the floodway
My posts have been quite self-deprecating lately. For a reprieve I want to talk about the floodway. As a recent immigrant to this city I was initially quite captivated by the floodway.
In 1873 when Alexander MacKenzie was the premier of Canada, he commisioned a railway that was to travel through the recently established province of Manitoba. The chief obstacle in this plan was the crossing of the Red River. Two sites were proposed for the crossing, one at Selkirk and the other at Winnipeg. The site at Selkirk was favoured by the chief engineer, Sir Sanford Flemming, because it was on higher ground and on a straighter line between Portage La Prairie and the western end of Lake Superior, Winnipeg was situated on a flood plain and a spur would have been needed to drive the trains through that city.
However, in 1881, through some dubious political interference on the part of the businessmen of Winnipeg, the recently re-elected, John A. MacDonald, the drunken visionary of confederation fame, urged the Canadian Pacific to build their track through the city of Winnipeg.
Since then, as old Sanford had predicted, the rail line and the city have been the yearly victims of disasterous floods, especially in the south where the river track bottlenecks and hangs up the ice floes.
To alleviate the water troubles, after a particularly disasterous flood in 1950, the province of Manitoba conceived the idea of digging a ditch around the city, and in 1968, and the ditch, the floodway, was put into operation. Since '68, the floodway has, so I've been told, 'saved' the city of Winnipeg more than a dozen times.
It's a funny ditch out there in the middle of the prairie, though I don't know how long it is, I'd guess that it must be thirty miles, it runs the length of the city. In any case, you can drive your car out to it, pull off on the side of the road and watch the water flow. Or, you can drive your truck right into it like the farmers do, you can see them driving around the city with their muddy trucks.
"Hey, you've been out to the floodway."
"Yup."
In 1873 when Alexander MacKenzie was the premier of Canada, he commisioned a railway that was to travel through the recently established province of Manitoba. The chief obstacle in this plan was the crossing of the Red River. Two sites were proposed for the crossing, one at Selkirk and the other at Winnipeg. The site at Selkirk was favoured by the chief engineer, Sir Sanford Flemming, because it was on higher ground and on a straighter line between Portage La Prairie and the western end of Lake Superior, Winnipeg was situated on a flood plain and a spur would have been needed to drive the trains through that city.
However, in 1881, through some dubious political interference on the part of the businessmen of Winnipeg, the recently re-elected, John A. MacDonald, the drunken visionary of confederation fame, urged the Canadian Pacific to build their track through the city of Winnipeg.
Since then, as old Sanford had predicted, the rail line and the city have been the yearly victims of disasterous floods, especially in the south where the river track bottlenecks and hangs up the ice floes.
To alleviate the water troubles, after a particularly disasterous flood in 1950, the province of Manitoba conceived the idea of digging a ditch around the city, and in 1968, and the ditch, the floodway, was put into operation. Since '68, the floodway has, so I've been told, 'saved' the city of Winnipeg more than a dozen times.
It's a funny ditch out there in the middle of the prairie, though I don't know how long it is, I'd guess that it must be thirty miles, it runs the length of the city. In any case, you can drive your car out to it, pull off on the side of the road and watch the water flow. Or, you can drive your truck right into it like the farmers do, you can see them driving around the city with their muddy trucks.
"Hey, you've been out to the floodway."
"Yup."
Here's a sketch of the floodway, unfortunately the pictures on the web all seem to be associated with engineering details, like the depth of the gates. I wish I had a real time picture, perhaps I should take one.
posted by j/r at 12:08 a.m.
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