Duck Mountain Provincial Park (Manitoba)

Duck Mountain Provincial Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Toward Baldy Mountain.
Location	Division No. 20, Manitoba, Canada
Nearest town	Swan River
Coordinates	51°39′58″N 100°54′52″W / 51.66611°N 100.91444°W / 51.66611; -100.91444
Area	1,424 km2 (550 sq mi)
Established	1961
Governing body	Government of Manitoba

Duck Mountain Provincial Park is a 1,424 square kilometre provincial park in western Manitoba. The park is located within the larger and similarly named Duck Mountain Provincial Forest. It is not to be confused with Saskatchewan's Duck Mountain Provincial Park, located just across the Manitoba/Saskatchewan boundary.

Duck Mountain Provincial Park was designated a provincial park by the Government of Manitoba in 1961. The park is considered to be a Class II protected area under the IUCN protected area management categories.

The Duck Mountains are a rise of forested (formerly glaciated) land between the Saskatchewan prairie to the west and the Manitoba lowlands to the east. They are some 200m higher than the floor of the Assiniboine River valley to the west, and some 400m higher than the Manitoba lowlands. The highest point of the Duck Mountains is Baldy Mountain, which is also the highest point in Manitoba at 831 metres (2,726 ft) above mean sea level.

Geologically, the Duck Mountains are part of the Manitoba Escarpment, along with the Turtle Mountains, the Riding Mountains, and the Porcupine Hills. Their underlying rocks are Cretaceous shales and (below that) sandstone, which overlie deeper deposits of Devonian limestone, which in turn overlie Precambrian granite. The vertical relief of the mountains is the result of erosion of the Cretaceous shale by the ancestral (pre ) Red River to the east, and by the ancestral Assiniboine River to the west, and so the Duck Mountain's apparent height is the result of a lowering of the surrounding prairie, rather than any orogen. Glacial scouring exaggerated the vertical relief of the mountains, and the glaciers deposited thick beds of glacial till that now overlay the bedrock. The post-ice age Duck Mountains then formed the western shore of Lake Agassiz. The flat bottom of Lake Agassiz now forms the Manitoba lowlands, and it is from these lowlands that the vertical relief of the Duck Mountains is most impressive (indeed, really the only place from which it is even readily noticeable), as the mountains provide an obvious contrast to the monotonous flat of Manitoba's prairie.