170 Years on the Archives of Manitoba, L.B. Foote Collection 1185 St. Charles Prairie: A Natural and Human History by John P. Morgan, President, Prairie Habitats Inc. n the early to mid 1800’s French Canadian surveyors laid out distinctive plots of land along Manitoba rivers and some lakes Ito become homesteads for fur trade staff, retirees and their families. These river lots usually were four miles long and one quarter mile wide. They fronted on the shore so that everyone had access to the highways of the day that connected them by canoe and York boat to the rest of the world. Lot boundaries still can be seen today in Manitoba along the Red, Seine, and Assiniboine Rivers, and Lake Manitoba. Many of Winnipeg’s streets today follow these river lot boundaries laid down over 170 years ago. Manitoba Provincial Rifle Association Meet, St. Charles Rifle Range Provencher, McDermot, Higgins, Sutherland, Selkirk, Burrows and July 1914. With close inspection of these historical photos, I was able to Inkster Avenues are but a few, and are named after important identify several tall grass species as shown in the inset photos. Few old pioneers in our province’s history. photographs allow determination of native plant species like this one. Originally the lots often had lush riverbot- well growing up as a budding ecologist tom forest on their narrow fronts, stretch- hat we found blew us away... living in St. Charles on Winnipeg’s ing back through miles of magnificent tall The prairie, though overgrown “W western edge. It lay along my favourite grass prairie and wetland. As some of the and unmanaged, was almost pristine.” haunt of the upper reaches of Sturgeon first land in Manitoba to be permanently Creek, within view of the city skyline. settled by Metis, eastern Canadians and Europeans, these fertile A bit of wilderness full of wildlife, wildflowers and prairie vistas soils largely were cleared, broken, farmed and urbanized by 1900. without parallel somehow had survived in an otherwise urban and The exception was a unique tract of land now known as St. Charles agricultural landscape. Ranges. This area of over 1,000 acres lies just west The St. Charles prairie owes its presence today to Sir Henry Pallot, WHAT?! NO DISCOVERY of the Perimeter Highway, an ex-British army officer sent out by the fledgling government of north of Assiniboia Downs Canada as part of the 1,200 member Red River Expeditionary EVENINGS THIS FALL?! between Saskatchewan Force in August 1870, to deal with Louis Riel and the new Province See page 20… and Selkirk Avenues. It is an area I came to know (continued on page 8...) In This Issue... 170 Years on the St. Charles Prairie ....................... p. 1 & 8-9 Bird Outings ................................................................... p. 15 President’s Corner ............................................................ p. 2 Winter Survival ............................................................... p. 15 Member Profile: Ted McLachlan........................................ p. 3 2014/15 Christmas Bird Count ........................................ p. 16 News: Park Expansions & Big Grass Marsh ...................p. 4-5 New IBA Coordinator: Tim Poole ..................................... p. 17 A.G.M. 2015 Agenda & Nominee Bios ..........................p. 6-7 Birds and Forest Fires ..................................................... p. 18 Great Memories from the North ..................................... p. 10 The Big Five Years .......................................................... p. 19 Our Natural Garden Tour: Sat. July 4, 2015 ................... p. 11 Discovery Evenings & A.G.M. ......................................... p. 20 Outdoor Activities ............................................ p. 12-13 & 15 The Wildlife Society Annual Conference .......................... p. 21 Bird News: 2014 Fall Migration Highlights ...................... p. 14 Workshop Series 2015 ..............................................p. 22-23 President’s Corner by Donald Himbeault Canada Post Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 0040069231. Issued 4 times a year as the official publication of Nature Manitoba. Subscriptions are a benefit of membership. See backpage for membership details. Opinions are those of the writers and not necessarily the organization as a whole. The Preoccupations of a President ne of the more challenging duties of being President is coming up with Office and Library new and compelling stories to write for this section of the Newsletter. 401 - 63 Albert St. Winnipeg, R3B 1G4 OHence the inspiration for this issue, where I thought I would share a few Phone/Fax: ......................... 204-943-9029 of the other more salient things that keep me preoccupied, both in mind and Email: [email protected] body, in my role as President. Website: ............www.naturemanitoba.ca By far, the greatest thing that has preoccupied me, and many others, in the past months has been with the re-organization of the physical space of the Nature Office Administrator ............ Susan McLarty Office Assistant.............. Deanna Dodgson Manitoba office. Starting this year, we have reduced the size of the office by Hours: 10:00 am to 3:00 pm approximately half, as we have not renewed the lease on the room that we used Mon/Tue and Thu/Fri as our Board room and library. This involved downsizing our library, getting rid of obsolete equipment and furniture, and finding ways to pack things more Nature Manitoba News efficiently in our remaining space. Board meetings will now be held at other locations, where for now we use the meeting rooms of the St. Boniface Library. Newsletter Editor ................... Tommy Allen This latter change also resolves issues we had with parking, as our board meetings Email: [email protected] often coincided with Jets home games or other events that made downtown Editorial Committee: Tommy Allen parking a challenge. A big thank you to all who helped in making the move Donna Danyluk so successful. Roger Turenne Happily, a waning preoccupation has been with the financial workings of our Advertising rates are available online or by organization, where it appears this year our operations are in the black and we contacting the editor. Rates are reduced will be able to build up our financial reserves. Donations, special funding from if the ad appears at least two times. Manitoba Community Services Corporation, and cost-trimming activities like that Classifieds are also available for 15$. mentioned above, have greatly strengthened our organization. A long-standing preoccupation has been that of the removal of the caveat on our Submission deadline is the first day of the month prior to the newsletter publication. Victoria Beach property, such that we may proceed with its sale. While it has taken Deadline for the Summer 2015 (June / some time, I believe we have now found a legal firm with the required expertise July / August ) issue is May 1st, 2015. and disposition to take us to the resolution of what is turning out to be a rather complicated point of law. Hopefully there will be some good news to report on This newsletter is printed on Enviro 100 this in my next column. 20lb paper which is 100% Post Consumer A growing preoccupation, however, has been with the managing and renewal of Recycled and FSC certified. our volunteer base. The challenges here are not unique to Nature Manitoba, as many organizations are struggling to keep and recruit volunteers. Part of this 2014 / 2015 Executive challenge is that there is a growing trend in today’s society towards micro- President ....................... Donald Himbeault volunteering, where volunteers prefer to perform specific short duration tasks Exec. Vice-President .................Jack Dubois which do not require an ongoing commitment by the volunteer. This trend does Vice-President .................. James Whitelaw not fit with many of our committees, as they often require a longer term commit- Treasurer ..................................Nikolas Cyr ment to perform a series of connected activities throughout the year. Do we try to Secretary ..................................Alain Louer convince these volunteers to comply with our existing way of doing things, or do Past President ..................... Roger Turenne we change our way of doing things to accommodate this new trend? I do not know what the solution will be, but I am guessing the latter is what we need to 2014 / 2015 Board Members look at. If however, you are a volunteer that identifies with the traditional volun- Christian Artuso, Scott Falkingham, teering method, we would love to hear from you. Michele Kading, Eric Melvin, As a final note, I hope to see many of you at the upcoming AGM (see pages 6-7), Les McCann, Shauna McQuarrie, where you may learn more on these and the many other things that have preoc- Rommel Molod, Roger Sutherland cupied myself and the board for the past year. Page 2 Nature Manitoba News Vol. 7, Issue 2 - Spring 2015 by Tommy Allen Photo: Sean McLachlan Welcome New Members! Passi Nov. 15, 2014 to Feb. 9, 2015 le o Gordon Austin p n Luba Bereza o a David Carty & family e t Sandra Cote e P Don Derksen & Michelle Hildebrand w/kids Susanna, Kathryn & Julius D Jean-Francois Dion Jen Finch Quinn Fletcher TED Sandy Hay Glass Leanne Grieves McLACHLAN Karen Lang Renee Langan . Shannon Leask . Joe Leven A . Susan Loeppky b e Ronald Murphy o r John Peters u u Bob Riffel t Janet & Bob Southern ed was the t Na and other proactive