Winnipeg

Sister cities

• Lviv

History

Winnipeg lies at the confluence of the Assiniboine and the Red River of the North, a location now known as "The Forks". This point was at the crossroads of canoe routes travelled by First Nations before European contact. Evidence provided by archaeology, petroglyphs, rock art, and oral history indicates that native peoples used the area in prehistoric times for camping, harvesting, hunting, tool making, fishing, trading and, farther north, for agriculture. Estimates of the date of first settlement in the area range from 11,500 years ago for a site southwest of the present city to 6,000 years ago at the Forks. In 1805, Canadian colonists observed First Nations peoples engaged in farming activity along the Red River. The practice quickly expanded, driven by the demand by traders for provisions. The rivers provided an extensive transportation network linking northern First Peoples with those to the south along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The Ojibwe made some of the first maps on birch bark, which helped fur traders navigate the waterways of the area. Sieur de La Vérendrye built the first fur-trading post on the site in 1738, called Fort Rouge. French trading continued at the site for several decades. The British Hudson's Bay Company took over when France ceded the territory following its defeat in the Seven Years' War. Many French men who were trappers married First Nations women; their mixed-race children hunted, traded, and lived in the area. Their descendants are known as the Métis. Lord Selkirk was involved with the first permanent settlement (known as the Red River Colony), the purchase of land from the Hudson's Bay Company, and a survey of river lots in the early 19th century. The North West Company built Fort Gibraltar in 1809, and the Hudson's Bay…

Geography

Winnipeg lies at the bottom of the Red River Valley, a flood plain with an extremely flat topography. It is on the eastern edge of the Canadian Prairies in Western Canada and is known as the "Gateway to the West". It is relatively close to many large Canadian Shield lakes and parks, as well as Lake Winnipeg (the Earth's 11th largest freshwater lake). Winnipeg has North America's largest extant mature urban elm forest. The city has an area of . The city was subject to severe flooding in the past. The Red River reached its greatest flood height in 1826. Another large flood in 1950 caused millions of dollars in damage and mass evacuations. This flood prompted Duff Roblin's provincial government to build the Red River Floodway to protect the city. The generally flat terrain and the poor drainage of the Red River Valley's clay-based soil also results in many mosquitoes during wetter years. Winnipeg's location in the Canadian Prairies gives it a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb), with warm, humid summers, and long, severely cold winters. Summers have a July mean average of . Winters are the coldest time of year, with the January mean average around and total winter precipitation (December through February) averaging . With 2,353 hours of sunshine per year, Winnipeg is the second-sunniest city in Canada. Total annual precipitation (both rain and snow) is just over . Low wind chill values are a common occurrence in the local climate. The wind chill has gone down as low as , and on average twelve days of the year reach a wind chill below . The highest temperature ever recorded in Winnipeg was during the 1936 North American heat wave. The temperature reached on 11 July 1936 while the highest minimum temperature, recorded on the following day, 12 July 1936,…

Most-observed species

• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  33,768
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  26,890
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  23,334
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  23,245
• White-breasted Nuthatch

  Sitta carolinensis Latham, 1790 · Aves
  22,451
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  18,999
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  16,389
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  16,062