Wildlife Encounters You Won't Find Anywhere Else

1. Churchill is known as the 'Polar Bear Capital of the World'. Each fall, 600 to 900 polar bears gather along the Hudson Bay as they wait for the ice to form so they hunt for seals, their main source of food.

2. Each summer, about 57,000 beluga whales make their way to the western Hudson Bay to feed and raise their young. Around 4,000 gather in the Churchill River estuary where travellers can kayak among them on packaged tours with local operators.

3. Manitoba is home to one of the largest snake dens in the world. Each May, thousands of red-sided garter snakes emerge at the Narcisse Snake Dens to mix, mingle and mate.

4. Riding Mountain National Park is one of the best places to observe elk, especially during the fall rut season when their unique bugle is frequently heard.

5. A protected herd of plans bison also lives in Riding Mountain, helping conserve a species once close to extinction.

6. Manitoba sits within three major bird migration routes, with more than 390 bird species recorded, including the great gray owl, piping plover, willow ptarmigan and the elusive Ross's Gull in Churchill.

7. The province is home to two ecotypes of woodland caribou: boreal and forest-tundra, though spotting these woodland creatures is quite rare and management efforts and have been underway for over 40 years to protext the species.

8. The prairie skink, Manitoba's only lizard, can be in found in the sandy and prairie-like habitats found within Spruce Woods Provincial Park.

9. The Arctic fox isn't just cute; it's also tough. The Arctic fox has one of the best insulating pelts of any animal found in the Arctic and can endure temperatures as low as -50 degrees Celcius before its metabolism kicks in to create more warmth.

Ancient Creatures and Fossil Discoveries

10. Around 80 million years ago, much of Manitoba was covered by the Western Interior Seaway, a vast inland ocean. Today, the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden preserves marine reptile fossils from this era, including Bruce, the largest publicly displayed mosasaur in the world.

11. A giant sea turtle called Archelon, weighing up to 2,200 kilograms, once swam these waters and remains the largest sea turtle genus ever discovered. You can see a statue in its honour near the Co-op Grocery Store off Highway 3 heading west as you leave Morden.

12. In 1998, a 28-inch-long Isotelus rex was discovered along Hudson Bay. It still holds the record as the largest trilobite ever found and can be seen on display at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.

13. At the peak of the Ice Age around 20,000 years ago, Manitoba was covered by ice up to four kilometres thick and as it melted, it formed Lake Agassiz, once the largest lake in North America, leaving behind materials like quartz and Swan River chert, materials used for tools by Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years.

14. Designated as a historic site in 1973, the Linear Mounds National Historic Site contains some of the best-preserved examples of mortuary mounds belonging to the Devil's Lake-Sourisford Burial Complex. The site is located near the Souris River in southern Manitoba, with burial mounds dating from year 900 to 1400.

More Unique Geology Found Across Manitoba

15. Little Limestone Lake is one of the finest examples of a marl lake in the world. Its mineral-rich waters shift from crystal blue to bright turquoise depending on temperature.

16. Located in Whiteshell Provincial Park, West Hawk Lake is Manitoba’s deepest lake at 115 metres and was formed by a meteorite crashing into the Earth.

17. Manitoba’s boreal forest spans about 570,000 square kilometres, representing roughly 10% of Canada’s boreal forest and making it larger than France.

18. The province sits at the centre of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, which stretches west from the Nelson River to the Rocky Mountains, south into the United States and east into Ontario.

19. Manitoba’s landscape includes two major escarpments formed by Lake Agassiz: the Pembina Escarpment and the Manitoba Escarpment, showing the province is far from flat.

20. The Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve, located about 50 kilometres south of Steinbach, protects less than 1% of the original 6,000 square kilometres of tall grass prairie that once covered the region.

21. Eskers, long ridges formed by glacial meltwater, are found across the province. The Robertson Esker in northern Manitoba is among the largest known examples, clocking in at 300-metres long and 324 metres tall.

22. Located beneath the auroral oval, Churchill is one of the best places on Earth to view the northern lights, with frequent displays visible more than 300 nights throughout the year.

23. The city of Flin Flon sits on ancient volcanic rock formed by underwater eruptions nearly two billion years ago, part of the Flin Flon Greenstone Belt, a geologically rich area known for its mineral deposits and one of the reasons the city developed as a mining hub.

Original blog by Breanne Sewards.