreas or six Icelands and still have room for an Albania or Jamaica for dessert.
Since it would take a lifetime to traverse every corner of Manitoba on foot, a more realistic goal is to consider seeing more of it than you have.
Here are five ways to see Manitoba that deserve to be on your life list, whether you get to them during Manitoba's official 150th birthday year or not:
1. Visit Churchill in the summer
Churchill, the only ocean port in the Prairie provinces, is most famous for the polar bears that congregate east of the town in late October as they wait for Hudson Bay to freeze.
Polar bears are amazing. But there's more to see in Churchill during the summer, when thousands of beluga whales congregate in the Churchill River estuary, the sub-Arctic landscape blooms and the oddball sites around the town are more easily visited.
Those include the remains of a shipwrecked freighter, a crashed airplane, an abandoned radar installation, an old rocket range and a highly Instagrammable collection of abandoned automobiles.
Why so many cars? It's simply too expensive to ship heavy objects out of the end-of-the-railway town.
Also take the time to learn about one of the darkest chapters in Manitoba's modern history: the forced relocation of the Sayisi Dene to Churchill. The remains of the places described in Ila Bussidor's Night Spirits, an account of the 1956-73 tragedy, are all road-accessible.
The town is not what tourists may expect — and that's the attraction.
2. Ski (or walk) across Lake Winnipeg
Every summer weekend, tens of thousands of Manitobans sun themselves on the beaches of Lake Winnipeg's sandy southern basin.
It may look more like an ocean than a lake. But you can actually walk right across it when it freezes in winter.
It's only 27 kilometres from Grand Beach to Winnipeg Beach, or vice versa. People on cross-country skis can cover the distance in a matter of hours.
On snowshoes, it's an easy two-day trip, assuming you camp out in the middle in a winter tent. Make you sure you bring along a GPS, or at least a compass, in the event blowing snow obscures the horizon on the other side.
3. Find your way to York Factory
During the 200 years that preceded Manitoba's 1870 entry into Confederation, the most important European settlement in this place was also among the most remote.
York Factory, the Hudson's Bay Company's Manitoba base of operations near the mouth of the Hayes River, served as the most important point of entry into what's now Western Canada, for traders and settlers alike.
At its peak, York Factory supported a community of hundreds people, both European and Indigenous. Today, two Parks Canada interpreters look after the site from late June until the end of August.
The old depot still stands, bulging with artifacts from a history that included Manitoba's only naval battle, which saw French forces briefly wrest York Factory away from the British traders who established the place. You can also stay here in a campground surrounded by a very high, polar bear-proof fence.
The cheapest way to visit York Factory is to paddle the Hayes River, a once-in-a-lifetime destination in its own right. But this takes at least eight days starting from Bunibonibee Cree Nation, or weeks from Norway House.
A day-trip option involves making your way to Gillam and booking a speedboat tour with Nelson River Adventures. A total of 12 people can ride at a time.
The people of Gillam and nearby Fox Lake Cree Nation could certainly use some love this summer, after the fright they experienced in 2019.
4. Paddle the Bloodvein
Compared to York Factory, the Bloodvein River is not remote. But this ribbon of whitewater, which flows through Manitoba from the Ontario border to Lake Winnipeg, remains entirely unspoiled.
The Bloodvein is among the most scenic of eastern Manitoba rivers. It snakes through granite channels, broadens out into small lakes and exemplifies the best of Canadian Shield scenery.
It also boasts excellent wildlife viewing opportunities, good fishing and a spectacular Indigenous pictograph site at Artery Lake, just across the provincial border with Ontario (while 2020 is officially Manitoba's 150th birthday, remember that people have been living on this land mass for at least 11,000 years).
Anyone with backcountry camping experience and passable paddling skills can canoe this river, with a bit of preparation. All the difficult rapids can be portaged.
Most visitors fly into Artery Lake from Bluewater Aviation's airbase at Bissett, but there are ways to paddle in.
5. Backpack the Mantario Trail
For experienced hikers, the Mantario is no life-list destination. Some people walk or even run the 66-kilometre trail in Whiteshell Provincial Park every year.
But the Mantario remains the premiere multi-day walk in Manitoba. It's easy to reach, with both trailheads located less than two hours east of Winnipeg. The Shield scenery is stunning and the campsites are large enough to support multiple groups.
Navigation is relatively easy, provided you don't lose sight of rock cairns. And it's also just tough enough to serve as a workout.
The best time to go is September, when the trail is dry, the mosquitoes are gone and the daytime highs are tolerable for those lugging a pack.
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