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We're prairie people, lake people, boreal people, even a little bit mountain people. We have a bit of everything, geography-wise, likewise with our economy. Maybe that should be our motto: Manitoba -- A Bit of Everything. Except valleys. I was interviewing farmer Don Armitage, who is raising cattle the natural way, on grass, instead of on a grain diet that speeds weight gain but weakens the animals' immune systems. We were standing in the bottom of the Assiniboine Valley near Miniota among his grazing cattle. "Do the cattle go up there?" I asked, peering up at the top of the valley about 100 metres above us. I groaned after asking it, as if I was laying one more ridiculous city demand on the poor put-upon farmers: inspecting whether his animals had adequate scenery. I looked back at the deadpan faces of the cattle studying me like I was weird. "Yeah, they do," Armitage smiled. "I'll take you up there." Before that, he stopped on the slope of the valley to show me the now empty fieldstone house that Buzz Currie, our sports editor, grew up in and still visits. The yard slopes past the house like a ski hill, as if you might keel over when you step off the deck, and it could explain Buzz's unique view of things (slanted). Armitage then drove his pickup up the side of the valley. At the top, a greying sign said Armitage Lookout, and we didn't speak for a minute, while he gauged my reaction. The Assiniboine Valley is 100 metres deep and a mile wide. Looking out, I didn't know what to make of it. The sight, one of grandeur, was foreign to my sensibilities. I imagined if I lived here, this is where I'd have gone when angry at my parents, or to think about a certain girl in my class. I wondered if it was the first or second or third date before Armitage took his future wife to see the lookout. Later, further west in the town of Shellmouth, I had another glimpse of the Assiniboine Valley. I had interviewed some women who are restoring a church, and was about to drive off when I noticed, lined up through the church's gothic windows, a magnificent crimson sunset over the Assiniboine Valley. I drove into the valley, and into the sunset, and saw two coyotes, which are numerous this year and taking down the deer, hunters say. I had to keep going with this valley thing I was on. Manitoba Conservation officer Ken Kansas said the western edge of the province is grooved by valleys: the Assiniboine Valley, the Little Saskatchewan River Valley, the Shell River Valley, the Souris River Valley, the Swan River Valley, even the Valley River Valley (between the Duck and Riding mountains.) To the south is the Pembina Valley. Kansas said I just had to turn down a few gravel roads. One road was like riding a snake's back, up and down south along the Assiniboine to where Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle Valley enters Manitoba. Then I drove north to see the Asessippi Park and the Shell River Valley. Vertiginous awe. The hills are baldfaced with forest growing in the grooves like sideburns. These were real valleys, with steep sides and wide valley floors, not like the Red River Valley, which is really a misnomer. It's really a former lake bottom and doesn't look anything like a valley, says James Teller, University of Manitoba geologist. Glacial melt 10,000 years ago created rivers five-to-10 times their size today, which carved up the landscape in a process that took a couple thousand years, Teller said. Rushing water once ran to the top of these valleys, he said. Most of the valleys peter out at about Brandon and people who live in the eastern half of the province may never know about them. Maybe there should be a tour bus, or a tour map, connecting the valleys so people can see them with some level of comprehension. And maybe my slogan doesn't need any footnote after all: Manitoba -- A Bit of Everything. |
Financial support for RiverWatch has been provided by a grant from the Bremer Banks and the Otto Bremer Foundation of St. Paul, Minnesota.