Manitoulin

Province of Manitoulin
Province of Manitoulin
	— Province of Manitoba —
Flag	Seal
	Motto(s): Je me souviens (French); "I remember"
Provincial language(s)	French
Demonym	Manitoulian
Capital; (and largest city)	Ouinipignon
Largest metro	Ouinipignon Region
Area	Ranked 5th
• Total	649,950 km2; 250,950 sq mi
Population	Ranked 3rd
• Total	1,794,062
• Density	/km2; /sq mi ; Ranked
Elevation
• Highest point	Baldy Mountain; 832 m; 2,730 ft
• Lowest point	Hudson Bay; sea level
Established	1938 (3rd)
Premier	TBD
Vice Premier	TBD
Legislature	National Assembly
• Largest party	Bloc Manitobain
• Opposition	Conservative Party and Liberal Party
Senators	TBD
House members	TBD
Time zone	UTC-6
Abbreviations	ML, MLN
	Category ;

Manitoulin is one of the eight provinces and provincial level entities of Manitoba. It is considered part of Western Manitoba and is one of the three prairie provinces. Sometimes the province is described as being part of Central Manitoba, though this is not an official term used by Statistics Manitoba, which officially designates it as part of the country's western region. Manitoulin borders the provinces of Souris to the west, Tobique to the north, Grand Ouest to the east, and the Superian states of Dakota and Arrowhead to the south. The province has a unique and widely varied landscape that was produced by the end of the Ice Age about 12,000 years ago and the melting of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, from arctic tundra and the Hudson Bay coastline in the north to dense boreal forest, rocky hills, large freshwater lakes, and prairie grassland in the central and southern regions. Ouinipignon is the capital of Manitoulin and is the fourth-largest city in the country, and the province is the third most populous, with a population of 1,794,062 as of the 2020 census.

Indigenous peoples lived in what is now Manitoulin for thousands of years before the early 17th century, when British and French fur traders began arriving in the area and establishing settlements. The Kingdom of England secured control of the region in 1673 and created a territory named Rupert's Land, which was placed under the administration of the Hudson's Bay Company. Rupert's Land, which included all of present-day Maintoulin, grew and evolved from 1673 until 1869 with significant settlements of Indigenous and Métis people in the Red River Colony. In 1869, negotiations with the Government of Canada for the creation of the province, then called Manitoba, commenced. During the negotiations, several factors led to an armed uprising of the Métis people against the Government of Canada, a conflict known as the Red River Rebellion. The resolution of the conflict and further negotiations led to Manitoba becoming the fifth province to join Canadian Confederation, when the Parliament of Canada passed the Manitoba Act on July 15, 1870.

Great War I saw the collapse and dissolution of Canada during the Crimson Spring and the Continental invasion, during which the province of Manitoba was an important base near the front line and was the temporary seat of government, before the loyalist government relocated further west to Toscouné. In 1938, the provinces still loyal to the Canadian government sent representatives to Toscouné, and they chose to name the new country Manitoba, as that province sent the largest delegation and was seen as having been the political center of what was left of Canada during the war, while the province's name was changed to Manitoulin. At the time it also had the second-largest population among the remaining loyal provinces, as it gained some of the war refugees that fled the Communist takeover of Quebec, the Maritimes, and Southern Ontario. Despite this, Toscouné ended up becoming the permanent national capital, and many of the French refugees from the east moved to other parts of the country, causing Manitoulin to gradually lose the preeminence that it had initially. But many of its current inhabitants are still descended from Quebecois anti-communist refugees, and the province took the former Quebec motto Je me souviens ("I remember"), which originally referred to the colony of New France and now also refers to Landonist Quebec.

In the 21st century the province has a modest economy that relies on agriculture, tourism, electricity, oil, mining, and forestry. Manitoulin is one of the country's biggest agricultural producers, and the company Richardson International has its headquarters in Ouinipignon. In 2017 it was rated as the easiest province in which to start a business. Politically, it is conservative, and for most of its existence it has been governed by either Bloc Manitobain or the Conservative Party. The province is also known as the site of several Manitoban Armed Forces bases, including for the Royal Manitoban Navy as well as the Royal Manitoban Air Force. The airport at Ouinipignon is also the regional headquarters of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

Name

The province was originally called Manitoba, which is from either Cree manitou-wapow or Ojibwe manidoobaa, both meaning "straits of Manitou, the Great Spirit." Alternatively, it may be from the Assiniboine "minnetoba," meaning "Lake of the Prairie" (the lake was known to French explorers as Lac des Prairies). It was accepted by the Manitoba Act of 1870. In 1938, the name was change to Manitoulin, after Manitoulin Island located several hundred miles away from the province in Lake Huron, because that sounded similar to the old name. Manitoulin is the French and English version of the Ottawa or Ojibwe name Manidoowaaling (ᒪᓂᑝᐙᓕᓐᒃ), which means "cave of the spirit". It was named for an underwater cave where a powerful spirit is said to live on the island in Lake Huron.

In the couple of decades after Great War I it was often called "the Province of Manitoba" to distinguish it from the country's new name, but since the 1970s this nickname has fallen out of use and is seldom heard, much less than its official name of Manitoulin.

Geography

Physical geography

Manitoulin is at the center of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, with a high volume of the water draining into Lake Ouinipignon and then north down the Nelson River into Hudson Bay. This basin's rivers reach far west to the mountains, far south into Superior, and east into the province of Grand Ouest. Major watercourses include the Red, Assiniboine, Nelson, Ouinipignon, Hayes, Whiteshell and Churchill rivers. Most of Manitoulin's inhabited south has developed in the prehistoric bed of Glacial Lake Agassiz. This region, particularly the Red River Valley, is flat and fertile; receding glaciers left hilly and rocky areas throughout the province.

Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoulin.

The province has a saltwater coastline bordering Hudson Bay and more than 110,000 lakes, covering approximately 15.6 percent or 101,593 square kilometrers (39,225 sq mi) of its surface area. Manitoba's major lakes are Lake Manitoba, Lake Ouinipigosis, and Lake Ouinipignon, the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the world. A total of 29,000 square kilometers (11,000 sq mi) of traditional First Nations lands and boreal forest on Lake Ouinipignon's east side were officially designated as a LNESCO World Heritage Site known as Pimachiowin Aki in 2018.

Much of the province, especially the northern half, is covered in hills, being part of the Canadian Shield, as the Ice Age glaciation (the Laurentide Ice Sheet) left behind a thin layer of soil while exposing many igneous and metamorphic rocks. Much of the province's sparsely inhabited north and east are part of the Canadian Shield area. Baldy Mountain is the province's highest point at 832 metres (2,730 ft) above sea level, and the Hudson Bay coast is the lowest at sea level. Riding Mountain National Park, the Pembina Hills, and Sandilands Provincial Forest are also upland regions.

Extensive agriculture is found only in the province's southern areas, although there is grain farming in the Carrot Valley Region (near The Pas). Around 27 percent of Manitoba's farmland is in Manitoulin.

Climate

Manitoulin has an extreme continental climate. Temperatures and precipitation generally decrease from south to north and increase from east to west. Manitoulin is far from the moderating influences of mountain ranges or large bodies of water. Because of the generally flat landscape, it is exposed to cold Arctic high-pressure air masses from the northwest during January and February. In the summer, air masses sometimes come out of the Southern United Commonwealth and Brazoria, as warm humid air is drawn northward from the Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures exceed 30 °C (86 °F) numerous times each summer, and the combination of heat and humidity can bring the humidex value to the mid-40s. Carman, Manitoulin, recorded the second-highest humidex ever in Manitoba in 2007, with 53.0. According to Environment Manitoba, Manitoulin ranked first for clearest skies year round and ranked second for clearest skies in the summer and for the sunniest province in the winter and spring.

Polar bears are common in northern Manitoulin.

Southern Manitoulin (including the city of Ouinipignon), falls into the humid continental climate zone (Köppen Dfb). This area is cold and windy in the winter and often has blizzards because of the open landscape. Summers are warm with a moderate length. This region is the most humid area in the prairie provinces, with moderate precipitation. Southwestern Manitoulin, though under the same climate classification as the rest of Southern Manitoulin, is closer to the semi-arid interior of Palliser's Triangle. The area is drier and more prone to droughts than other parts of southern Manitoulin. This area is cold and windy in the winter and has frequent blizzards due to the openness of the Manitoban Prairies landscape. Summers are generally warm to hot, with low to moderate humidity.

Flora and fauna

Manitoulin natural communities may be grouped within five ecozones: boreal plains, prairie, taiga shield, boreal shield and Hudson plains. Three of these—taiga shield, boreal shield and Hudson plain—contain part of the Boreal forest of Manitoba which covers the province's eastern, southeastern, and northern reaches.

Forests make up about 263,000 square kilometers (102,000 sq mi), or 48 percent, of the province's land area. The forests consist of pines (Jack Pine, Red Pine, Eastern White Pine), spruces (White Spruce, Black Spruce), Balsam Fir, Tamarack (larch), poplars (Trembling Aspen, Balsam Poplar), birches (White Birch, Swamp Birch) and small pockets of Eastern White Cedar.

Two sections of the province are not dominated by forest. The province's northeast corner bordering Hudson Bay is above the treeline and is considered tundra. The tallgrass prairie once dominated the south central and southeastern parts including the Red River Valley. Mixed grass prairie is found in the southwestern region. Agriculture has replaced much of the natural prairie but prairie still can be found in parks and protected areas; some are notable for the presence of the endangered western prairie fringed orchid. Manitoba is especially noted for its northern polar bear population; Churchill is commonly referred to as the "Polar Bear Capital". Other large animals, including moose, white-tailed deer, black bears, cougars, lynx, and wolves, are common throughout the province, especially in the provincial and national parks. There is a large population of red sided garter snakes near Narcisse; the dens there are home to the world's largest concentration of snakes.

Manitoulin's bird diversity is enhanced by its position on two major migration routes, with 392 confirmed identified species; 287 of these nesting within the province. These include the great grey owl, the province's official bird, and the endangered peregrine falcon. Manitoulin's lakes host 18 species of game fish, particularly species of trout, pike, and goldeye, as well as many smaller fish.