Let me take you on a journey through a vast, beautiful and fascinating land — the Province of Manitoba.

The story of Manitoba begins about 5,000 years ago as Lake Agassiz receded and small groups of Indian hunters moved into the area in search of animals for food. Much later, several Indian tribes wandered in and settled down. The Chipewyan hunted caribou across the northern section. The Cree and Salteaux hunted beaver and moose in the central woodlands, and fished and trapped animals in the prairies and wooded lowlands. The Assiniboin were buffalo hunters on the southwestern plains, and the Chippewa hunted buffalo in the southeast.

In the early 1600's, English mariners, seeking a North West passage to Asia, travelled through Hudson's Bay. Captain Thomas Button sailed down the west coast of Hudson's Bay in 1612 and became the first white man in Manitoba by wintering at the mouth of the Nelson River. He claimed this land, which became known as Rupert's Land, for England. In 1670 the Hudson's Bay Company of London was granted trading rights in the region. It founded the fur trade and established forts and trading posts in the wilderness.

The Earl of Selkirk, in 1811, obtained a land grant from the Hudson's Bay Company of thousands of square miles along the Red River. The next year, the first agricultural settlers, Scottish Highlanders and Irishmen came to Manitoba and settled at the fork of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. They were followed by people of many races. In 1870, Manitoba became a province of Canada.

We'll start our journey at the mouth of the Nelson River which is in the Hudson's Bay Lowland. This is a wet plain that curves around the southern part of Hudson's Bay. Here on this flatland it's too cold for trees to grow. Travelling south we find ourselves in the Canadian Shield, a vast horseshoe-shaped region of forests and rocks, lakes and rivers, muskeg and tundra, covering two-thirds of the province. Here there are great deposits of nickel, zinc, copper, gold and silver, but it is the scenic grandeur which makes us stop to enjoy this magnificent wilderness. We look with awe upon majestic forests and deep blue lakes. Here, too, are the lakes and rivers that lure anglers to bass and trout fishing or to do battle with giant Northern Pike.

Now, let's follow the early trails of the fur traders as they paddled their birchbark canoes up Manitoba's rivers, and travelled through unexplored forests and plains. It is an unforgettable trip, a challenge to any veteran outdoorsman and canoeist. This is the big land where summer days are sunny and long and nights are comfortably cool. Adventure is a day in Northern Manitoba.

It's time to go on. We travel southwest into the Manitoba Lowland, a flat area of forests with great stands of timber, lakes rich in fish, limestone rock and swamps. It includes the fertile Red River Valley which is the province's richest farmland. Among the major factors which influenced the first agricultural settlers to come to Manitoba were the glowing reports about the rich soil in the Red River Valley. Manitoba's capital and largest city, Winnipeg, lies in this region. It is the major commercial and industrial centre; the melting pot for big business, industry and culture. A few kilometres north of the city is Lower Fort Garry, North America's only remaining complete stone fort of the fur trade regime.

As we continue our trip southwest we reach the Saskatchewan Plain. This region in the extreme southwest corner of the province is a rolling plain broken by low hills and is the main farming region. In the summer hundreds of square miles of wheat and other grains wave in the sun. Our wheat is famous for its high quality and the name 'Manitoba No. 1 Hard' as applied to wheat is a recognized standard of quality in the grain markets of the world.

We have travelled the length of Manitoba with its rich minerals, rugged forests, numerous rivers and lakes, abundant wildlife and deep fertile soils. However, our province is much more than this. Into the fabric of our land are woven threads of many ethnic groups and many talents. The resulting tapestry with characteristics of the old world and of the new, becomes a welcome mat for everyone.