Riding Mountain National Park
| Riding Mountain National Park | |
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IUCN category II (national park)
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Clear Lake, Riding Mountain National Park
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| Location | Manitoba, Canada |
| Nearest city | Dauphin |
| Coordinates | 50°51′50″N 100°02′10″W / 50.86389°N 100.03611°WCoordinates: 50°51′50″N 100°02′10″W / 50.86389°N 100.03611°W |
| Area | 2,969 km2 (1,146 sq mi) |
| Established | 1933 (National park) 1986 (Biosphere reserve) |
| Governing body | Parks Canada |
Riding Mountain National Park is a national park in Manitoba, Canada. The park sits atop the Manitoba Escarpment. Consisting of a protected area 2,969 km2 (1,146 sq mi), the forested parkland stands in sharp contrast to the surrounding prairie farmland. It was designated a national park because it protects three different ecosystems that converge in the area; grasslands, upland boreal and eastern deciduous forests. It is most easily reached by Highway 10 which passes through the park. The south entrance is at the townsite of Wasagaming, which is the only commercial centre within the park boundaries.
A trading post was first established on Lake Dauphin north of present-day Riding Mountain National Park by the Hudson Bay Company in 1741. Pierre de la Verendrye and sons explored the region and traded with First Nations, who hunted and fished in the area for many years. In 1858 Henry Youle Hind, a professor of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Toronto, became one of the first Canadian explorers to reach the area now encompassed by Riding Mountain National Park during his surveying of present-day Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Hind described "pitching trails which lead from one part of the area to the other, following ridges, the only dry areas around" upon his ascent from Dauphin Lake. Hind, who travelled with several assistants and First Nations peoples, also described a final ascent upon Riding Mountain as "abrupt, consisting of a steep escarpment of drift clay and boulders covered with white spruce, birch and aspen." His early explorations helped inform the Government of Canada of the ecological diversity and potential of the Riding Mountain region.
In 1895, 3,975 square kilometres (1,535 sq mi) of land in Riding Mountain was designated as a timber reserve by the Department of the Interior, due to the quality of resources available to locals. The Dominion Forest Reserve Act, passed in 1906, and the Dominion Forest Reserve and Parks Act, passed in 1911, were among the first legally binding protection of the area. In 1906 the superintendent of forestry monitored permits for cutting timber, which were intended only for settlers of the region. At the same time, it was recognized that trees needed to be protected due to their aesthetic properties and ability to hinder floods and erosion.
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