Exploring Manitoba on the Trans Canada Trail: Our Walk, Stories, and Resources

Manitoba on the Trans Canada Trail

From the Canadian Shield to the Wide-Open Prairies

When we crossed from Ontario into Manitoba in September 2020, we were beginning the seventh province of our #Hike4Birds across Canada. Behind us lay more than a year of walking along the Trans Canada Trail, including the forests and coastlines of Atlantic Canada, the enormous distances of Quebec and Ontario, and the rugged pathways surrounding Lake Superior. Ahead lay the forests and lakes of the Canadian Shield, the historic communities of the Red River Valley, and eventually some of the most expansive prairie landscapes we would encounter anywhere in Canada.

Manitoba would introduce us to a remarkable variety of environments and experiences. Our first weeks took us through the autumn forests of Whiteshell Provincial Park, along rocky footpaths, beside lakes and rivers, and through communities connected by the South Whiteshell and Pinawa trails. As we approached Winnipeg, the landscape gradually shifted as the forests became less continuous, and the prairies opened the horizon.

However, like Québec, Manitoba would become a province we completed over two separate hiking seasons. After reaching Winnipeg in the autumn of 2020, we returned in spring 2021 to resume our journey, following the historic Crow Wing Trail south toward Emerson before turning west and eventually north again across the agricultural landscapes of southern and western Manitoba.

The hike across southern and western Manitoba was unlike almost anything we had experienced before. Long gravel roads, extreme heat, limited shade, difficulties finding drinking water, and considerable distances between communities became recurring challenges. Yet we also discovered historic places, colourful prairie landscapes, and wildlife that challenged our assumptions about the natural world.

Throughout both seasons, we documented these experiences in daily journals, sharing photographs, birds and wildlife observations, local histories, and the realities of travelling through Manitoba on foot. Since completing our coast-to-coast-to-coast #Hike4Birds, we have expanded that collection to include planning resources, walking itineraries, cycling assessments, and reflections on the lessons of the trail.

Whether you are interested in exploring the Whiteshell, considering a pilgrimage along the Crow Wing Trail, planning a longer journey across the Prairies, or simply curious about what it was like to walk across Manitoba, we invite you to explore these resources and Come Walk With Us.

Follow Our Walk Across Manitoba

Our complete Manitoba Trans Canada Trail journal brings together the daily entries, photographs, experiences, and observations from our journey across the province.

Beginning with our arrival in Manitoba and first steps through the Whiteshell, the journals follow us through Falcon Lake, Rennie, Seven Sisters, Pinawa, Lac du Bonnet, and Powerview before continuing toward Selkirk and Winnipeg. These early stages introduced us to beautiful forest pathways, autumn colours, and extensive waterways, but also to difficult trail conditions, uncertain connections, and the challenges of finding suitable places to camp.

When we returned in 2021, the nature of our journey changed considerably. From Winnipeg, we followed the Crow Wing Trail, also known as Chemin St. Paul, south toward Emerson. This historic corridor, associated with the Red River cart routes of the nineteenth century, carried us through agricultural communities and long stretches of exposed countryside where the practical demands of walking were often shaped by heat, distance, and the availability of water.

From Emerson, our route turned north and west, leading us through Altona, Morden, Miami, Somerset, Spruce Woods, Carberry, and Neepawa. En route, the Trans Canada Trail increasingly followed gravel roads, rural concessions, and agricultural landscapes rather than pathways before joining the Rossburn Subdivision Trail and continuing through Russell, Inglis, Asessippi, Roblin, and the forests near Duck Mountain.

Our travel journals and online postings document the extraordinary variety of these experiences, from days spent enjoying the natural beauty of the Whiteshell to difficult encounters with trail conditions, summer heat, storms, and long stretches of roadway. They also preserve the historic communities we discovered, and the changing landscapes that gradually introduced us to the Canadian Prairies.  Readers can follow the complete collection chronologically, begin with our first day in Manitoba, or explore our final journey along the Crocus Trail North toward Saskatchewan, where the next chapter of our cross-Canada adventure began.

Planning a Walk or Cycle Across Manitoba

For those considering their own adventures on the Trans Canada Trail, we have assembled several resources examining the possibilities and challenges of travelling across Manitoba on foot or by bicycle.

Our Manitoba planning and research guide explores the route, communities, resupply opportunities, camping considerations, water availability, and logistical questions involved in preparing for an extended crossing. Complementing this, our walking itinerary for the Trans Canada Trail in Manitoba documents our daily stages, distances, and the time required to complete the province over two seasons.

One of Manitoba's most distinctive sections is the historic Crow Wing Trail. Our feature article, Hiking the Crow Wing Trail: Manitoba's Prairie Camino Along the Trans Canada Trail, explores this remarkable route, its historical connections, communities, landscapes, and the practical realities of walking south from Winnipeg toward Emerson.

We have also examined Can You Cycle the Trans Canada Trail in Manitoba?, considering the opportunities offered by developed recreational pathways, rural roads, and rail trails, alongside the challenges of rugged forest routes, rough surfaces, and sections affected by motorized recreational use.

For a broader introduction, our guide to understanding the Trans Canada Trail in Manitoba examines the character of the provincial route and the differences between travelling through the Canadian Shield, Winnipeg, the southern Prairies, and western Manitoba.

These resources are intended to help future visitors appreciate the possibilities and limitations of the national pathway rather than prescribe a particular adventure. Our crossing took place in 2020 and 2021, and current trail conditions, access arrangements, camping regulations, available services, and route alignments should always be confirmed before setting out.

Discovering Manitoba's Birds and Wildlife

Birding and encouraging people to reconnect with nature remained central to our #Hike4Birds throughout Manitoba. The province offered a particularly interesting opportunity to observe how wildlife and natural environments change between the Canadian Shield, the Red River Valley, open prairie, and the wetlands and parklands of western Manitoba.

Our regional accounts, Birding and Wildlife on the Trans Canada Trail in Eastern Manitoba and Birding and Wildlife Across Southern and Western Manitoba, bring together our observations from the two stages of our journey. A broader overview, Birding and Wildlife on the Trans Canada Trail in Manitoba, explores the changing natural landscapes and wildlife encounters of the province as a whole.

In the Whiteshell and Pinawa regions, Boreal forests, rocky lakes, and wetlands provided memorable opportunities to observe migrating birds, waterfowl, deer, and other wildlife. Around Pinawa, the concentration of birds at local wastewater ponds was particularly remarkable, while an encounter with three River Otters along the Winnipeg River became one of our favourite wildlife memories.  Farther south and west, the openness of the Prairies required a different way of looking at nature. Here Western Meadowlarks, sparrows, swallows, and other grassland birds occupied the fields, while wetlands and roadside ponds attracted waterfowl, shorebirds, and other migrating species. The pothole country around Erickson and Rossburn revealed another remarkable concentration of wildlife, particularly around the managed wetlands of Proven Lake.

Together with our daily journals, these regional accounts offer a record of the birds and wildlife we encountered while walking across Manitoba in autumn 2020 and spring and summer 2021.

Reflections from Our Seventh Province on the Trans Canada Trail

Manitoba changed our understanding of the Trans Canada Trail in ways that were difficult to anticipate from our original plans and research of our hike. In the east, we encountered established hiking trails, quiet forests and beautiful waterways. Beyond Winnipeg, however, the challenges became less about rugged terrain and more about endurance, exposure, and the practical realities of travelling long distances through agricultural landscapes in the summer. 

Our reflections on hiking the Trans Canada Trail in Manitoba, Trails and Trials, revisit these contrasting experiences, including the difficulties of following the national route and the lessons we learned about adapting our expectations.

The province also encouraged us to reconsider the relationship between distance and progress. Manitoba's indirect route led us south to the international border before turning west and north again, meaning that considerable daily walking did not always translate into much westward progress. Our reflection, The Difference Between a Plan and an Expectation, explores the importance of recognizing that circumstances will not always take place as anticipated, however carefully an adventure has been researched.

Another reflection, Walking the Trail and Being Seen: A Reflection from Manitoba, considers a different aspect of travelling through communities and landscapes where long-distance walkers can attract attention, curiosity, suspicion, and sometimes unwelcome encounters.

Looking back after completing our journey across Canada, Manitoba remains one of the provinces that most clearly demonstrated how the Trans Canada Trail can connect dramatically different landscapes and experiences. Its forests, waterways, historic routes, agricultural communities, and extensive road connections challenged us to reconsider what it meant to travel across Canada on a national pathway.

Come Walk With Us Across Manitoba

Today, with our coast-to-coast-to-coast #Hike4Birds complete, we hope these collections offer something for anyone interested in exploring Manitoba and the Trans Canada Trail. Some readers may be planning an adventure through Whiteshell Provincial Park, others may be researching the Crow Wing Trail or a longer crossing of the Prairies, while still others may be interested in the province's birds, natural history, communities, and cultural landscapes.

Our complete Manitoba archive remains the best place to discover the full collection of daily journals, photographs, itineraries, planning resources, birding observations, and reflections. We invite you to begin wherever your interests lead you, whether among the granite ridges and lakes of the Whiteshell, along the historic Crow Wing Trail, in the heart of Winnipeg, or beside the wetlands and rolling landscapes of western Manitoba.

For us, Manitoba was the seventh province of a journey that would eventually carry us across Canada and north to the Arctic Ocean. After completing the long and winding provincial route through two seasons, we continued into Saskatchewan, where the prairie landscapes, communities, and challenges of the Trans Canada Trail would introduce us to another chapter of our adventure.

Thank you for joining us, whether you followed our Manitoba journeys in 2020 and 2021 or are discovering #Hike4Birds for the first time.

See you on the trail!