Canada’s forest and peatland ecosystems are globally significant carbon stores, whose management will be influenced by climate change mitigation policies such as offset systems. To be effective, these policies must be grounded in objective information on the relationships between land use, ecosystem carbon dynamics, and climate. Here, we present the out- comes of a workshop where forest, peatland, and climate experts were tasked with identifying management actions required to maintain the role of Canada’s forest and peatland ecosystems in climate regulation. Reflecting the desire to maintain the carbon storage roles of these ecosystems, a diverse set of management actions is proposed, incorporating conservation, forest management, and forest products.

“Our First Nation wants to have a say in maintaining these sacred sites, and that’s why our people instructed us to select these sites under our TLE agreement in 1998,” said BON Chief Deborah Chief. “These sites are important to the people of Brokenhead. As a result, we agreed to work with Manitoba Conservation in developing a proposed co-management agreement in managing these sites. Under this process, our people, and other interested First Nations, will be involved and consulted in developing this government-to-government co-management agreement between Brokenhead and Manitoba.”

“I certainly welcome the agreement between myself as minister of conservation and Brokenhead Ojibway Nation to work together on a proposal for the protection and management of the petroform sites in the Whiteshell Provincial Park,” Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie said. “These sites are culturally important to Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, and other First Nations, and it is critical that a process get underway to address that reality.”

As an immediate follow-up, Blaikie and BON’s chief and council will meet again in September to begin developing the co-management proposal.

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The Province of Manitoba is distributing this release on behalf of
the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation and the Government of Manitoba.

The fire burned about 55,000 hectares north of Cranberry Portage and destroyed a large part of the Kississing-Naosap caribou herd’s range, Wilderness Committee spokesman Eric Reder said Friday.

The herd is one of three in Manitoba that the province has categorized as high risk due to ongoing or imminent development activities.

Reder and Manitoba Wildlands spokeswoman Gaile Whelan-Enns said the province has to limit development in the area to allow the caribou time to find a new area to feed and calve.

“The caribou aren’t going to be able to live in a forest fire area,” Reder said. “They have to go somewhere. The question is where do they go?”

Reder said the pause in development, including hydroelectric development, must be long enough to cover the year-long cycle of caribou activities–fall breeding, winter forage, spring migration and summer calving.

“At the end of the summer, we should get an idea of recruitment, meaning how many calves have survived,” Reder said.

Many animals in the herd have been collared by biologists to track their movement.

Reder and Whelan-Enns said by the end of next summer, officials should know where the animals have re-located.

Whelan-Enns said the province also needs to update its management plan for Grass River Provincial Park to include protecting natural habitat from logging, mining and hydro development. It was designated as a park in the mid-1960s.

“Grass River Provincial Park is not protected,” Whelan-Enns said. “The bottom line is there is no protected habitat and now there’s 55,000 hectares of significant habitat burned.”

Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard said Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie should put in place an action plan to protect not only the Kississing-Naosap herd, but all caribou in the province.

Blaikie is on holidays and a spokesperson from Manitoba Conservation was unavailable Friday.

Reder said it’s possible environmentalists may ask Ottawa to step in to protect Manitoba’s caribou under federal law.

“If we find that the province isn’t looking after caribou as well as they should be, then there are legal obligations under the federal Species At Risk Act which should be triggered,” he said.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 21, 2010 A8

The weather-related cataclysms of July and August fit patterns predicted by climate scientists, the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization says — although those scientists always shy from tying individual disasters directly to global warming.

The experts now see an urgent need for better ways to forecast extreme events like Russia’s heat wave and wildfires and the record deluge devastating Pakistan. They’ll discuss such tools in meetings this month and next in Europe and America, under United Nations, U.S. and British government sponsorship.

“There is no time to waste,” because societies must be equipped to deal with global warming, says British government climatologist Peter Stott.

He said modelers of climate systems are “very keen” to develop supercomputer modeling that would enable more detailed linking of cause and effect as a warming world shifts jet streams and other atmospheric currents. Those changes can wreak weather havoc.

The U.N.’s network of climate scientists — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — has long predicted that rising global temperatures would produce more frequent and intense heat waves, and more intense rainfalls. In its latest assessment, in 2007, the Nobel Prize-winning panel went beyond that. It said these trends “have already been observed,” in an increase in heat waves since 1950, for example.

Still, climatologists generally refrain from blaming warming for this drought or that flood, since so many other factors also affect the day’s weather.

Stott and NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York, said it’s better to think in terms of odds: Warming might double the chances for heat waves, for example. “That is exactly what’s happening,” Schmidt said, “a lot more warm extremes and less cold extremes.”

The WMO pointed out that this summer’s events fit the international scientists’ projections of “more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming.”

In fact, in key cases they’re a perfect fit:

RUSSIA

It’s been the hottest summer ever recorded in Russia, with Moscow temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees C) for the first time. Russia’s drought has sparked hundreds of wildfires in forests and dried peat bogs, blanketing Moscow with a toxic smog that finally lifted Thursday after six days. The Russian capital’s death rate doubled to 700 people a day at one point. The drought reduced the wheat harvest by more than one-third.

The 2007 IPCC report predicted a doubling of disastrous droughts in Russia this century and cited studies foreseeing catastrophic fires during dry years. It also said Russia would suffer large crop losses.

PAKISTAN

The heaviest monsoon rains on record — 12 inches (300 millimeters) in one 36-hour period — have sent rivers rampaging over huge swaths of countryside, flooding thousands of villages. It has left 14 million Pakistanis homeless or otherwise affected, and killed 1,500. The government calls it the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history.

A warmer atmosphere can hold — and discharge — more water. The 2007 IPCC report said rains have grown heavier for 40 years over north Pakistan and predicted greater flooding this century in south Asia’s monsoon region.

CHINA

China is witnessing its worst floods in decades, the WMO says, particularly in the northwest province of Gansu. There, floods and landslides last weekend killed at least 1,100 people and left more than 600 missing, feared swept away or buried beneath mud and debris.

The IPCC reported in 2007 that rains had increased in northwest China by up to 33 per cent since 1961, and floods nationwide had increased sevenfold since the 1950s. It predicted still more frequent flooding this century.

UNITED STATES

In Iowa, soaked by its wettest 36-month period in 127 years of recordkeeping, floodwaters from three nights of rain this week forced hundreds from their homes and killed a 16-year-old girl.

The international climate panel projected increased U.S. precipitation this century — except for the Southwest — and more extreme rain events causing flooding.

ARCTIC

Researchers last week spotted a 100-square-mile (260-square-kilometre) chunk of ice calved off from the great Petermann Glacier in Greenland’s far northwest. It was the most massive ice island to break away in the Arctic in a half-century of observation.

The huge iceberg appeared just five months after an international scientific team published a report saying ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet is expanding up its northwest coast from the south.

Changes in the ice sheet “are happening fast, and we are definitely losing more ice mass than we had anticipated,” said one of the scientists, NASA’s Isabella Velicogna.

In the Arctic Ocean itself, the summer melt of the vast ice cap has reached unprecedented proportions in recent years. Satellite data show the ocean area covered by ice last month was the second-lowest ever recorded for July.

The melting of land ice into the oceans is causing about 60 per cent of the accelerating rise in sea levels worldwide, with thermal expansion from warming waters causing the rest. The WMO’S World Climate Research Program says seas are rising by 1.34 inches (34 millimeters) per decade, about twice the 20th century’s average.

Worldwide temperature readings, meanwhile, show that this January-June was the hottest first half of a year since recordkeeping began in the mid-19th century. Meteorologists say 17 nations have recorded all-time-high temperatures in 2010, more than in any other year.

Scientists blame the warming on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases pouring into the atmosphere from power plants, cars and trucks, furnaces and other fossil fuel-burning industrial and residential sources.

Experts are growing ever more vocal in urging sharp cutbacks in emissions, to protect the climate that has nurtured modern civilization.

“Reducing emissions is something everyone is capable of,” Nanjing-based climatologist Tao Li told an academic journal in China, now the world’s No. 1 emitter, ahead of the U.S.

But not everyone is willing to act.

The U.S. remains the only major industrialized nation not to have legislated caps on carbon emissions, after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week withdrew climate legislation in the face of resistance from Republicans and some Democrats.

The U.S. inaction, dating back to the 1990s, is a key reason global talks have bogged down for a pact to succeed the expiring Kyoto Protocol. That is the relatively weak accord on emissions cuts adhered to by all other industrialized states.

Governments around the world, especially in poorer nations that will be hard-hit, are scrambling to find ways and money to adapt to shifts in climate and rising seas.

The meetings of climatologists in the coming weeks in Paris, Britain and Colorado will be one step toward adaptation, seeking ways to identify trends in extreme events and better means of forecasting them.

A U.N. specialist in natural disasters says much more needs to be done.

Salvano Briceno of the U.N.’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction pointed to aggravating factors in the latest climate catastrophes: China’s failure to stem deforestation, contributing to its deadly mudslides; Russia’s poor forest management, feeding fires; and the settling of poor Pakistanis on flood plains and dry riverbeds in the densely populated country, squatters’ turf that suddenly turned into torrents.

“The IPCC has already identified the influence of climate change in these disasters. That’s clear,” Briceno said. “But the main trend we need to look at is increasing vulnerability, the fact we have more people living in the wrong places, doing the wrong things.”

___

AP Correspondents Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa, and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

Photo by MARTIN ZEILIG

I was startled from my dreamless sleep by a spine-tingling snarl in the thick boral forest not far from my small tent.

Too close for comfort, but thrilling in a spooky sort of way. Quickly, I clicked on my headlamp and listened intently.

Was it a black bear growling in frustration at being unable to reach our food packs strung high up in a jack pine? Perhaps a smaller hunter — a fisher, a marten, or even a lynx after its evening meal? Maybe a lumbering moose or woodland caribou, snorting as it foraged.

Noises can be deceptive in the back country, especially at night.

A couple of others in our group of six canoeists, Les McCann and Brian Wagg, confessed over a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee that they too had heard the sound.

“It might even have been a Sasquatch sneaking about,” joked McCann, a retired provincial government employee and longtime member of Nature Manitoba (Manitoba Naturalists Society).

We were on the south shore of a small, unnamed lake upstream from Garner Lake, deep in the southern part of Woodland Caribou Provincial Park between Red Lake, Ont., and the Manitoba border. It was my first time in Woodland Caribou, a place I’d wanted to explore for years, and just 200 kilometres from Winnipeg at its nearest road-access point.

It’s the third-largest wilderness-class park in Ontario and a top canoeing region that offers more than 1,600 kilometres of canoe routes. It covers 450,000 hectares of secluded wilderness in the heart of the boreal forest and the Canadian Shield.

The park is included in the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project — a push by four First Nations and the governments of Manitoba and Ontario to have 40,000 square kilometres of vast boreal forest, rivers, lakes and wetlands designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The non-profit Pimachiowin Aki Corporation notes this area provides important habitat for wildlife, including woodland caribou, wolverine and bald eagles.

During a conversation around our crackling campfire one evening, trip organizer Jerry Ameis, a mathematics professor at the University of Winnipeg, revealed that he’s been coming to the park since the late 1960s.

“I made some of the original portage trails,” Jerry said as the setting sun’s rays cast a pinkish radiance across the skyline and the serene waters of Jester Lake.

“We just put up some blaze marks (notches on tree trunks). Some of them have become actual portages. I came with some buddies every year. I like the variety of routes possible. It’s not too crowded like Quetico Provincial Park (along the U.S. border near Fort Frances, Ont).”

After driving up highway 59 to Libau, we took highway 317 to Lac du Bonnet, and then 313, 315, and 314 to our launch point, Beresford Lake in Nopiming Provincial Park — the southwest corner of Woodland Caribou and the access route into Garner Lake.

During the course of our 10-day trip, we paddled more than 100 kilometres and did 35 portages with two down days. This was, after all, a holiday and not an adventure race.

On one particularly gruelling portage we were accompanied by heat, humidity, black flies and mosquitoes. The 825-metre trek took us from a higher part of the Garner River to a lower part. My able canoe partner, naturalist Monica Reid, and I carefully carried our 18-foot Kevlar canoe along the narrow, undulating trail through the Canadian Shield and boot-sucking bog.

We then returned to schlep all our gear. The procedure took at least 45 minutes. We repeated it on our return trip. But it was all part of the wilderness experience and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Although we didn’t see any large predators or moose or caribou, there were signs of them, particularly wolf and bear scat on the trails and at one of our campsites.

“The animals were well aware of our presence — that’s why we didn’t see any,” Monica said. “Also, we kept our campsites clean.”

Still, we did see several bald eagles, Ospreys, double-crested cormorants and loons, and even spotted two great grey owls on our final day of paddling.

I was enraptured by the blended bouquet of black spruce, pine, balsam and aspen and other smaller flora species, including wild blueberries. Monica’s trained eye also pointed out several orchid species, plus the various mosses and lichens that clung to boulders and the sides of sheer cliffs. And how refreshing it was to slake our thirst with water right out of the pristine lakes without having to filter or boil it first.

As our canoes silently sliced through the placid waters of Haggert Lake, I recalled what someone had told me 20 years earlier: “If you want to maintain a consistent cadence while canoeing, just paddle to your heartbeat.”

It’s easy to lose your heart out here.

IF YOU GO

Camping passes are required for Woodland Caribou Provincial Park. For further information contact the park office at 1-807-727-1388; Box 5003, 227 Howey Street, Red Lake, Ont., P0B 2M0. Topographical maps are also available.

The following tips are from the Woodland Caribou website:

Litter: All litter — including biodegradable matter such as peanut shells and apple cores — attracts wildlife. It’s unsightly and impacts those who follow behind

Fish entrails: Best left on an exposed rock near the shore, away from campsites and portages. Do not bury them or dump them in the lake

Bears: Be wise by keeping your camp clean and storing food appropriately — bear-proof your vehicle at the parking site

Respect: Give animals space — this is their domain

Group Size: Maximum of nine per campsite

Natural treasures: Leave them behind for others to enjoy; don’t remove or disturb them in any way but capture them in photos.

And: A small trowel is useful to bury human waste. Make sure you do this.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 7, 2010 E1

The Province of Manitoba officially apologized for its role in the forced relocation of the Sayisi Dene from Duck Lake to Churchill in 1956 at a ceremony today on the outskirts of Churchill. The ceremony was attended by Sayisi Dene Chief Jimmy Thorassie, Churchill Mayor Michael Spence and Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Minister Eric Robinson.

“This disgraceful and sad chapter in Manitoba history must be acknowledged. While the federal government of the time was responsible for the relocation, others, including provincial officials, contributed to the tragedy,” said Robinson. “With this apology, we pledge to never forget the tremendous suffering initiated over 50 years ago that continues in so many ways to this day. The Province of Manitoba accepts responsibility for erroneous information that validated the relocation and commits to moving forward in a better way.”

The decision to relocate the Dene community at Duck Lake prior to 1956 was made in part due to reports from Manitoba officials who believed the traditional hunting practices of the Dene were contributing to a perceived decline of area caribou herds, called a caribou crisis by some officials at the time. After the relocation it was determined there was no crisis and the caribou herd which the Sayisi Dene had relied upon for generations was in fact healthy.

Subsequent Manitoba decisions further compounded the suffering of the Dene living in deplorable conditions near Churchill until community members relocated to their traditional area at Tadoule Lake in 1973. In less than two decades, nearly one-third of the Sayisi Dene had died as a result of violence, poverty and racism experienced on the outskirts of Churchill.

“It’s a new day to fly!” said Thorassie. “This is an important step on the path or reconciliation and healing. We have a responsibility to work together to build the future we want for our children despite a legacy of hurt born of past government mistakes. Let us harness the winds of change around us and let us move forward towards a reconciliation of our treaty rights, recognition of the injustice done to my people and restoration of our Aboriginal rights to our homeland.”

Manitoba has proposed to provide more than 13,000 acres of Crown land, separate from any treaty land entitlement, to help address the effects of the relocation.

The forced relocation of the Sayisi Dene was documented in the reports of both the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of 1991 and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples of 1996. An apology and compensation were recommended.

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The park would be in north-central Manitoba at Little Limestone Lake, a 15-kilometre body of water north of Grand Rapids.

The lake is in a limestone region with underground drainage and many cavities and passages caused by dissolution of the rock. It is referred to as a marl lake, since it changes colour when calcite precipitates in the water as the lake’s temperature rises in summer.

“Protecting one of the most amazing examples of a marl lake in the world is an important legacy we can leave for future generations,” Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie said. “Because of its rare geography, Little Limestone Lake stands out among Manitoba lakes for its annual cycle of magnificent colour changes.”

Ron Thiessen, executive director for the Manitoban branch of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said the current park reserve boundary is not adequate to ensure the lake is protected.

“If polluted waters enter from outside of the protected boundary, they will cause irreparable damage to Little Limestone’s delicate ecosystem,” Thiessen said.

With the co-operation of the Moose Lake Resource Management Board, the Manitoba government is developing a conservation plan for the proposed park.

The process will involve the Mosakahiken Cree Nation, local citizens, industry, interest groups and the public.

Comment sheets are available at www.manitobaparks.com and opinions will be gathered until Aug. 31.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 16, 2010 A7

RIDING MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK — The three-woman boat crew plies the high seas of Clear Lake in glorious sunshine, chasing northern pike hard-wired with transmitters, and pulling up creels of slimy sculpin.

For these summer students employed by the wildlife lab at Riding Mountain National Park, it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.

Now, that someone could be you.

The national park is launching a “citizen scientist” program where ordinary Joes and Josephines can join everything from this summer’s archeological dig at the park’s former POW camp to following transmitter-clad pike by boat using a hand-held antenna.

For years, summer students have lined up for jobs to augment the wildlife lab’s field work. The voluntary citizen scientist program hopes to expand that labour force further.

The park gave the Free Press a tour of some research projects citizen scientists will be recruited for. The first ones started this week, helping students haul up creels of slimy sculpin. Changes in the size or population of the scaleless minnow are one of the first signs of change in lake oxygen levels.

Being a citizen scientist also promises to be fun. “Who doesn’t want to get out on a boat and take samples and get a little bit wet and find out what’s actually going on? It is in many respects way more interesting than watching CSI because you are personally involved, ” said information officer Cate Watrous.

“The other part of it is these projects promote public engagement with the research in the park. The more interested people there are, the more people will be aware of and supportive of measures to protect the environment.”

The key to the program will be the length of time private citizens are willing to commit. It’s uncertain whether the research work will be for a day, a week or a month, said Christian Tremblay, in charge of program protocol.

Another project that will need citizen scientists is making an inventory of Riding Mountain’s 50 lakes besides Clear Lake. The project involves use of an underwater camera and gathering samples of macrophytes — leafy underwater plants.

“I keep thinking I’ll see the Ogopogo,” joked summer student employee, Heather Gray, referring to the legendary lake monster of Lake Okanagan, while looking through the underwater camera on Moon Lake.

Gray and Eric Anderson of the University of Winnipeg head the project, which will also record levels of phosphorus, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, acidity and algae in lakes. Citizen scientists could help gather macrophyte samples, measure lake depths and even paddle.

“It’s easier to get behind some scientific project when something is being threatened, whereas people see Clear Lake as almost invincible,” said Watrous.

That’s not the case. “Part of the research here is to find out what the lake’s threshold is.”

For example, tracking the 40 jackfish fitted with transmitters will help Riding Mountain staff determine how best to protect fish from human activity, Watrous said.

“It’s a fantastic program,” said George Hartlen, manager of Friends of Riding Mountain, which is working with the park on the program. “It’s a great way of getting locals, visitors and students to understand some of the research happening.”

The wildlife lab’s programs are often funded jointly with other levels of government. For example, it has $1.6 million in funding over three years for a bovine tuberculosis monitoring program and the above-mentioned Clear Lake research.

People interested in being citizen scientists should call 1-204-848-0573, or the park’s visitor centres at 1-204-848-7228.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 16, 2010 A6

A new provincial park at Little Limestone Lake in north-central Manitoba is being proposed and the public is invited to have input in the process from mid-July to late August, Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie announced today.

“Protecting one of the most amazing examples of a marl lake in the world is an important legacy we can leave for future generations,” said Blaikie. “Because of its rare geography, Little Limestone Lake stands out among Manitoba lakes for its annual cycle of magnificent colour changes.”

With the co-operation of the Moose Lake Resource Management Board, the province is developing a management plan for the proposed park to guide how it will be conserved and protected. This process involves the Mosakahiken Cree Nation, local citizens, industry, interest groups and the general public and will incorporate scientific and traditional knowledge.

Little Limestone Lake is a 15-kilometre body of water in the karst landscape north of Grand Rapids, a limestone region with underground drainage and many cavities and passages caused by the dissolution of the rock. It is referred to as a marl lake as it changes colour when calcite precipitates in the water as its temperature increases in the summer. It is considered to be the best and most outstanding example of a marl lake in the world, the minister said.

Little Limestone Lake Park Reserve was established in 2007. Park reserves provide temporary protection to land while the area is being considered for designation as a provincial park. Under the Provincial Parks Act, public consultation is required to create a permanent designation.

Comment sheets are available at www.manitobaparks.com and can be submitted until Aug. 31. Residents can also mail their input on Little Limestone Lake to Manitoba Conservation, Parks and Natural Areas Branch, Box 53, 200 Saulteaux Cres., Winnipeg, MB R3J 3W3.

More information is also available by calling 945-6797 in Winnipeg or 1-800-214-6497 (toll-free).

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Manitobans and visitors are invited to enjoy Canada’s Parks Day July 16 to 18 by taking in a wide variety of family-oriented activities including being an honourary natural resource officer, Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie announced today.

“We can be proud of the fine heritage of our parks,” said Blaikie. “This province features many popular campgrounds, beaches and picnic areas in beautiful, natural environments and this weekend is a great time to explore everything our provincial parks offer.”

This year, Canada’s Parks Day celebrates the International Year of Biodiversity and more than 30 provincial parks are featuring special events in honour of Manitoba Parks 50th anniversary.

Scheduled activities include:·
· whirlwind tours in 25 minutes through the history of provincial parks celebrating the golden anniversary at amphitheatres at Grand Beach, Birds Hill, Big Whiteshell, Falcon Lake, Spruce Woods, Hecla and Paint Lake;
· demonstrations by chef Elizabeth at Falcon Lake in Whiteshell Provincial Park on how to whip up creative dishes made from local edible plants;
· Who In The Park’s Got Talent? at Spruce Woods;
· the Hiss of Pisew Falls at Paint Lake;
· the grand reopening of the Wekusko Falls swinging bridge; and
· a campfire program featuring singalongs with interpreters about the history of Manitoba parks at Otter Falls in Whiteshell Provincial Park.

“We are also pleased to move forward with the plan to upgrade the West Hawk Road in the townsite of West Hawk,” said Blaikie, who will announce details of the proposed upgrades at the West Hawk district park office on Saturday, July 17 at 1 p.m. “We intend to gather input from the local community on the new roadway and expect the upgrades will be underway by late 2011.”

The newly refurbished Marsh Trail at Falcon Lake, a part of Manitoba’s Trans Canada Trail, is opening this weekend and plans for the Walter Danyluk Interpretive Trail are being unveiled at the Alfred Hole Goose Sanctuary. Danyluk was the first director of Manitoba’s provincial parks and was instrumental in establishing the provincial park system.

Again, this year, there is no park admission fee at provincial parks, although campground and other fees remain in place. Free park entry is only available in Manitoba’s provincial parks.

More information about Canada’s Parks Day celebrations is available at park offices or online at www.parksday.ca. Online reservations for Manitoba provincial park campgrounds can be made at www.manitobaparks.com Reservations may also be made by calling 1-888-4U2-CAMP (1‑888‑482‑2267) or in Winnipeg at 948-3333.

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