I.

Introduction

Manitoba, province in south central Canada. Manitoba is the easternmost of Canada’s three Prairie provinces, the others being Alberta and Saskatchewan. Manitoba lies in the geographic center of Canada. It has been known as the Keystone Province ever since Canada’s governor-general Lord Dufferin described it in 1877 as “the keystone of that mighty arch of sister provinces which spans the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”

Much of the countryside in southern Manitoba is farmland and gives the impression of a vast plain with a perfectly level horizon as far as the eye can see. In the center of the province the flat farmland gives way to vast areas of forest interspersed with hundreds of lakes. In the extreme north the land is much the same as it was thousands of years ago and presents a bleak array of stunted trees, exposed rock, and swamps.

For centuries the fur trade was the dominant economic activity in the region known as Rupert’s Land—a vast area surrounding Hudson Bay that encompassed present-day Manitoba. Large numbers of settlers arrived in Manitoba during the 19th century and turned prairie grasslands into wheat farms. By the late 19th century, agriculture had surpassed the fur trade, and Winnipeg became an important terminus for the spreading railroads—the funnel through which the prairie harvest flowed eastward. In the 1940s and 1950s industry became the largest source of income in the province. Today, Manitoba still retains a strong agricultural sector, even as it has developed a diversified industrial base.