Grass River

It's a long way east from the border of northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the shores of Hudson Bay, but the Grass River makes most of the journey, stopping just in time to join the Nelson on its final run to the northern sea. At first, as the Grass rises in Cranberry and Simonhouse Lakes, it seems unable to make up its mind. Should it flow north and east through the boreal forest and granite bedrock of Canadian Shield country? Or should it dip south into the limestone-paved plain of the Manitoba Lowlands? For almost half of its 570-kilometre length, the Grass wavers and winds, following a vacillating, saw-toothed path through a series of lakes, and skirting the uneven dividing line between upland Shield and low-lying plain. Just past Wekusko Lake (named for its sweetgrass shores), the river makes one last short sweep to the east, before beginning its steady, northeast drop to Paint Lake, Split Lake, and the Nelson River. Along its banks: caribou, muskrat, beaver and bald eagle. In its waters: walleye, northern pike, lake trout and whitefish. In its past: Tramping Lake rock painters, Samuel Hearne, David Thompson and the fur brigades of the Upper Track. And in its present: the Manitoba mining towns of Flin Flon, Snow Lake and Thompson, the paddlers of the Grass River canoe route, the campers of Grass River, Wekusko and Paint Lake Provincial Parks, the waterfall walkers of Wekusko, Pisew and Kwasitchewan Falls, and the fishers, trappers, travellers and tourists who marvel at the beauty of this distant, changeable northern landscape.