Manitoba

The province

Get to know Manitoba

Manitoba is in central Canada, between Saskatchewan and Ontario, stretching from the southern prairies to the Hudson Bay coast in the north. It has thousands of lakes, including Lake Winnipeg, one of the country’s largest. Winnipeg, the capital, holds more than half the province’s population.

Winnipeg began at The Forks, where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet, a meeting place for Indigenous peoples and later for fur traders. There you’ll find a market, riverside walkways and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The city also has the Exchange District, with early 20th-century buildings, and Assiniboine Park, with the zoo and an area dedicated to northern animals.

The history of the Métis, a people of Indigenous and European descent, is tied to the region. In February, the Festival du Voyageur celebrates the Francophone and Métis heritage in Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg’s French-speaking neighbourhood, with snow sculptures, music and food.

Churchill, on Hudson Bay, has no road connection: it’s reached by plane or by train. In autumn, usually in October and November, polar bears wait for the sea to freeze before resuming hunting, and tundra vehicles offer opportunities to observe them. Between July and August, thousands of belugas often enter the Churchill River estuary.

In the south, Riding Mountain National Park combines forests, lakes and a herd of bison, and the beaches on Lake Winnipeg, such as Grand Beach, attract swimmers in summer.