You may know Manitoba well, but if you really want to go beyond scratching the surface and understand how the province came to be the way it is today, with its mix of prairies, innumerable lakes and mineral deposits, In Search of Canada’s Ancient Heartland is a good place to start.
Published by Winnipeg-based Heartland Associates Inc., In Search of Canada’s Ancient Heartland is Manitoban right down to its authors – Barbara Huck and Doug Whiteway, who also wrote Northern Lights: Arnold & Gail Morberg and the Calm Air Story with Frances Russell.
But this time instead of tales from the skies above northern Manitoba, the book tells the story of the province’s varied geology as well as of the people and animals who previously called it home.
Divided into six sections covering eastern Manitoba, the Trans-Canada Highway region, the Red Coat Trail, the prairie lakes and Interlake as well as the western mountains and northern Manitoba, In Search of Canada’s Ancient Heartland covers many areas and topics
familiar and of interest to northerners.
These include sections on Clearwater Lake and its caves, the Grass River, the Karst Spring Trail, Churchill’s antiquities and the Trans-Hudson Orogen, an ancient mountain range long since eroded, the foundations of which are underneath much of northern Manitoba, including the Flin Flon Greenstone Belt and the Thompson Nickel Belt.
Among the interesting facts revealed in the book, which is part scientific exploration and part travel guide, are that Churchill, now known for polar bears and beluga whales, was also the site where the world’s largest fossil of a trilobite – a marine arthropod animal species that first appeared more than 500 million years ago – was found in 1998.
Manitoba’s northern port area has also yielded evidence of inhabitants dating back nearly 4,000 years – the Pre-Dorset people.
Liberally illustrated with photos and maps of all of Manitoba’s geological regions, In Search of Canada’s Ancient Heartland reveals the turbulent past of Canada’s keystone province in such a way that any resident with the will to do so can get out on the road – or train, or canoe route – to uncover the evidence of its ancient origins themselves, or from the comfort of their armchair.
– Thompson Citizen
