Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, Canada

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Riding Mountain is located on the Manitoba Escarpment in south-central Manitoba, near the geographical centre of Canada, a 2978 square kilometre island of forest rising out of a sea of farmland. Plants and animals from three ecological zones are found in the park, all protected from the radical changes wrought upon the ecosystems in the surrounding agricultural lands and developed areas. Since the early hunters and gatherers, the area has developed a rich historic and cultural heritage that was made secure by the formation of the park in 1929.

Getting there

The park is easily accessible by car and bus from centres to the north and south. Highway #10 connects Brandon, 95 km (59 miles) to the south, with Wasagaming (the park's Visitor Services Centre) and continues to Dauphin, 13 km (8 miles) beyond the northern border of RMNP. From the east, Highway #19 enters the park through the scenic escarpment region. The nearest commercial airports are at Dauphin and Brandon. An airport for smaller planes has been built at Erickson. A motor vehicle permit is required and can be purchased at the park gateways.

Geography

The escarpment is a tilting shelf of siliceous shale - a form of sedimentary rock that is harder than the surrounding limestone - which extends into northern Saskatchewan, where it forms similar upland areas. Although only 756 metres at its highest edge on the northeastern side, relative to the plains that stretch away from it on all sides, it is a mountain. The park includes a diversity of landscapes: evergreen and hardwood forests, rolling hills, valleys, lakes and streams. A highland plateau in the centre of North America, the park is a crossroads where prairie, boreal and deciduous life colonies intermingle. Manitoba is famous for thousands of prairie potholes - lakes of all sizes that were left as glaciers retreated - which are now havens for waterfowl, fish, birdlife and insects. Riding Mountain Park is one of the few places in habitable parts of Manitoba where these prairie potholes have not been drained off and plowed under.

Flora

Three distinctive vegetation zones are recognized, although they do, in fact, intermix. In the south aspen parkland, open, rough fescue grasslands and aspen groves, edge the eastern side of Lake Audy. Bordering the aspen parkland is a zone of mixed-wood forest containing various combinations of coniferous (white spruce and balsam fir) and deciduous (white birch, aspen, elm, maple and balsam poplar) species. Very few stands of eastern deciduous forest are left in southern Manitoba, because most have been destroyed in clearing land for agriculture. But here you see a rich remnant of this complex ecological zone. In the surrounding forest, there is an understory of vines, berry bushes, mushrooms, and flowers that are at the height of their beauty amidst the prairie grasses in June and July. Areas that are mostly boreal forests, in the extreme north of this natural region, appear as seemingly endless stretches of black spruce muskeg that dominate much of the flat, poorly drained land. This combination of communities in the Riding Mountain portion of the escarpment forms a distinctive Canadian habitat that is unique in the world.

Fauna

To the west, the escarpment's edge gradually merges into a gently rolling landscape of a highland plateau, where plant and animal communities meet. Large herds of elk gather in sedge meadows while wolf packs congregate in nearby forests. Lynx and cougar inhabit the woodlands, bald eagles and osprey nest along the streams and lakes. The aspen parkland is an extremely productive wildlife habitat where white-tailed deer, coyotes, snowshoe hares and ground squirrels are conspicuous mammals. In the past, vast herds of bison ranged into the aspen zone. Other large mammals include black bears, which can weigh up to 400 kilograms, moose, elk, and wolves. Efforts continue to monitor the gray wolf population since they are few in number, highly mobile and vulnerable to human impact. Black bears easily range 100 kilometres a day and many have grown bigger than most grizzlies. There are now about 3500 beaver dams in the park and over 18 000 beavers; with such an exploding population, problems do exist, such as the dams preventing fish spawning in some areas. There are at least 260 bird species including great gray owls. The dozens of prairie potholes provide for the highest density of breeding dabbling ducks in North America, particularly mallards, shovellers and pintails.