Wet Prairie : People, Land, and Water in Agricultural Manitoba

The Canadian prairies are often envisioned as dry, windswept fields;however, much of southern Manitoba is not arid plain but wet prairie,poorly drained land subject to frequent flooding.Wet Prairie brings to light the problems and complexitiesof surface water management in Manitoba, from early efforts to drainthe landscape to late-twentieth-century attempts to establish watershedmanagement. Irregular water-flow patterns challenged the checkerboardlandscape of the 1872 federal Dominion Lands Act, and homesteadersfound their agricultural ambitions at odds with local environmentalrealities. Thus, in keeping with liberal principles, the provincialgovernment undertook substantial drainage efforts. Flooding anddrainage became the subjects of intense and persistent debate amongprovincial officials, drainage experts, and Manitoba residents. Newalliances and rivalries emerged amid shifting social, political andenvironmental contexts, affecting how Manitobans related to each otherand to the provincial state. All of this has had enduring consequencesfor both the landscapes and people of the wet prairie.This account of an overlooked aspect of Prairie environmental historytraces how the biophysical nature of southern Manitoba was an importantfactor in the formation of Manitoba society and the provincial state.