Manitoba

(mănĭtō`bə), province (2001 pop. 1,119,583), 250,934 sq mi (650,930 sq km), including 39,215 sq mi (101,580 sq km) of water surface, W central Canada.

Geography

Easternmost of the Prairie Provinces, Manitoba is bounded on the N by Nunavut (with a northeast shoreline on Hudson Bay), on the E by Ontario, on the S by Minnesota and North Dakota, and on the W by Saskatchewan. The south and central part of Manitoba was once covered by Pleistocene Lake AgassizAgassiz, Lake
, glacial lake of the Pleistocene epoch, c.700 mi (1,130 km) long, 250 mi (400 km) wide, formed by the melting of the continental ice sheet beginning some 14,000 years ago; it eventually covered much of present-day NW Minnesota, NE North Dakota, S Manitoba, central
..... Click the link for more information. ; as its waters receded into Hudson Bay, it left behind numerous lakes (the largest being Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Winnipegosis) and rivers (including the Nelson, Churchill, and Hayes) that flow northeast into the bay. In some places underlying rock formations were swept bare; in others they were covered with rich deposits of black loam. An expanse of almost uninhabited tundra surrounds the port of Churchill.

Extending south from Churchill and east from Lake Winnipeg, the topography is that of the Canadian ShieldCanadian Shield
or Laurentian Plateau
, U-shaped region of ancient rock, the nucleus of North America, stretching N from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean. Covering more than half of Canada, it also includes most of Greenland and extends into the United States as the
..... Click the link for more information. ; limited areas have been cleared for general farming and dairying, and mineral and timber resources have been partly developed. Southern Manitoba is dominated by lakes, with Lake Winnipeg paralleled in the west by Winnipegosis and Manitoba. Most of the province's population is concentrated in the river valleys south of these lakes. To the west and north of the Red River valley, the land rises in an escarpment extending into the plateaus of the Pembina, Turtle, Riding, Duck, and Porcupine mountains. Much of this heavily forested area has been set off as reserves, and the Riding Mt. area is a national park.

WinnipegWinnipeg
, city (1991 pop. 616,790), provincial capital, SE Man., Canada, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. It is the province's largest city and one of the world's largest wheat markets.
..... Click the link for more information. is the capital and the largest city, accounting for over half of the province's population in its metropolitan area. Other important cities are BrandonBrandon,
city (1991 pop. 38,567), SW Man., Canada, on the Assiniboine River. The business center of the wheat-raising area of SW Manitoba, Brandon has an extensive trade in farm products and machinery.
..... Click the link for more information. , ThompsonThompson,
city (1991 pop. 14,977), central Man., Canada, on the Burntwood River. A mining town, it developed after large nickel deposits were discovered in the area in 1956.
..... Click the link for more information. , Portage la PrairiePortage la Prairie
, city (1991 pop. 13,186), S Man., Canada. It is the center of a mixed-farming region and has diversified industries. The city is near the site of Fort La Reine, an important fur-trading post built (1738) by Vérendrye as a carrying point between the
..... Click the link for more information. , and SelkirkSelkirk,
town (1991 pop. 9,815), SE Man., Canada, on the Red River. Just S of Lake Winnipeg, it is a port for products from N Manitoba. There are steel mills, foundries, and shipyards in the town.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Economy and Higher Education

In S Manitoba are expanses of wheat, barley, oats, rye, and flax. The well-settled Souris Plains in the southwest are especially famous for their wheat fields. Canada's wheat industry originated in Manitoba, whose bread wheat has set standards for the world. Grain is shipped from Churchill (the only port in the Prairie Provinces) during the three ice-free months of the year. Although agriculture has been continually extended—especially in mixed farming, dairying, and poultry and stock raising—manufacturing has nevertheless displaced it as the leading industry in the province. Foods, printed materials, clothing, electrical items, chemicals, furniture, leather, and transportation equipment are major products.

Continuing developments in mining, pulp and paper manufacturing, and extensive hydroelectric production promise to preserve Manitoba's industrial growth. In the southwest, near Brandon, are large oil reserves, and the municipal districts of Flin Flon and The Pas, on the Saskatchewan River, are gateways to the rich mineral deposits (chiefly nickel, copper, and zinc) and timberlands of the central west; the mines at Thompson provide most of Manitoba's nickel. Beluga whales are still caught by native fishermen at Churchill, Lake Winnipeg has important fisheries, and Manitoba ranks third among the provinces in the production of (now chiefly farm-raised) fur.

Brandon Univ. is at Brandon, and the Univ. of Manitoba and the Univ. of Winnipeg are at Winnipeg.

History and Politics

The history of Manitoba began along Hudson Bay. The search for the elusive Northwest Passage to the Pacific drew such explorers as Henry Hudson, Thomas Button, Pierre Radisson, and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers, some of whom returned to England laden with beaver furs. To exploit this fur wealth, Charles II granted (1670) the Hudson's Bay CompanyHudson's Bay Company,
corporation chartered (1670) by Charles II of England for the purpose of trade and settlement in the Hudson Bay region of North America and for exploration toward the discovery of the Northwest Passage to Asia.
..... Click the link for more information. propriety over all the lands draining into Hudson Bay. This vast area included the present-day province of Manitoba, then occupied by the Assiniboin, the Ojibwa, and the Cree. The company established a trading post at Port Nelson and soon extended its operations south to the strategic Red River valley. In 1717, Fort Prince of Wales was built at the mouth of the Churchill River (rebuilt in stone 1732–71, it is now in Fort Prince of Wales National Historic Park).

Manitoba was explored and posts were established by the French as well as by the British; their rival claims were resolved when England's conquest of Canada in the French and Indian WarsFrench and Indian Wars,
1689–1763, the name given by American historians to the North American colonial wars between Great Britain and France in the late 17th and the 18th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Scotsmen took over much of the French fur trade, organized the North West CompanyNorth West Company,
fur-trading organization in North America in the late 18th and early 19th cent.; it was composed of Montreal trading firms and fur traders. Formation
..... Click the link for more information. , and challenged the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. A crisis came when the earl of Selkirk established the Red River SettlementRed River Settlement,
agricultural colony in present Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota. It was the undertaking of Thomas Douglas, 5th earl of Selkirk. Wishing to relieve the dispossessed and impoverished in Scotland and Northern Ireland, he secured enough control of the
..... Click the link for more information. at present-day Assiniboine in North West Company territory. The resulting violence deterred colonization until the merger of the two companies in 1821. From then until 1870, when the Hudson's Bay Company sold its vast domain to the newly created confederation of Canada, that company was in sole control, and settlement of the area increased.

Prearrangements for the transfer of the land to the new dominion government led to conflict between government representatives and Métis (people of mixed European–indigenous Canadian ancestry), who had long enjoyed almost total autonomy under the Hudson's Bay Company's rule. Fearing political persecution and the loss of their land, they staged (1869) the Red River Rebellion under the leadership of Louis RielRiel, Louis
, 1844–85, Canadian insurgent, leader of two rebellions, b. Manitoba, of French and Métis parentage. In 1869–70 he led the rebels of the Red River settlements, mainly Métis (people of mixed European–indigenous descent) and indigenous
..... Click the link for more information. . The rebellion was nominally successful and the Métis were granted land and cultural rights in the Manitoba Act, but after Manitoba was organized as a province in 1870, most of the Métis were harassed into moving farther west. (In 2013, in a case brought by the Manitoba Métis Federation, Canada's supreme court ruled that federal government had failed to meet its obligations, under the Manitoba Act, to the Métis.)

Agricultural settlement in Manitoba proceeded slowly, but when the railroads came (1870 and 1881), they provided access to grain markets on the Great Lakes, and during the 1880s the population doubled. Manitoba's area was enlarged in 1881, and in 1912 it was given its present extension to Hudson Bay. The depression of 1913 and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 ended this period of prosperity, during which Winnipeg had served as a great transportation center. With the completion of the Hudson Bay Railway to Churchill in 1929, however, the province was in a position to use the shorter sea route eastward.

During the last part of the 19th cent. and the first part of the 20th, the Canadian government advertised for immigrants to settle the prairies, and huge numbers of Russians, Poles, Estonians, Scandinavians, Icelanders, and Hungarians responded. The largest single immigrant group was the Ukrainians, who now constitute over 11% of the population and are an important part of Manitoban culture. The province provided a multilingual school system from 1897 to 1916 but abolished it when the number of ethnic groups requesting such facilities grew too large. Further immigration came with World War I when American pacifist sects (e.g., Mennonites and Hutterites), seeking to avoid military service, set up colonies of their own in the province. Manitoba still has problems amalgamating its many ethnic groups, including the Métis, and indigenous groups suffer high unemployment and related ills.

Manitoba has alternated politically between social democrat (New Democratic party) and conservative (Progressive Conservative party) governments since the 1950s. Progressive Conservative Sterling Lyon was elected in 1977 after promising to reduce the provincial debt, but he was defeated in 1981 by New Democrat Howard Pawley. Lyon's was the only one-term government in Manitoba history. Conservatives regained control of the government in 1989 under Gary Filmon, who held office until he was defeated by the New Democrat Gary Doer (in the fourth race between the two leaders) in 1999. Doer and the New Democrats were returned to power in 2003 and 2007, and Greg Selinger led the party to its fourth straight victory in 2011. In 2016, however, Conservatives won in a landslide, and Brian Pallister became premier.

Manitoba sends 6 senators and 14 representatives to the national parliament.

Bibliography

See W. L. Morton, Manitoba: A History (2d ed. 1967); J. A. Jackson, The Centennial History of Manitoba (1970); Manitoba: Past and Present, ed. by D. Dawes (tr. 1971); F. McGuinness and K. S. Coates, Manitoba: The Province and the People (1987).

Manitoba Parks

Parks and Conservation-Related Organizations - Canada
Manitoba Naturalists Society (MNS)
Canadian National Parks
Riding Mountain National Park
Wapusk National Park

Manitoba

a province in Canada. Area, 650,100 sq km; population, 988,000 (1971); about 70 percent of the population is urban. The capital is Winnipeg. The northeast is a flat, swampy lowland; the Laurentian Shield is in the northern and central parts and the Manitoba Lowland is in the south. The climate is continental, with precipitation measuring up to 650 mm per year. Most of the area is covered with taiga; in the north and northeast there is tundra and in the southwest, prairie.

Manitoba is an industrially developed province; in 1971 manufacturing industry was responsible for more than half of the economy’s net output. Processing agricultural products from the prairie provinces, as well as mineral and timber production, is the basis of the province’s industry. Manitoba grows about 20 percent of Canada’s oats, 15 percent of the barley, and 10 percent of the wheat and also produces approximately 25 percent of the country’s nickel (Thompson and Lynn Lake) and 20 percent of the canned meat (Winnipeg). Winnipeg is the largest city and an important center for the transporting, processing, and trading of wheat.

Manitoba

a lake in central Canada in the Nelson River basin.

Lake Manitoba has an area of 4,700 sq km and depths to 20 m. It is a remnant of the large glacial Lake Agassiz. Water from Lake Manitoba flows into Lake Winnipeg by way of the Dauphin River. It abounds with fish (such as whitefish, perch, and pike) and wild waterfowl; an ornithology station is on the southern bank. The Lake Manitoba area is a popular vacation spot.

Manitoba

1. a province of W Canada: consists of prairie in the southwest, with extensive forests in the north and tundra near Hudson Bay in the northeast. Capital: Winnipeg. Pop.: 1 170 268 (2004 est.). Area: 650 090 sq. km (251 000 sq. miles) 2. Lake. a lake in W Canada, in S Manitoba: fed by the outflow from Lake Winnipegosis; drains into Lake Winnipeg. Area: 4706 sq. km (1817 sq. miles)

Manitoba

Man·i·to·ba

Manitoba

Man•i•to•ba

Manitoba

Manitoba

Geography

Economy and Higher Education

History and Politics

Bibliography

Manitoba Parks

Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba

Words related to Manitoba

noun one of the three prairie provinces in central Canada

Related Words