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"The forts now stand like a
castle of romance in the midst of an ocean of deep
contending currents, the water extending for at
least a mile behind them, and they are thereby only
approachable by boats and canoes."
Francis Heron, describing the Red River flood
of 1826.
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More than any
other large city in Canada, Winnipeg has
suffered repeated physical, social and
economic injury due to severe flooding.
Although Winnipeg largely escaped the "flood
of the century" in 1997 without bearing
serious damage, the Red River still forced
the evacuation of over 28,000 people in
Manitoba and had a direct economic impact of
roughly $500 million. Similar large floods
threatened Winnipeg in 1979 and 1950 and
caused extensive damage to the fledgling Red
River Settlement in 1861, 1852 and 1826. |
The
1997 Red River flood
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The
Winnipeg floodway
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Flooding is a
dynamic process that is affected by
geomorphic, geological and climatic change.
Although these changes can occur very
slowly, they may be very significant when
considered over the time horizons used in
the design of flood protection structures
(typically between 100-1,000 years). The
perspective offered by geoscientific
research allows us to understand the subtle
environmental processes that can either
increase or reduce flood hazards over the
long term.
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Following the
1997 Red River flood, the Manitoba
Geological Survey (MGS) and Geological
Survey of Canada (GSC) initiated a
multi-disciplinary research program on flood
hazards in the Red River Basin. The main
objective of this program was to provide a
better understanding of the history and
causes of past extreme floods and to
determine how the risk of flooding changes
over time. |
Collecting subfossil oak logs |
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The project has focused on several separate lines
of investigation, including efforts to develop
limnological flood records from Lake Winnipeg as
well as studies of the alluvial geomorphology and
sedimentology along the Red River. However, this
website focuses on the use of annual tree rings to
develop records of past flooding and climatic change
in the Red River basin that extend back several
centuries.
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Paleofloods
