For anyone interested in outdoor winter activities, this is the year for fun in the snow and Turtle Mountain Provincial Park is the place to do it.
Although it has been a chilly star in the new year, this winter has not been short of snow. The provincial park south of Boissevain has plenty of places to visit, from a skating rink and toboggan hill, to trails for a variety of adventures. The park is being used more now than in the snow-challenged 2020-21 season, and in a growing variety of ways.
Doug Gray and Steve Cann are examples of this. One sport that has been growing over the years is fat biking – using bikes with larger tires to ride in the winter. They are part of a group of new enthusiasts who are taking advantage of the changed trails in the park to get exercise and enjoy the winter.
“Yesterday was about as good as it gets,” Gray said, speaking of the warmer day on January 30.
As Gray explained, the parks staff now creates different lines in the trails. There are different tracks for skiing, hiking and biking. Everyone is supposed to be kind and respect each other so everyone can enjoy their time.

It is certainly a different world than the fall of 2019.

Whereas at that point, the entire area was awash with water to the point where crops could not come off - moving into the spring of 2021, southwestern Manitoba is dry as the proverbial bone. Moisture left over from a year and a half was used up on the 2020 crop and now people are looking to the heavens for a little wet stuff. It is worrying agricultural producers, and those concerned about a spark setting something alight, particularly in the Turtle Mountains.

Jon Gustafson is a cattle farmer and a councillor with the Municipality of Deloraine-Winchester. Farming about eight miles south of Deloraine just north of the US border, he said it is beyond dry. The creeks that usually empty from the Turtle Mountains into the sloughs of the area are not bringing the moisture. Gustafson said the lack of snowfall did not do anyone any good in his area.

“I had wind breaks, they would be filled up with snow,” Gustafson explained. “You would get six foot high snow drifts. It would all drain into the dugouts. It was great. Not a drop of water came from them this year. It is really surprising how little moisture there was once the snow melted. Nothing ran, not that I could tell.”

He said the fall came quickly in 2020 and then the snow was gone just as quickly this spring. Gustafson said there is an eerie silence where he is.

“I can’t hear frogs. Are the sloughs dry? Is the frost not out of the ground yet?”

The move to the country is working out for Jamie Morrison.

The veteran massage therapist opened up her new clinic on South Railway Street in late 2020. So far, she said, everything is moving in the right direction.

“It has been very good,” Morrison stated. “Business is getting busier now, mostly growing through word of mouth. Everything is working out very well.”

Morrison is in her twelfth year of massage therapy. She said she was interested in natural approaches to health care. It appealed to her in part because she knew people who were doctoring and not necessarily finding the solutions to their problems.

“They were looking for something for pain relief other than a pill.”

She was looking for a holistic approach to health care, and also did not want to go to school forever. Morrison did her schooling in Winnipeg at the Massage Therapy College of Manitoba, and said she fell in love with it quickly. She added she usually does a couple of courses a year to keep up with new ideas and techniques.

Morrison worked in Winnipeg for several years, and then was in Brandon at the Reactive Massage Therapy Clinic. She has been on her own for a few years now and wanted a change of scenery.

“I was looking for anywhere, looking in the Whiteshell, the Rocky Mountains,” Morrison explained. “I was looking for a change. I found a property, took a leap and moved to the country.”

The Teulon native said she is living in the Turtle Mountains about 20 minutes southwest of Boissevain. She also fell in love with her available office space on the main street in Boissevain.

At least a few local businesses have been taking an extra step to protect staff and customers as the coronavirus continues to rear its ugly head in Manitoba.
At one point, COVID-19 looked as if it had run its course in the province, with only one active case. However, by mid-July, it began to rage again.
By August, Manitoba Health was reporting several days with high numbers, to the point where by August 20, there were 247 active cases and 12 deaths. Of the 33 new cases announced that day, 17 were in the Prairie Mountain Health Region. On that day, the province put PMH on the restricted list as a part of their new colour coded system.The restrictions include public gatherings being restricted to 10 indoors and outdoors. These numbers do not include workplaces, retail outlets or other sites already covered under other parts or the reopening plan.
Masks will be mandatory for indoor public places and all public gatherings within the PMH region.