Summary

• The Manitoba Métis Federation and U.K.-based Renewable Energy Systems are proposing a 200-megawatt wind farm in rural Manitoba as part of a provincial push to install 600 megawatts of majority Indigenous-owned wind power by 2035.
• Residents of Polonia, Man., are opposed to the plan. They worry it would be a blight on the beautiful landscape, cause negative health impacts and saddle the local community with new expenses.
• Manitoba lags behind other provinces when it comes to wind power capacity, and the provincial utility says new wind projects could help to address a looming electricity shortfall and make progress toward net-zero targets.

Leonard Kaspick can list just about every household in Polonia, Man. 

“There’s someone living right across the northeast, someone living behind here, about a quarter mile there’s a house there, then a half mile there’s another house there, I’m here, and then on top of the hill there’s someone else there,” he says, standing in the heartbeat of the hamlet: a community hall just off the main road. 

Besides the hall and the smattering of homes, there’s a historic (though out-of-commission) church next door and a single general store further down the road. 

“There’s less people here now than there was in 1885,” 83-year-old Kaspick jokes as he wraps up a condensed history of the Western Manitoba community. 

“The people that come here like the solitude and the beauty of the area.”

Polonia itself isn’t in the census, but together with the five nearby towns that make up the Rural Municipality of Rosedale, the population is listed at just over 1,500. Situated 13 kilometres beyond the southern tip of Riding Mountain National Park and more than 200 kilometres west of Winnipeg, it sits along the edge of the Manitoba Escarpment, a steep ridgeline carved out by the glacial Lake Agassiz thousands of years ago.

It is not a typical Prairie landscape. Instead of open patchwork fields stretching flat across the horizon, the valley is all rolling hills, dotted with cattle farms, crop lands, wetlands and forests. The ecology is unique; microclimates and fertile soils allow for rare and diverse species of plants and animals.

It’s unique in another way too: thanks in part to the ridgeline, this pocket of the province boasts some of the strongest winds in southern Manitoba, according to federal wind atlas data. And with its proximity to the Manitoba Hydro substation in Neepawa, it’s an ideal place for wind turbines.

In April, the Manitoba Métis Federation and U.K.-based Renewable Energy Systems announced a joint proposal to build a 200-megawatt wind farm in the area. 

The Fleury Winds project, majority owned by the Métis Federation, would consist of about 30 turbines, each more than 700 feet tall, situated on private farmland in and around Polonia.

The pitch is part of a provincial initiative to install 600 megawatts of majority Indigenous-owned wind power by 2035 to both address a looming electricity shortfall and progress toward net-zero targets.

“When we think about these projects and the meaningfulness for us, it’s as much about provision of energy for the province and the opportunity to participate economically as it is … a source of pride to be part of a project of this size and scope for our people,” Lorne Pelletier, senior economic advisor to Manitoba Métis Federation president David Chartrand, says in an interview.

Fleury Winds is the first energy infrastructure project to be undertaken by the Red River Métis Power Corporation, a newly created arm of the Métis Federation.

But many in Polonia aren’t sold on the project.

Some object to wind turbines disrupting the region’s beauty and tranquility, Kaspick says. Others worry the turbines could cause negative health effects, disturb wildlife habitat and migratory birds or strain the municipality’s infrastructure. 

“I looked at the map and where my house is located, straight out my picture window, I will see a roughly 705-foot-tall wind tower,” Polonia resident Trevor Bennett says. “And they say I will not only see it, I potentially will hear it all the time and will potentially even feel it.” 

While the Métis Federation and the energy company have been putting the final touches on a proposal that will be presented to Manitoba Hydro in July, some Rosedale residents, including Bennett, have formed a citizen group that’s working to elevate community concerns and preserve their “piece of heaven.”

Fleury Winds turbines would tower over every other structure in the region

Bennett works in the agricultural equipment industry and has a young family. After about 15 years working in nearby Neepawa, he moved his family to Polonia a little over a year ago for “the peace and quiet and tranquility,” he says. 

“I moved here because there wasn’t stuff like that [the wind farm] here.” 

Several months ago, he started hearing “rumblings” his countryside oasis was being considered as the site for a major wind-power development. 

He later learned the project proponents were meeting with landowners to secure lease agreements that would allow wind towers to be built on their land in exchange for financial compensation. 

In April, some landowners who have signed agreements with the Fleury Winds project told the Brandon Sun the opposition may not reflect the feelings of all community members. Pelletier says the project has “a strong base of landowner support.”

But according to James Mitchell, another Polonia-based member of Piece of Heaven, the citizen group opposing the Fleury Winds project, those early whispers created a sense of secrecy around the development. The first time Mitchell and Bennett heard any concrete details was during an open house at the community hall in April. 

“It went from ‘that’s just a rumour’ to a reality for me,” Bennett says.

The town hall was structured as a drop-in information session. Representatives from the Métis Federation and Renewable Energy Systems were stationed around the room with poster boards outlining the basic details of the proposal.

The project would consist of between 28 and 36 wind turbines, situated on private farmlands between the towns of Neepawa, Minnedosa, Birnie and Hilltop. A project map highlighted the 40-odd properties that had already signed agreements, the locations of nearby houses and the proposed turbine sites.

Each of these “modern” turbines would be up to 210 metres (705 feet) tall, including the length of the blades, and built atop concrete foundations more than 20 metres wide and buried four metres deep. 

They would generate between six and eight megawatts each for a total project capacity of 200 megawatts — enough to power 59,000 homes — in ideal circumstances. This energy would be linked to the Manitoba Hydro grid via buried cables connected to an existing substation in Neepawa. 

“It’s an incredible way of generating energy and electricity for Manitobans,” Pelletier, who attended the open house, says. 

“It means a lot to our people: the job creation that it entails, the opportunity that it presents for us to be … contributors in the economy, and the benefits that it will bring not just for Red River Métis but all Manitobans.”

But some Polonia residents, including Mitchell and Bennett, believe the company should have done more to build trust in the community in advance. Now that the proposal is in motion, it feels like it can’t be stopped, Bennett says.

“I think they were trying to label it as a consultation. I really don’t feel that was a consultation at all,” Bennett says.

As a father, Bennett worries how living so close to a tower might affect the well-being of his children.

As wind turbines have become more common worldwide, several jurisdictions have reported receiving complaints of hearing issues, heart palpitations, vertigo, poor sleep, migraines and other noise-related health impacts from people living in close proximity to the towers. The majority of peer-reviewed research has found no direct correlation between these symptoms and turbine noise. Many studies do, however, acknowledge turbines can cause “annoyance.”     

Other residents in Polonia worry about the impacts of shadow flicker — a term for the intermittent shadows created by spinning turbine blades. And they are concerned for the birds, bats and other wildlife that criss-cross the region’s fields and could be driven away — or killed — by the turbines.

The area is, as Mitchell describes it, “strictly rural.” The largest industrial developments are a handful of gravel quarries. Off the main highway, the roads are all gravel; some are hardly more than twin tire tracks scything through the rugged hills. The tallest structure around is a spindly 250-foot-tall cell tower. 

“Imagine something two-and-a-half times as high on a base that’s 100 feet in diameter. It’s not just a little pole up in the air, it’s a massive, massive structure,” Mitchell says. 

To put it in perspective, the tallest building in downtown Winnipeg — 300 Main St. — is about 465 feet tall. The turbines at Manitoba’s existing wind farms are about 120 metres, or 400 feet. The proposed Fleury Winds turbines would dwarf them both.

Mitchell worries the equipment needed to build these behemoth towers — cement and gravel trucks, massive trailers hauling 90-metre-long turbine blades — will cause costly damage to the town’s roads.

When the towers reach the end of their life 30 years down the line, Bennett and Mitchell worry Polonia will be left to clean up the aging infrastructure while the company takes its money elsewhere. 

“My big concern is that the proposed economic benefits to individuals and the [rural municipality] … is not even going to come close to outweighing the drawbacks,” Mitchell says.

Manitoba Métis Federation surprised at pushback, while opponents say consultation was lacking

With these and many other questions in mind, a group of residents took to the hall’s stage partway through the April open house, turning what was conceived as a smattering of one-on-one conversations into a community-led question-and-answer period. While Mitchell believes the company’s representatives were trying their best, the information they offered was broad, and many of the questions remained unanswered.

At the Manitoba Métis Federation, Pelletier says the meeting’s spontaneous turn came as a surprise. While he understands that some community members felt the open house lacked transparency, the project group thought it would be more respectful to speak directly with residents and answer questions as they arose, he explains.

“We went there with the intent to talk about the project, present the project, but really to engage one-on-one with the community,” he says. 

The project is still in early stages; the open house is just the beginning of the planned consultation. While figuring out the timing of engagement sessions like the open house can be “tricky,” the Métis Federation takes the community’s concerns seriously, he adds. If the project is selected, the organizations expect to undergo two years of licensing and permitting before construction would begin in 2029.  

“The project is proposed within our homeland as Indigenous people, and we have a long-standing and very strong commitment on the part of our government for environmental stewardship,” Pelletier says.

Renewable Energy Systems Canada’s director of development, Isabelle Deguise, said in a statement: “There will be real opportunity in the months and years ahead to sit down with people in the Polonia area again, hear what matters to them and shape this project together.” 

“We know residents have questions, and we want to listen. Our commitment is to keep turning up, keep listening and keep working with this community throughout the life of the project.”

Manitoba and federal governments see wind farms as the future of power

Wind power developments are not new in Manitoba. The St. Leon and St. Joseph wind farms, built in 2006 and 2011 respectively, are located about 100 kilometres south of Winnipeg and together produce about four per cent of the provincial power supply.

St. Leon has about 70 turbines; St. Joseph has 60. Each produces approximately two megawatts and their towers, including the blades, stand roughly 120 metres tall.

Pattern Energy, which operates the St. Joseph farm, estimates that over the project’s first 27-year power sale contract, it will pay $44 million in property taxes and generate $38 million in revenues for landowners.  

At the time it was built, St. Joseph was one of the largest wind farms in Canada, according to then-premier Greg Selinger. 

“This project builds on Manitoba’s position as a leader in renewable energy development, complementing our existing hydroelectricity supply, geothermal activities, biofuel production and aggressive energy-conservation programming,” Selinger said in a news release the day the turbines started spinning.

But momentum for wind power developments petered out after St. Joseph was built. As of 2025, Manitoba has installed fewer than 260 megawatts of wind power, while neighbouring Saskatchewan has more than 800 megawatts, Quebec has more than 4,000 megawatts and Ontario and Alberta have more than 5,500 megawatts each. 

Some in the province would like to see Manitoba pick up the pace of wind-power development. According to research from Climate Action Team Manitoba, the technology is well-suited to winter production, with Manitoba’s existing wind farms already generating more energy in fall and winter than summer and the province is no stranger to the kinds of high-wind speeds that make turbines a sensible investment. At the national level, the Canada Energy Regulator projects wind will make up about 70 per cent of renewable energy growth in the coming years. 

Scott Blyth, a retired doctor from nearby Brandon, volunteers with the Manitoba committee of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. Following the open house, he wrote an opinion article criticizing Polonia residents for “hijacking” the meeting. 

Reflecting on that article in an interview last month, Blyth said he could “understand people’s concerns” about the turbine development, but stressed his excitement for renewable energy projects in the province. 

“There’s so much good that can come from this approach to generating energy, and boy, my bottom line is, get rid of fossil fuels … and why haven’t we done this sooner?” he says.

Fleury Winds is part of a provincial initiative that looks to turn the tide on wind power in Manitoba by installing 600 megawatts of majority Indigenous-owned, utility-scale wind farms.

The initiative was first introduced as part of the provincial government’s 2024 affordable energy plan, then re-affirmed in 2025, when Hydro released a roadmap outlining its path to a reliable net-zero energy grid. 

The initiative is intended to help add capacity to the province’s strained energy grid, while providing Indigenous Nations “new opportunities to participate and benefit from the energy transition,” according to the affordable energy plan.

The additional grid capacity is necessary to address a projected shortfall as soon as 2030, the utility noted in 2025. Other measures outlined included efficiency programs to reduce demand, enhancements to the existing hydropower grid, new natural gas-powered combustion turbines (currently slated to be built in Brandon) and the addition of five megawatts of utility-scale battery storage.

While the best-case scenario for wind power in the province is 600-megawatts of production, the reality is that wind — and the power it produces — is intermittent. Manitoba Hydro expects that in reality, the wind power developments will generate 120 megawatts of reliable, accredited capacity.

Hydro issued the official call for proposals in March, with submissions due by early July. 

It received proposals from 11 eligible proponents representing seven Indigenous Nations (including the Métis Federation, Swan Lake, Dakota Tipi, Gambler and Pinaymootang First Nations, Fisher River Cree Nation, and Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation) and six established wind power companies.  

The utility is expected to announce its preferred proponents in spring 2027, with projects complete by 2035.

Polonia isn’t the only community pushing back against the proposed developments. 

A wind farm proposed by Swan Lake First Nation and Innergex Renewable Energy is facing opposition from residents from the Rural Municipality of Lorne, some 150 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. They worry about negative environmental and economic impacts in the agriculture-dominant region, and would like to see towers built on Crown land, or further north.

Polonia, Man., wind farm wouldn’t come online until 2035

Progress will be slow. The proposed turbines are not expected to come online until 2035, according to Manitoba Hydro. 

In the meantime, proponents whose projects are selected by Hydro will need to complete environmental licensing processes to address a myriad of environmental and community impacts. 

The provincial wind power guidelines require companies to assess the extent of shadow flicker within 1.5 kilometres of each turbine, the impact of noise across the entire development and the potential impacts to wildlife including migratory birds, bats, roosting and foraging habitats and endangered species.

As for human impacts, a 2013 Health Canada study that surveyed about 1,200 Ontario and P.E.I. households in proximity to wind towers found no correlation between negative symptoms such as headaches, tinnitus and dizziness and turbine noise levels. 

The study did, however, find a correlation between turbine noise and community annoyance, with participants highlighting the effects of shadow flicker, vibrations, sound, visual impacts and blinking lights. 

Long-term annoyance was linked to stress indicators such as high blood pressure and cortisol, the study found, particularly for those living closest to the turbines.

As a result, best practices indicate turbines should not be built within close proximity to people’s homes. In Manitoba, turbines may not be within one kilometre of a residence.

Pelletier stresses the well-being of community members and the local environment is paramount for the Métis.

“These are our lands too, right? We’re not just a corporation coming in from afar. We live in the area, we demonstrate a strong commitment to environmental stewardship,” he says.

Turbine technology has evolved, he adds, and many of the community’s concerns can be mitigated by choosing turbines with lower noise specifications, conducting thorough environmental assessments and by taking responsibility for the turbines through their lifetime and decommissioning. 

“For us, it’s not just about meeting the regulatory requirements, it’s pushing beyond that. From an Indigenous perspective, these are things that are integrated in the way we think,” he says.   

The Piece of Heaven group plans to keep making their voices heard. Most recently, they organized a letter-writing campaign delivering a list of concerns to municipal councillors, MLAs and provincial ministers.

Response from Rosedale councillors has been positive, Bennett says. Some have reached out to arrange meetings and hear more about residents’ concerns, while the provincial government sent acknowledgement letters, he adds. 

Bennett could envision a version of the project with smaller towers, larger setbacks and more equity for landowners. He would like to see more stringent regulations on where the turbines are placed, given the existing rules were written for smaller turbines. 

But there are others, like Mitchell, who would rather the project be moved out of the area entirely. In his mind, the rewards will never outweigh the risks.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• The Montreal-based tech firm Deep Sky is proposing to build a direct air carbon capture facility in southern Manitoba, and documents obtained by The Narwhal show the company has garnered support from First Nations, rural municipalities and at least one bank.
• Direct air carbon capture involves sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and then burying it deep underground. Deep Sky says its technology is “viable,” but critics have expressed skepticism.
• If built, the facility will require 15 megawatts of electricity to run — which is about enough to power 10,000 homes. Deep Sky hopes to connect to Manitoba’s electrical grid to obtain that energy.

A direct air carbon capture facility proposed for southwestern Manitoba has been shoring up allies in local and Indigenous governments and large corporations, as Montreal-based Deep Sky aims to convince the provincial government its project is ready to launch.

The venture-capital-backed tech firm sent the province a package of support letters late last year encouraging the government to provide the regulatory support and electric power supply needed for Deep Sky’s Manitoba facility to move forward, according to documents obtained by the Free Press and The Narwhal.

“Deep Sky Manitoba is not a speculative concept,” the company wrote in a December letter. 

“It is a commercially viable infrastructure project that is backed by real market demand and presents an economic opportunity for Manitoba on a global scale.”

Deep Sky is proposing a 145-acre facility in the agriculture- and oil-dominant southwestern region that will scrub 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere each year and inject it into porous rock formations 1,000 metres below ground. The company says it will use technology first tested at its existing accelerator in Innisfail, Alta., and will finance the $200-million Manitoba project by selling carbon credits.

Deep Sky will need up to 15 megawatts of power — roughly the power draw of 10,000 homes — for the first stage of the project, CEO Alex Petre told The Narwhal and Free Press in December. 

The package included term sheets and letters of intent from five customers and investors, as well as support from local communities. 

While some of the documents are redacted under a section of the freedom of information act that protects corporate privacy, The Narwhal and the Free Press obtained copies of letters from the Dakota Grand Council, the rural municipalities of Pipestone and Two Borders, Frontier and the Bank of Montreal. 

“These documents illustrate that this project is ready to break ground,” the company wrote. 

“We have the customers and the support to bring this investment to the province. We are simply waiting for the final regulatory framework and the confirmation of power supply to unlock this investment.”

Direct air carbon capture: big promises, yet to be proven

Deep Sky’s proposal has been met with skepticism from area residents and climate action groups, who have posed questions about the safety, affordability and long-term impacts of direct air carbon capture. 

While oil and gas companies and some climate experts view the technology as a useful tool to help achieve global net-zero targets, critics say it is prohibitively expensive and not guaranteed to work.

Despite energy agencies, including the Canada Energy Regulator and Manitoba Hydro, predicting direct air capture will sequester millions of tonnes of emissions annually by 2050, facilities aren’t yet keeping pace. The two dozen facilities currently operating worldwide capture less than 10,000 tonnes per year.

But Deep Sky maintains its project will be able to succeed given Manitoba’s “natural advantages,” including suitable geologic conditions, a low-cost hydroelectric grid and a local workforce familiar with oil and gas operations.

The company recently sold North America’s first verified carbon removal credits after successfully storing carbon at its Innisfail facility, according to a press release Monday.

According to the December letter, it has now also secured “strong local buy-in” after hosting information sessions through the fall and winter. 

“Over the past year, we’ve engaged with Indigenous communities, municipalities, provincial partners and regional stakeholders across Manitoba to better understand local priorities and explore how this industry can create lasting economic opportunities for Manitoba,” Jason Vanderheyden, Deep Sky’s vice-president of government affairs and public policy said in an emailed statement. 

“All of these conversations continue to inform our approach as the project advances.”

Deep Sky points to First Nations support for proposed facility

Vanderheyden noted the company’s partnership with the Dakota Grand Council, a collaborative organization representing Manitoba’s Dakota nations.

In a letter to the province dated Dec. 5, 2025, Dakota Chiefs Dennis Pashe and Raymond Brown expressed “strong support for the Deep Sky Manitoba project,” noting it presents an opportunity to reverse “decades of economic exclusion in the region.” 

The project is anticipated to create between 750 and 1,000 jobs during construction, with around 100 permanent positions during operation. The Dakota council said it is working with Deep Sky to ensure its members are prioritized for these roles, and will explore equity opportunities through the relationship agreement. 

“Deep Sky’s Manitoba executive team engaged with us early, right from the start of the project and we found them to be extremely transparent,” Pashe said in an emailed statement. 

“They were also very informative when explaining the project and carbon removal technology, which is important when communities consider something new.”

The company will still need to complete impact and benefit agreements to receive consent from the Dakota Nation, he added.

Local rural governments come out in support of Deep Sky project

The package also included resolutions passed by the rural municipalities of Pipestone and Two Borders in early 2025 declaring support for carbon capture and storage projects, including the Deep Sky initiative, and urging Manitoba to amend its carbon storage rules in collaboration with the company.

Manitoba passed the Captured Carbon Storage Act in May 2024, outlining the legal framework for such projects. The accompanying regulations, which will outline the finer details of a company’s responsibilities when storing captured carbon, were initially expected this spring, according to a December interview with Manitoba’s Business, Mining, Trade and Economic Development Minister Jamie Moses.

It’s not yet clear when the regulations will be finalized.

In response to detailed questions from The Narwhal and the Free Press regarding the province’s support for Deep Sky’s proposal, progress on carbon storage regulations and the company’s power supply request, Moses’ office said in a three-sentence reply, “any decisions regarding that project will be communicated in the coming months” and consultation will continue to take place with affected communities.

Deep Sky looks for connection to provincial grid and hydroelectric power

Alongside local support, Deep Sky has the backing of several large corporations in the technology and finance sectors. 

Frontier is an advanced market commitment group representing some of the world’s largest tech and financial companies — including Stripe, Google, Shopify and Anthropic — in an effort to stimulate the carbon storage industry. 

The company is “actively evaluating Deep Sky for future offtake agreements and are encouraged by the pace of their technical progress,” according to a letter included in the Deep Sky package.

“However, to unlock this global market demand for Manitoba,” the company states, “two critical enablers are required: the allocation of hydroelectric power and a finalized regulatory framework.”

Bank of Montreal executive Grégoire Baillargeon, who serves as a board member for Carbon Removal Canada, wrote a similar letter of support urging the province to “grant the project a high-priority hydro allocation so that construction can begin and Manitoba can secure a leadership position in this emerging market.” 

Neither company responded to follow-up questions.

Any facility needing to draw more than five megawatts must submit a large power supply application, according to Manitoba Hydro (Deep Sky will need up to 15 megawatts of power in its first phase). In an email, media relations officer Peter Chura explained Hydro reviews applications thoroughly to determine feasibility, then forwards requests to the province for review and prioritization. 

Chura said Hydro could not confirm whether it had received a request for power from Deep Sky, as the Crown utility does not publicly discuss customers, applications or proposed developments. He confirmed Hydro has not received any directives from the Manitoba government regarding the Deep Sky proposal.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The Sayisi Dene First Nation has purchased one of the largest hunting and fishing lodges in Manitoba’s Seal River Watershed, marking a return to the community’s traditional lands and an economic development opportunity for the northern nation. 

The Lodge at Little Duck sits nestled between Neganilini and Little Duck lakes, more than 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg. It is located in the Seal River Watershed, a 50,000-square-kilometre subarctic ecosystem relatively untouched by industrial development, and centred on the last major river in Manitoba without a hydroelectric dam. A network of provincial and federal parks has been proposed to protect the region. 

“The Sayisi Dene people have a real connection to the lands, especially around where the lodge sits,” Chief Kelly-Ann Thom-Duck said in an interview. “We have plans to use the area and see where it goes.” 

The fly-in only hunting, fishing and eco-tourism destination has its own airstrip, lounge and cabins. According to manager Shawn Paul, it regularly sees more than 100 guests every summer and fall for its guided caribou hunts and fishing trips.

After more than 40 years of operation under several ownership groups — most recently a shareholder group that included Winnipeg-based business scion James Richardson — the lodge was sold to the Sayisi Dene First Nation this spring. 

“It’s an amazing, full-circle event,” Paul said in an interview. “With the Sayisi Dene and their history at Little Duck Lake … and having the opportunity now to essentially own what was rightfully theirs — I think it’s spectacular.” 

The Sayisi Dene community was forcibly relocated in the 1950s

Thom-Duck said hunting and fishing trips will continue under the nation’s ownership, along with paddling expeditions and other eco-tourism experiences. But the Sayisi Dene also see an opportunity to use the lodge — and 18 square kilometres of nearby reserve lands formally transferred in 2024 — to help members reconnect to their roots.

The Sayisi Dene were historically nomadic, she explained, and spent summers living along the lake as they followed the Qamanirjuaq caribou herd. In 1956, the community was forcibly relocated to Churchill, Man., more than 200 kilometres away. 

The relocation was devastating; many of the impacts, Thom-Duck said, are still felt today.

When news of the lodge acquisition was announced in early May to a crowd of members that included several Elders who had experienced the relocation, Thom-Duck said the reaction was powerful. 

“There was just an outcry of joy, people were banging on tables and cheering, some people were crying,” she said. 

Community voices will be key to deciding the future of the lodge and nearby reserve lands, Thom-Duck said. While nothing will be formalized until consultations have taken place, she acknowledged there has been “a real outcry for our people to find treatment centres or healing land-based activities that could help them reconnect to identity.” 

Her vision is to see the lodge and nearby lands used both for the hunting, fishing and eco-tourism trips, and as a healing space for members. She would also like to see the lodge incorporate Dene laws and traditions so visitors can learn about the community’s culture and values. 

“That was a major driving point for the leadership here: going back to our homelands is a good opportunity for our local members to start that journey. At the same time, it operates as a hunting and fishing lodge, so there’s also opportunity for economic development,” Thom-Duck said.

The Seal River Watershed could be permanently protected under new proposal

The ownership transfer comes as the Sayisi Dene, Northlands Denesuline and Barren Lands First Nations, as well as the O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation — united under the banner of the Seal River Watershed Alliance — are taking steps to establish the watershed as a protected area. 

As of this spring, the Manitoba government, federal government and governments of the allied First Nations have proposed a mosaic of federal and provincial parks that would permanently protect the watershed from industrial development while creating opportunities for tourism, job creation and Indigenous-led stewardship. 

For now, Paul said, it’s business as usual at The Lodge at Little Duck. He and his wife will be headed north to open the fishing lodge in the coming days.

“We’re excited about moving forward together with the new ownership, really looking forward to it,” he said. 

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Urban forests cool city streets, sequester and store carbon and absorb stormwater runoff, among other benefits.
• But city trees face compounding stressors, from disease and pests to heat waves and droughts, which makes looking after them an intensive process.
• In Winnipeg, the municipal government has increased its efforts to nurture the urban forest, with a goal of growing canopy coverage to 24 per cent by 2065.

Only a handful of years ago, the outlook for Winnipeg’s iconic urban forest was grim. 

The ash and elm-dominated canopy, best known for its elegant boulevard archways, had fallen into the clutches of Dutch elm disease and a scourge of emerald ash borer beetles. The city was losing public trees far faster than they could be replaced, planting just one tree for every three removed, according to the city’s 2021 “State of the Urban Forest” report.

But the introduction of Winnipeg’s urban forest strategy in 2023 changed the trajectory. 

The comprehensive planning document laid out a 20-year path to restore forest health, grow the city’s picturesque tree canopy and minimize the risks to tree assets.  

In response, the city hired more forestry staff and increased the department’s spending from approximately $11 million (where it had hovered since 2016) to an average of more than $17 million between 2023 and 2025, according to a review of city budgets.

Results followed: Winnipeg had planted an average 2,500 public trees each year between 2018 and 2022. In the years since the urban forest strategy was finalized, it has planted more than 6,000 per year.

Since 2023, the city has replaced felled trees on public lands at about a one-to-one pace (though this does not account for trees on private property or in natural areas such as the Assiniboine forest or the city’s riverbanks). 

But planting alone does not guarantee Winnipeg will make progress toward the urban forest strategy’s ultimate goal: to grow the city’s tree canopy cover from 17 to 24 per cent by 2065. 

Young trees must survive heat waves, droughts, severe storms, pests and disease to reach maturity and deliver the full benefits of the urban canopy. 

How a municipality cares for its trees — especially under increasing climate pressures — is just as critical to forest health as planting.

Planting a tree is just the first step. Then comes the weekly watering and the hand-weeding

According to Dave Domke, Winnipeg’s manager of parks and open space, the city’s trees are managed by a mosaic of forest stewards. Trees in new neighbourhoods are planted and maintained by developers, while the city’s urban forestry crews are responsible for replacing felled trees on boulevards or in parks. 

Community groups, neighbourhood associations and volunteers also plant and care for smaller trees in natural areas. Typically, these trees are planted as seedlings.

Domke calls the bigger trees the city looks after “large, ornamental trees.” These trees leave the nurseries when they are between seven and 10 years old and their trunks have grown to a 60-millimetre diameter.

“They need to be a substantial size in order to withstand our snow,” Domke said in an interview. “It also gives a nice aesthetic and it’s quite a nice size to grow on into the future.” 

After planting, volunteer groups, developers and city staff are then responsible for two years of dedicated tree maintenance called the “establishment period.”

“When you remove a tree from the nursery, you’re leaving about 80 per cent of the roots in the ground. You’re trying to get the trees re-established as quickly as you can,” Domke said.

During this time, trees are watered, weeded, mulched and protected according to a detailed list laid out in the city’s tree-planting and maintenance specification. 

Crews are expected to water trees immediately upon planting, then every one to two weeks throughout the summer. Trees should be hand-weeded during this time, the specifications say, and supported with protection collars and stakes.

Domke said the city’s maintenance work has been successful. Newly planted trees on boulevards and in parks survive about 90 per cent of the time, he said, about on par with the city’s expectations. 

Smaller trees in natural areas have a much lower survival rate, between 50 and 80 per cent, because they face more environmental challenges, he noted. The city compensates for the higher mortality rate by over-planting trees in these areas.

“We’re dealing with living things here, and you’re not going to be 100 per cent successful,” he said.

A healthy urban tree cools city streets and sequesters carbon — and costs at least $1,000

Healthy and mature trees provide a variety of environmental, health and affordability benefits to communities. 

A robust tree canopy provides shade, which can cool city streets, reduce the risk of heat-related illness and reduce air conditioner use by up to 30 per cent, according to the urban forest strategy. Winnipeg’s forest also stores an estimated 500,000 tonnes of carbon and sequesters nearly 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year — roughly double the city’s annual emissions from building electricity. At the same time, the city’s trees scrub pollutants from the air and produce approximately 15,000 tonnes of oxygen annually. Trees also absorb stormwater runoff, reducing strain on sewer systems.

But these benefits don’t come without maintenance, according to the Green Municipal Fund, an endowment group that supports Canadian municipalities investing in sustainability projects, including urban forestry initiatives. 

“Trees should be considered valuable natural assets, and like all assets they require maintenance,” communications director Julie Smithers said in an email.

But unlike traditional, grey infrastructure, which has a peak value when it’s first installed and deteriorates over its lifetime, trees are least valuable when first planted, but mature into their peak value over a period of several decades. 

“Given that the benefits of trees grow with time, maximizing their health and life expectancy is essential,” Winnipeg’s urban forest strategy says. “Tree assets cost the most at the beginning and end of their life cycles (planting and removal), so extending their time in healthy maturity ensures the urban forest maximizes the return on investment in tree planting and maintenance.”

The strategy gives the example of a single linden tree planted on a Winnipeg street: the city pays for its planting and annual maintenance until its removal. If it lives a long life, the strategy says, it will produce enough benefits — including carbon storage, avoided runoff, energy savings and pollution scrubbing — to give the city a positive return on its investment. 

But if it dies before maturity and must be repeatedly replaced, that single linden tree can cost the city a net loss of $18,000 over 100 years. That figure doesn’t account for the lost opportunity costs of having a healthy, mature tree over the same time period.

Climate change makes maintenance more challenging. More frequent storms mean more pruning is necessary, and more frequent droughts and heat waves necessitate more watering — especially for young, vulnerable trees. 

While the city does not have exact figures outlining the cost to maintain a tree throughout its lifetime, Domke said the average public tree costs roughly $1,000 to plant and care for through the establishment period.

Winnipeg’s public tree inventory valued at up to $740 million

Winnipeg has used that $1,000 figure, called the replacement cost, as a baseline to define the value of its trees. The city’s 2018 asset management plan valued the public tree inventory at just $226 million, based on a replacement cost of $740 at the time.

“This replacement valuation did not account for the fact trees grow and their value increases with size, age and health,” the urban forest strategy noted. 

“Valuing trees based on their size and condition would provide a better indication of the true cost of replacing Winnipeg’s tree assets, and the cost avoided by investing in maintenance to maximize their safe useful life expectancy.”

The forestry strategy recommended valuing trees according to a diameter-based replacement system, which it already employed for trees removed for construction. Small trees, with diameters of less than 10 centimetres, are valued at $1,000, while larger trees must be appraised according to a standardized formula.

According to the strategy, this approach pegs the value of the city’s tree inventory between $683 million and $740 million — more than double the asset management plan’s previous assessment.

Cities across Canada are employing tree appraisals and other natural asset valuation systems to better account for the benefits of urban forests, according to Tree Canada, a national rural and urban forestry non-profit. 

Using remote sensing and mapping technologies, as well as on-the-ground sampling, cities are better able to quantify the ecological and economic benefits of the forest canopy, Tree Canada notes in its urban forestry guide. 

These valuations make it easier for municipalities to measure the return on investment in tree maintenance.

In 2014, TD Economics estimated the ecological and economic value of forests in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal, and found every dollar invested in maintenance generated between $1.88 and $12.70 in benefits. 

A similar valuation strategy is on the horizon in Winnipeg, Domke said. The city is planning a flyover to analyze the tree canopy cover and support a more robust quantification of the forest’s value. 

“We all know they look good and are beautiful, but how much carbon sequestration are they undertaking? How much of the stormwater sewer management do they contribute to? What oxygen production is coming out?” Domke said. 

“These are the kinds of things that other cities have started to quantify, and Winnipeg is now on the road to doing that.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

One year ago, wildfires decimated Nopiming Provincial Park in eastern Manitoba, torching cottaging communities, backcountry campgrounds and popular canoe routes.

But as the park and its boreal ecosystem recovers — a process that will take several decades — Manitoba Wilderness Committee campaigner Eric Reder believes the province should embrace the opportunity to curtail industrial activities within park borders and establish more robust protection for its natural and recreational assets.

“The Nopiming Provincial Park that existed prior to 2025 is gone,” a Wilderness Committee report released Thursday said. “Only an all-of-society recovery solution can bring back what we’ve lost.”

To the Wilderness Committee, that whole-of-society solution involves a moratorium on new industrial activities, a commitment to conserve habitat for local caribou herds, increased engagement with First Nations whose lands overlap the park and investment in recreational infrastructure, including backcountry trails and canoe routes. 

“Doing so will allow the park to serve both nature and people,” the report said. “Manitoba’s outdoor way of life is at stake.”

Meanwhile, the province says it is “currently focused on immediate wildfire recovery needs such as restoring access and services, and on prioritizing initiatives like FireSmart with park users.” Restoration activities in the park are ongoing, a provincial spokesperson said in an email statement, and the province is “actively listening to input from many sources, including park users, residents, cottagers and environmental groups.”

Wildfire engulfed most of Nopiming Provincial Park and burned an area almost 8 times the size of Winnipeg

Nopiming Park’s 1,400-odd square kilometres of Canadian Shield are part of the world’s largest intact boreal forest and home to the province’s southernmost boreal caribou herd. The park features winding rivers popular with canoeists, placid lakes full of wild rice, tamarack bogs and lichen-coated rock outcroppings. 

It boasts a handful of designated campgrounds and backcountry trails, as well as several cottage subdivisions with a mix of permanent and seasonal residents. 

Nopiming Park also hosts hundreds of mineral claims staked by companies seeking gold and lithium, and is home to the Canadian Forces School of Survival and Aeromedical Training.

Much of that infrastructure has been damaged.

A lightning strike near the Bird River sparked the first fire on May 12, 2025. Over more than 200 days it grew to more than 3,500 square kilometres — almost eight times the size of Winnipeg — and engulfed the vast majority of the park. 

Park residents were evacuated for several weeks, some unable to return until late July. According to the provincial spokesperson, 21 cottages within the park were lost, a campground office near Black Lake was destroyed, several canoe routes were affected, trailhead facilities were destroyed and many remote campsites lost infrastructure such as bear boxes, picnic tables and fire pits. 

The military training site was evacuated, too, and several of its “administrative and storage structures … were subsequently damaged or destroyed,” according to a brief prepared for the Minister of National Defence in May 2025. 

While some campgrounds and trails re-opened this month, several backcountry campsites, trails and water routes remain closed until restoration work is complete.

“Nopiming Provincial Park visitors can expect a mix of reopenings and closures through the summer season as recovery work continues,” the provincial spokesperson said.

‘A park needs time to recover’: conservation advocate

After visiting Nopiming Park late last summer, Reder said he was struck by the extent of the damage to his familiar canoe routes and picnic spots.

“The ground was still smoking,” he said in an interview. “The thing that really struck me was that the fire was more comprehensive than we’re used to seeing.” 

Few pockets of boreal forest were unscathed by the burn, especially in what Reder calls “the wild heart” of the forest, which has long served as critical habitat for a herd of vulnerable boreal caribou. The threatened species relies on dense, treed areas for shelter and protection from predators, and are known to avoid clearcuts and disturbances. 

With so much of the forest destroyed, Reder’s biggest concern is protecting the habitat that remains.

“A park needs time to recover,” he said. “Stop the mineral exploration, get the military out of there … a couple of these recommendations are pretty straightforward ways to give peace to the park.” 

To limit further disturbance to sensitive, recovering vegetation, the committee recommends a moratorium on new industrial activity permits, and a permanent end to military training exercises. It also recommends limiting motorized activity such as all-terrain vehicles and outboard motors until caribou habitat use is better understood. 

An opportunity to rebuild — and prioritize recreation and nature

Reder said the fires also present an opportunity to restore the park in a way that prioritizes its recreational potential.

As the park rebuilds, the committee recommends more integration with the local Indigenous communities, including signage and programming produced in collaboration with First Nations that discusses the land’s traditional uses and history. It also recommends the province invest in “people-powered” recreational infrastructure, including trails, canoe routes and wayside stops.

Reder points to the government’s recent decision to re-open fire-damaged portions of the backcountry Mantario Trail, just south of Nopiming, as an example. The province had previously planned to keep the trail closed this summer, but has since announced it could re-open by the end of June as more than 500 volunteers have made “remarkable progress” restoring trail infrastructure. 

“The idea that Nopiming … should have a backcountry route, probably should get into people’s heads right now,” Reder said, adding the increased visibility following the fire has made it easier to plan possible trails. 

For cottages, the report recommends investing in FireSmart programs and limiting the size of human infrastructure to reduce potential losses from fire. 

“All recommendations will be considered as the province works to restore this beautiful area, and considers opportunities for post-fire recovery along with future enhancements and management opportunities,” the provincial spokesperson said.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

When 27-year-old Kaitlyn Kitzan was a kid, farmland near her parents’ farm in southeast Saskatchewan cost about $400 an acre.

Today, in that same region, it’s almost ten times as valuable: $3,500 an acre.

Across Saskatchewan, farmland prices increased by an average of 11 per cent annually from 2005 to 2024.

As the value of farmland rises — alongside the costs of everything from fertilizer to fuel and more — Prairies farmers now face the harsh reality that the better business decision might be just to sell their land, rather than farm it. Alongside the pressures running capital-intensive businesses, climate change and volatile markets, the price of farmland is a major stressor for young farmers like Kitzan, who is trying to take over the family farm.

“We’ve seen [a] steady increase in farmland values to the point where [it has] outstripped the productive value of the land” Bill Prybylski, a veteran farmer from east-central Saskatchewan, says, noting high costs and low prices for crops aren’t helping.  

Financial woes aren’t only affecting small family farms. In April, Monette Farms — one of the largest privately owned farming operations in North America with hundreds of thousands of acres across Canada and the United States  — filed for creditor protection, illustrating the challenging financial situations agricultural operators of all sizes are facing.

“Why is land selling for more than its productive value? The only obvious answer would be speculative ownership,” Prybylski says.

Indeed, hedge funds, pensions and other investors have been interested in farmland in recent years, with farm groups like the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) expressing concerns about foreign investment. Although provinces like Saskatchewan and Manitoba — which together are home to about half of Canada’s farmland — have regulations limiting farmland ownership primarily to Canadians and Canadian-controlled entities, the Saskatchewan government recently launched a review of its policies, saying it would take a closer look at farmland ownership, though it noted there is no evidence of foreign ownership of farmland in the province right now. Meanwhile, Ontario announced in April it will introduce legislation to limit foreign acquisition of farmland.

But that’s little comfort to those currently struggling with the price of farmland. “So much land is owned by people who aren’t farming it [themselves],” Kitzan says. “It is almost impossible to buy farmland from those people who are using it as an investment.”

Canada’s largest private farmland owner is an investor who owns 250,000 acres

There’s been a consistent, long-term shift in Canada toward fewer — and larger — farms. Between 2001 and 2021, the number of farms declined from about 250,000 to 190,000, with the average farm size increasing from 676 acres to 809 acres.

At the same time, investor interest in farmland has risen dramatically in recent decades. Investor ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan was negligible in 2002, but climbed to nearly one million acres by 2018 — almost 18 times the size of Saskatoon. An update to that research suggests the trend may be plateauing, but investors continue to be interested in farmland.

One of them is Robert Andjelic. He left a successful career in commercial real estate in Winnipeg in 2007 and turned his attention to Canadian farmland, an asset he believed was undervalued at the time, even though prices were already trending upward in the previous decade.

A few years later, he began purchasing Saskatchewan farmland at around $345 an acre. Today, land values in Saskatchewan have climbed to roughly $1,500 to $5,000 per acre, depending on the region. With more than 250,000 acres in his portfolio, primarily in Saskatchewan, Andjelic is considered Canada’s largest private farmland owner.

“I used to trade gold, silver, oil, other commodities. Today I have zero in anything else other than farmland. I’m 100 per cent invested in farmland.”

For Andjelic, there’s no doubt that Canadian farmland values will continue to rise. He sees farmland as a resilient, long-term, wealth-preserving investment — particularly during economic downturns.

“The world needs Canada and Canada’s production,” he says, adding food is not an optional consumer good.”

As the global population rises, so too does the demand for food. At the same time, farmland globally is becoming scarcer. Each year, an estimated 22 billion tonnes of fertile soil is lost to erosion, while millions more acres are degraded or converted to urban and industrial uses. 

As a result, there are simply fewer parcels of land available than there are buyers, Justin Shepherd, senior economist at Farm Credit Canada (FCC), says.

“Overall, it’s a really tight supply of land, and there’s been consistent and strong demand from producers looking to grow,” he says, adding there’s limited land for sale.

At the same time, advances in technology and larger equipment mean farmers can manage more acres with the same workforce, incentivizing them to keep expanding and increasing competition for land, which pushes prices higher, he says.

But that creates challenges in terms of access, he says, particularly for younger farmers trying to enter the market.

“We’ve looked at the affordability of farmland and recognize that we’re near historical records for many regions.”

And while Canadian farmland values have experienced growth periods before, all these recent factors have combined to create a longer and more sustained period of land price increases than at any other time in recent history.

A mega farm that wants to feed a billion people a day files for creditor protection

High land prices, and the financial challenges in agriculture, are creating a squeeze for farmers big and small. This was made even clearer in late April when Monette Farms — one of the largest private farming operations active in North America — filed for creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.

The company reportedly farms approximately 475,000 acres of owned and leased land across Canada and the U.S. The business, a collection of companies that originated from a family farm in Swift Current, Sask., had a goal to “feed a billion people for a day.”

In a note to stakeholders, the company said it was attempting to restructure its debt after rising interest rates and mounting costs strained its finances.

In a court document, Darrel Monette, the head of Monette Farms, said “the real property alone had a valuation exceeding the value of the group’s consolidated liabilities,” suggesting land value alone is more than its total debts. The document states Monette Farms holds about $900 million in secured debt.

Though the company didn’t specifically cite farmland prices as a reason it was facing strain, Monette Farms’ situation drew significant attention from Canadian farmers, reflecting tensions that had been building for years. 

In light of this, many say it’s now critical to confront whether farmland values have outpaced what is financially sustainable to actually farm. Prybylski, who is also the president of APAS, says the current system not only limits expansion for young farmers like Kitzan, it also threatens the very future of the family farm. (Approximately 97 per cent of Canadian farm businesses are family-owned and operated.)

Prybylski welcomes the Saskatchewan government’s move in April to launch a comprehensive review of its farmland ownership rules, examining ownership verification, enforcement and transparency, particularly around corporate ownership.

“Whenever we’ve talked to farmers,” he says, ”the conversation always comes around to stories of foreign ownership.”

Many farmers believe farmland simply shouldn’t be an investment strategy. But Andjelic thinks concerns about a disconnect between profitability and land stewardship miss the mark. 

He argues the two are closely linked — and that long-term investor returns depend on how well the land is managed.

He says he only rents his land to farmers he considers leaders in soil and crop management, requiring them to demonstrate their practices through an application process. He says his team also regularly visits farms, reviewing crop rotations, soil practices and overall land management.

“Soil is both of our bread and butter,” he says. “We’re only as good as the soil and the way we treat that soil. If somebody is mining the land, I don’t care if he pays me two times more than what the market is, he’s not going to get it.”

Eight billion people need to eat

The growth in Saskatchewan farmland values has begun to slow in recent years, but prices still increased by 9.4 per cent in 2025. At the same time, interest rates, farm profitability and regional climate pressures are predicted to play a larger role in affecting farmers’ bottom lines.

Ted Cawkwell, a farmland realtor based in Saskatoon, says some drought-affected areas — particularly in the southwest — have been under pressure as crops have failed or brought in low prices.

“Some of those areas… have had no crop for five, six years,” he says. “Grain prices are low and input costs are high and machinery costs are high. It’s tricky.”

As a result, real estate listings for farmland are increasing in some regions and taking longer to sell, not because values have dropped sharply, but, Cawkwell says, because buyers lack cash.

“The listings that are there just aren’t selling because the farmers don’t have cash,” he says.

But Cawkwell remains optimistic about the long-term outlook, pointing to the big picture.

“We have eight billion people … and people need to eat. You can do without the new house, you can do without the new shoes, you can do without the new car — but you can’t do without food.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Manitoba is one of Canada’s sunniest provinces, but it hasn’t prioritized solar power as an electricity source.
• Instead, the province relies on hydroelectricity for almost all of its energy needs. But as electricity demand increases and droughts make hydroelectricity less reliable, Manitoba Hydro has warned capacity could run out as soon as 2030.
• The province argues solar power isn’t well suited to meet Manitoba’s energy demands, which spike in the cold, dark winters. So, it’s prioritizing fossil fuels instead.

In the early 1970s, licence plates were stamped with the slogan “Sunny Manitoba” — a nod to long summer days, crisp blue winter skies and frequent sun dogs reflecting off of blinding white snow. While the slogan later changed, Manitoba’s ranking as Canada’s second-sunniest province has not. 

Despite that sunny reputation, solar power — one of the most developed renewable energy sources — makes up a small fraction of the province’s electricity grid.  

“It’s extremely marginal, especially when you compare to other jurisdictions like Alberta and Saskatchewan,” James Wilt, policy development manager at Climate Action Team Manitoba, said in an interview.

Manitoba boasts a predominantly emissions-free grid, with 97 per cent of its power generated by a network of hydroelectric dams. But the provincial utility, Manitoba Hydro, has forecasted that its once-abundant renewable energy source will soon fall short. There is growing demand for power amid the electrification of sectors like transportation and heating and the rapidly growing interest in developing power-hungry data centres. Combined with more unpredictable water levels owing to climate factors like extreme drought, it’s all prompted the utility to warn that capacity could run out as soon as 2030.

Manitoba’s plight is not unique: power producers around the world are navigating pressures to keep pace with skyrocketing demand. The International Energy Agency’s most recent world energy outlook states “the age of electricity is here,” and demand will continue to grow “much faster than overall energy use” in the coming decade. It predicts renewables will grow “faster than any other major energy source” in that time, led by solar power. 

But not in Manitoba. The province’s near-term energy plans include building new wind farms and natural gas-power; utility-scale solar isn’t on the table, with Manitoba Hydro going as far as saying solar power is “opposite to Manitoba’s energy needs.”

Others, however, believe more investment in solar infrastructure and government incentives could help build a more resilient grid without resorting to fossil fuels.

Welcome to the sunbelt: Manitoba is second only to Saskatchewan for sun

Solar power technology has been on the market since the 1980s, and in that time has become less expensive and more efficient, establishing solar power among the most accessible renewable resources. 

“The thing with solar is that it really does work effectively anywhere,” Wilt said. “Of course, there are differences in the number of hours of sunlight … but even if it’s farther north or on a rooftop that isn’t perfectly angled, it can still generate a really significant amount.” 

Some systems are solar thermal, meaning the sun is used to heat either water or air (think hot water tanks or air-source heat pumps). Solar-powered electricity, however, is generated by solar photovoltaic systems, which use specialized panels to convert sunlight into an electric current.

Photovoltaic systems are typically classed as either distributed, meaning they are installed on individual homes, businesses and farms to generate power for that property, or utility-scale, which refers to larger solar farms that send electricity directly to the grid.

These systems share the same central principle: when the sun is shining, they’re generating power — regardless of the season or the temperature. 

And that’s where Manitoba has an advantage: according to an analysis by Natural Resources Canada, the province (particularly the southern region) has some of the greatest solar power potential in the country. 

Winnipeg ranked fourth on the Canada Energy Regulator’s 2018 list of major city solar potential, behind only Regina, Saskatoon and Calgary, with the potential to generate an average of 6.6 kilowatt-hours of electricity per square metre, per month. Manitoba ranked second among provinces, behind only Saskatchewan.

A 2020 Manitoba Hydro study of properties with existing solar electricity systems found panels produced power for about eight hours per day in the winter and more than 14 hours per day in the summer months.

“We are in the sun belt of Canada,” Lorena Mitchell, lead designer at solar power installation and education company Evolve Energy, said in an interview. “We do get an awful lot of sunlight hours here in Manitoba.”

Solar power makes up 0.005 per cent of Manitoba’s electricity

Manitoba’s ranking at the top of the solar-power-potential charts hasn’t translated into an abundance of solar energy. 

As of December 2024, the most recent numbers available, Manitoba’s current solar capacity of 41 megawatts is exactly middle of the road among Canadian provinces and territories. All of that capacity comes from distributed sources, such as homes, businesses and farms, Manitoba Hydro communications director, Scott Powell, said in an interview. 

All told, solar power makes up 0.005 per cent of Manitoba’s energy mix.

“Solar power is definitely part of the energy mix in Manitoba, but what we’ve seen is it’s more so put on very localized production,” Alexander Lavoie, board chair of the Manitoba Sustainable Energy Association, a non-profit advocacy organization, said in an interview.

The gap is more stark when compared to neighbouring provinces Saskatchewan (108 megawatts) and Ontario, which ranks first with over 2,500 megawatts. Alberta — another Prairie sun-belt province — ranks second with nearly 2,300 megawatts, though a less-than-favourable political climate has seen investment interest in solar energy decline. South of the border, Minnesota has more than 3,300 megawatts of installed solar capacity, which accounts for about six per cent of the state’s electricity.

Part of the discrepancy stems from Manitoba’s unique regulatory environment, Lavoie said. In some jurisdictions, like Alberta, private energy companies can develop large-scale solar resources, whereas Manitoba’s public utility model means any major infrastructure investments need approval from an external body — the Public Utilities Board.

Manitoba offers the second-cheapest power in the country (behind Quebec) and must get approval from the utilities board to raise electricity rates, which can constrain capital expenditures.

“Low electricity rates in Manitoba make the investments probably a little bit more difficult to manage,” Lavoie said. “[For] utilities of scale, there may be other opportunities that provide a better [return on investment].”

Still, solar generation has boomed in Canada, from 0.1 terawatt-hours in 2010 to nearly five terawatt-hours in 2023 — about one per cent of the national energy mix, or enough to power 195,000 homes for a year. The energy regulator predicts that share will keep growing, reaching 13 terawatt-hours by 2040.

Quebec, which operates a similar electrical grid makeup to Manitoba, plans to install three gigawatts of solar power by 2035 and an additional 300 megawatts of distributed solar in the next 10 years. New Brunswick will install a 10-megawatt solar project co-owned by Tobique First Nation this year, while Prince Edward Island’s solar incentive program was paused in 2025 because it was oversubscribed.

And while Manitoba has seen its share of solar growth, it is not betting on the sun to meet its future energy needs.

Manitoba Hydro says long, dark nights and snow make solar panels less desirable

Typically, Manitoba Hydro sees the greatest demand for electricity in the early mornings and late evenings of cold winter days, and that peak winter demand is a big part of why Manitoba has hesitated to invest in solar power.

“As much of the system’s winter peak load occurs during the non-daylight hours, solar provides little to no energy when it is needed most,” Manitoba Hydro states in its 2025 integrated resource plan.

The plan, which is intended to guide the utility through the next 10 years of the energy transition, lists six resources it believes will be feasible to develop in that time — existing and expanded energy efficiency programs, wind power, short-term battery storage, natural gas and upgrading the existing hydroelectric infrastructure. Solar isn’t included.

In a slide outlining the rationale for leaving utility-scale solar off the table, Manitoba Hydro notes that while it comes with the advantages of low costs, low maintenance, negligible emissions and easy scalability, solar power “provides zero accredited winter capacity in Manitoba,” adding solar panels are “often covered in snow,” and their “energy production profile does not pair well with Manitoba Hydro’s demand.”

Instead, the utility is prioritizing new generation options that can help address a forecasted shortage of more than 250 megawatts during those peak times. 

“The [integrated resource plan] is really about growing our capacity and, at the same time, ensuring we can provide the electricity when we need it most,” Powell said. “At a utility scale, other sources of energy are typically more available and effective based on our load curve.” 

To Wilt, at the Climate Action Team, this approach to assessing the value of solar power “takes a very narrow-minded focus on meeting demand without thinking about the system holistically.”

Battery-storage technology has evolved alongside intermittent resources like solar and wind power, and could allow solar energy to be stored and used when it’s needed most, he said. 

While Manitoba Hydro plans to run a five-megawatt battery-storage pilot in the coming years, according to the integrated resource plan, Wilt pointed out Manitoba already has a power-storage advantage.

The hydro-powered grid is backstopped by Lake Winnipeg, which has been engineered to serve as a reservoir, with the utility able to control flow to its generators. In other words, the lake essentially serves as a battery that can complement other renewable power sources. 

From Manitoba Hydro’s perspective, while the reservoir will be used to help backstop upcoming wind resources, “you can only backstop it so far,” Powell said. 

Wilt said the Climate Action Team does not want to downplay the “difficult position” Manitoba Hydro is in when it comes to managing its reservoirs and generation capacity in the face of increased pressures.

“But we would argue that a great way to shore up and prevent overutilization of potentially compromised reservoirs is by adding the lowest cost generation to the mix during the summer,” he said. 

“We think that there should be tons of solar put on the grid for the summer, tons of wind put on the grid for the winter — which is when it’s most effective — and have battery storage which can help smooth out the intermittency. Having all of these in place will help keep more water behind the reservoirs.”

Manitoba Hydro solar pilot project was a success — but wasn’t renewed

A decade ago, the forecast for solar power in Manitoba was sunny. 

With solar photovoltaic power gaining popularity, the provincial utility launched a pilot project in 2016 offering customers a $1-per-watt incentive to install solar panels on their properties. This rebate was considered among the best in the country at the time, and covered up to one-third of the cost of installations. 

Mitchell, at Evolve Energy, has worked in the solar energy space for more than 20 years. She noticed Manitobans interest in solar started to spark in 2013, “then they launched the rebate program and that’s what really kicked it off.”

The pilot program was a success, generating 2.6 megawatts of new solar generation capacity and diverting approximately 3.5 gigawatt hours of energy from the provincial grid each year, about equivalent to the power use of 137 homes.

“By all accounts, Hydro was just completely overwhelmed by the number of applicants,” Wilt said. 

(At Hydro, Powell said the pilot was “very well received at the time.”)

Customers were set up with a bi-directional meter that allowed each property to both import and export power to and from the hydroelectric grid. This kind of grid-connected system is common for residential and small commercial solar generation: when the sun is shining, the property draws power from the solar array and sells whatever it doesn’t need back to the grid. When it’s dark, the system can still draw power from the grid as normal.

Excess power is compensated using either net-metering or net-billing. Net-metering — used in nine of 13 provinces and territories — credits the property owner for each kilowatt-hour of energy they send to the grid, charging users only for the difference between the power they use and the power they contribute. 

Net-billing, on the other hand, effectively pays distributed solar producers an electricity rate for each kilowatt-hour sent to the grid. Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia use net-billing systems, with varying rates across the jurisdictions. 

Under Manitoba’s solar pilot project, the excess energy rate, as it’s called, was on par with electricity rates charged by the utility. 

When the pilot project ended, the solar landscape in Manitoba changed.

Some contractors that had come to the province looking to cash in on the solar boom vanished; several customers were left scrambling to finish setting up their systems before the incentive program ceased. 

“When it ended, the whole local industry collapsed,” Wilt said. 

The responsibility for doling out future solar power incentives shifted to then-newly formed Crown corporation, Efficiency Manitoba, which is tasked with administering initiatives to help Manitoba reduce its electricity and natural gas consumption. The new program, launched in 2022, offered a $0.50-per-watt incentive for residential installations, up to $5,000, and $0.75 cents for farm or business installations. It also switched to an excess energy rate set by Manitoba Hydro that “reflects the current market value” of electricity.

“Net-billing appropriately recognizes the value of that excess energy when it’s sold back on the grid,” Powell said. “Net-metering would pay customers at a rate that incorporates the full cost to deliver electricity to residential customers. Solar customers don’t have to absorb that cost, so it wouldn’t be appropriate to pay that full rate.” 

That price — which is established each spring — has fluctuated widely in the years since. In 2025, it was just over four cents per kilowatt-hour, in 2021, it reached a low of 2.4 cents. This year, it’s just over seven. 

“It can certainly provide uncertainty for potential investors and developers,” Lavoie said.

According to Jana Brunel, manager of strategic initiatives at Efficiency Manitoba, the program has seen “steady uptake,” with 750 installations to this point. Manitoba’s cheap and predominantly low-emissions energy, however, can limit the uptake when compared to other jurisdictions.

“We have low energy rates, which make the payback of some investments different,” Brunel said in an interview. 

Efficiency Manitoba also works with customers to match the size of their solar generation to their energy use, which results in less excess energy generation, Brunel explained. 

“If you can install solar to really reduce the energy you need to use from the grid … that’s where the biggest financial savings come,” she said. “That’s why our program is really geared at properly sizing a system not to have an abundance of excess energy being sent back to the grid.” 

Mitchell said the program has been “pretty good” for residential customers and “really amazing” for farms and commercial businesses. Those larger properties who receive higher excess energy rates, including those who are locked in to the on-par price, have seen a return on investment in their solar installations within six to nine years, she said.

“We’re seeing the uptick for them, finally, really happening this year,” Mitchell said.

For residential customers with smaller systems, Mitchell said her business designs systems to protect their investment from the fluctuating energy price.

“I try to caution them that this is what’s going to cause their investment to go up and down,” she said. “It’s like playing the stocks.”

Manitoba’s energy crunch looms, but solar adoption lags

In 2024, Efficiency Manitoba and Manitoba Hydro commissioned Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors to outline a roadmap to help reduce peak demand through customer-facing initiatives such as energy-efficiency upgrades, heat-pump programs and distributed solar. 

The study found that by 2037, peak demand could shift towards the late afternoon, driven by factors like electric vehicle charging and improved energy efficiency. In such a scenario, distributed solar could reduce that demand by up to117 megawatts.

But it also found solar adoption “is not projected to approach levels observed in the past pilot program in the initial years of study unless lucrative incentives … are provided.”

“Despite continued global cost declines for solar [photovoltaic] systems, the decline in Manitoba’s solar [photovoltaic] market following the end of the pilot program, coupled with significant reductions in compensation for excess generation, is expected to reduce customer demand for the next several years,” the study said.

“However, as solar [photovoltaic] system costs continue to decline, adoption is projected to increase in the later years of the study.”

At Efficiency Manitoba, Brunel said solar power “certainly plays a role in helping reduce electricity consumption and energy consumption,” and its efficacy will improve in the long term as battery storage technology evolves and energy efficiency programs take root. 

“When solar [photovoltaic] systems can be paired with battery storage, that presents more of an opportunity to use the electricity,” Brunel said.

Manitoba Hydro isn’t closing the door either, Powell said. 

“We’re technology agnostic. If solar was the right answer for our system and our customers, that’s what we would be going with. But there are other technologies, other forms of energy, that offer better value for the system we have,” he said. 

“Could that change in the future? Absolutely.” 

But with power shortages looming, Mitchell believes Manitoba is already behind on solar investments. 

“As things go critical in Manitoba for a net need for energy, they’re going to have to come back and address this, because a few gas turbines isn’t going to do it,” Mitchell said. 

“I think diversifying the grid and making it healthier and stronger is the way to go, and you can do that very easily with renewables.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Canada’s vast landscape, which boasts 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, a quarter of global wetlands and 28 per cent of its boreal forests, is critical to its economy. Natural resource industries — forests, farms, fisheries, mining and oil and gas — together make up approximately seven per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. 

Tension exists between expanding these industrialized sectors and protecting the ecosystems on which they depend. In Manitoba, some worry protecting the Seal River Watershed, which spans more than 50,000 square kilometres in the province’s north, will hinder opportunities in mineral resources and hydro; to the east, critical mineral mining ambitions in Ontario’s Ring of Fire clash with the protection of the Hudson and James Bay Lowlands, the second-largest carbon sink on earth; and in B.C., Coastal First Nations have protested that lifting the large tanker ban through their waters will endanger the protected Great Bear Rainforest.

These tensions make it easy to frame nature as the antithesis of economic activity, if it’s always put in opposition to projects that are described as growing Canada’s wealth, sovereignty and security. But a growing chorus of economic and policy leaders, alongside conservation groups, are making the case for nature to be seen as a critical financial asset — not a barrier, but another opportunity for economic growth. 

The federal government’s vision for conservation, laid out in its 2026 nature strategy, is of a nation that “protects, restores, and values nature as a foundation of our economy, sovereignty, and well-being.” 

One of the pillars to achieving that vision is “valuing nature and mobilizing capital,” according to the strategy. It estimated the value of “ecosystem services” — the direct and indirect contributions of nature to well-being and quality of life — to be $3.6 trillion, or “more than double our 2018 GDP.” In other words, the government is looking to spur more private sector investment in conservation by showing businesses how valuable nature is to their bottom lines.

The numbers show conservation is comparable with many of Canada’s major industries. While it may not produce the same scale of economic value as major resource extraction sectors like oil and gas — which does not approach the value of sectors like health care or education — it is a significant contributor to Canada’s economy. And the return on investment is high: a recent analysis by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) found every dollar spent on protected areas generated more than $3.50 in visitor spending, helping fuel local economies and generate government revenues. 

Like the oil and gas sector, Canada can choose to invest in the potential of conservation and champion it as a cornerstone of our country’s economic future. And as Canadians grapple with the increasingly severe impacts of the climate crisis, the role of intact ecosystems becomes even more valuable. 

These nine charts capture some of the value of Canada’s natural environments, and the economic potential of conservation.

Economic contributions from protected areas — by province

Gross domestic product (GDP) contributions of selected Canadian industries

How are the industries defined?+

Statistics Canada tracks economic activity indicators for a wide range of sectors using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), which assigns a code to specific activities and sectors. Industries and government agencies tally these statistics in different ways to determine overall sector impacts. 

This analysis uses Statistics Canada’s data, and defines each industry as follows:

Agriculture: Crop and animal production (farming), related support activities and food manufacturing, including mills, bakeries, meat and dairy production.

Fisheries: Aquaculture, fishing, hunting and trapping and seafood product preparation.

Forestry: Forestry and logging, related support activities, wood and paper product manufacturing. 

Mining: Mineral mining (ore, non-metals, potash) and quarrying activities, including related support. Also includes mineral product manufacturing and metal manufacturing. 

Oil and gas: Oil and gas extraction and related support activities, petroleum and coal product manufacturing, natural gas distribution and pipelines.

Transportation: Air, rail, water, truck and transit and ground transportation (including public transit and taxis). 

Utilities: Electric power generation, transmission and distribution and water and sewage systems.

Jobs and compensation

More than 150,000 people work in protected and conserved areas — not far behind the oil and gas and forestry sectors. As the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society points out, many of these jobs are in Indigenous, rural and remote communities, where unemployment rates are high compared to urban areas. In parts of Canada where other economic opportunities are scarce, protected and conserved areas offer the opportunity to create long-term stable employment. 

Conservation provides value, but how are conservation workers valued? Compensation for the approximately 150,000 Canadians who work in protected areas is low, compared to other sectors; on average, an oil and gas worker makes nearly four times as much annually. 

Tax revenues and subsidies

Governments collected more than $1.4 billion in tax revenues from parks and protected areas in 2024, most of which stemmed from visitor spending, according to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s analysis. That’s comparable to government tax revenues from the forestry industry, at $1.2 billion. Major resource industries like forestry and oil and gas also create government revenue through royalties and other fees. 

But for many of these industries, government revenues can be offset by tax breaks, grants and other subsidies.

Governments invested $2.3 billion in parks and protected spaces in 2024, generating $0.62 in revenue for every dollar invested. By comparison, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates the federal government spent $3.17 billion USD (or $4.34 billion CAD) on fossil fuel subsidies — almost $1 billion USD more than the United States spent on subsidies, despite their industry’s far greater output. That number is likely an underestimate, as a lack of clear data and complex incentive structures make it difficult to track how much governments give out to industry. 

Environmental Defence, which releases an annual report tracking Canadian fossil fuel subsidies, estimates the government doled out more than $30 billion in subsidies and financing to fossil fuel companies in 2024. Most of that funding came in the form of a $20-billion loan for the Trans Mountain Expansion project. 

Carbon storage

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society estimated the carbon stocks stored in Canada’s existing protected areas by comparing protected area boundaries to data showing the carbon concentration in soil, vegetated areas and seabed sediments. 

It found a total 51.4 gigatons of carbon stored in the country’s protected forests, peatlands, wetlands, soil and seabeds. 

If this carbon was all emitted as carbon dioxide, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society estimates, it would equate to 188.4 gigatons of emissions. 

By protecting these regions from industrial disturbances like mining, logging or draining, that carbon stays in the ground. If released, that carbon comes at a cost. 

Canada’s industrial carbon price, which charges businesses for emissions that exceed a predetermined limit, is $110 per tonne as of 2026. A carbon credit — doled out for activities that remove or avoid carbon emissions — is worth the same.

At that price, the carbon stored in Canada’s protected areas is worth $20.7 trillion. 

That’s about 10 times the value of Canada’s global mining assets ($352.6 billion), global energy assets ($827 billion) and domestic farm sector assets ($992.4 billion) combined.

Annual carbon capture

Protected and conserved areas remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, a process known as “carbon capture.” Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park, for example, removed an average of 108,328 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere between 1990 and 2020. This is significantly less than Shell’s Quest carbon capture and storage project, but it’s also just one of hundreds of parks and protected areas across Canada.

Most parks, like the ones included in this chart, are sequestering carbon each year. However, when parks or protected areas are hit by wildfires, they can become carbon emitters.

– With files from Michelle Cyca

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Last spring in Manitoba marked the start of the second-worst wildfire season in Canadian history. Experts warn these types of fires are becoming more common with climate change.
• A Narwhal and Winnipeg Free Press analysis found $500 million in costs directly tied to the Manitoba wildfires, including evacuations, emergency costs, insured losses, healthcare costs and many more.
• The Manitoba government alone spent seven times its projected budget on emergency response — more than the operating budgets of two of its departments combined.

A little more than a year ago, during a time usually marked by lingering snowbanks and the first hints of spring, parts of Manitoba were engulfed in flames.

An early heat wave on the heels of several months of drought combined to produce ideal conditions for spring fires. 

Within days, the province was at the epicentre of what would become the second-worst wildfire season in Canadian history.

Between May and August, fires tore through 2.3 million hectares, decimated provincial parklands and forced more than 33,000 residents out of their homes. Two people died; at least one firefighter was severely injured.

The scale of the disaster was unprecedented — so were the costs.

An analysis by The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press found at least $500 million in expenses directly attributable to the wildfires — costs tied to emergency response, evacuations, damaged infrastructure, shuttered businesses, lost homes and much more. The true cost will never be known, as the impacts are far-reaching and far less tangible, and likely far, far higher.

But the tangible costs are many: wildfires scorched the provincial economy, burning through hundreds of millions in public funds, searing the bottom lines of several local businesses and taking a heavy toll on thousands of families’ finances. 

In the fiscal year including those wildfires, Manitoba spent $383 million on government emergency expenditures. Nearly all of that, $375 million, was attributed to wildfires, seven times more than what was budgeted.

To put that figure in perspective, the combined operating budgets of the Environment and Climate Change Department ($117 million) and the Department of Natural Resources ($147 million) totalled $264 million, meaning Manitoba spent 42 per cent more on emergency wildfire expenses last year than it did on the operating budgets for those two departments combined.

In a statement in response to a detailed list of questions, the government said a full picture of wildfire costs won’t be available until public accounts are released in September — after the next wildfire season has passed.

The statement described last year’s fires as “generational in nature,” but experts warn many of the same fire-prone conditions are still present. Fire weather is expected to be the norm in the future, as warmer temperatures dry out fuel sources and trigger more lightning storms, among other factors. 

The provincial budget’s risk outlook acknowledges the potential cost of that threat: “If similar conditions persist in 2026 — with climate change contributing to more frequent extreme weather events such as droughts — the province could face continued risks to employment, labour displacement, reductions in tourism and agricultural output and overall economic performance.”

Despite that, Manitoba’s $50-million emergency expenditure budget wasn’t changed for 2026. The government said it is “a sizable emergency expense contingency,” while also noting an increase in funding for wildfire preparedness, prevention and emergency management. 

The government has earmarked more than $4.5 million in new funding for additional seasonal firefighter positions and emergency management staff, upgraded weather and fire-mapping tools and aerial firefighting services.

Another year of devastating wildfires could further strain an economy navigating several stressors at once. Beyond the direct costs linked to firefighters, air tankers and evacuation support, natural disasters have profound indirect — though often unmeasurable — costs that ripple throughout the economy.

table of contents

• Wildfire protection budgets
• Out-of-province firefighters
• Largest evacuation in Manitoba history costs millions
• Damaged property, damaged infrastructure
• Business closures dampen economic activity
• Intangible impacts

Wildfire protection budgets

In 2025, the province spent about $70 million across four departments to manage emergency wildfire response, including fire suppression equipment, provincial firefighters and emergency management teams. 

That’s expected to increase this year as the province aims to hire another 19 emergency firefighters, four conservation workers and 15 emergency management personnel. 

However, the budget for wildfire suppression — just under $14 million — has been relatively unchanged since 2022, even as Canada experienced two of its worst-ever fire seasons in 2023 and 2025. 

Two years earlier, in 2020, the wildfire suppression budget was more than double what it is today, at just under $30 million.

As for staff, the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, which represents members of the province’s wildfire service, released a report in December that noted 64 fire ranger positions and 25 per cent of wildfire division positions were vacant when the fire season began. 

“Our staffing levels are ’70s, ’80s levels — not current,” one staff member told the union. 

While the union has applauded this year’s five per cent increase to the conservation and wildfire service budget, it noted a full complement of staff with adequate training, equipment and compensation (Manitoba firefighters make the second-lowest hourly wage in the country) could help mitigate the growing risks associated with wildfires. 

“The 2025 fire season was not an outlier, but the new normal as the impacts of climate continue to wreak havoc on communities and natural areas,” the report said.

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Out-of-province firefighters

The severity of the fire season — combined with the depleted complement of firefighters — meant Manitoba needed significant out-of-province support to battle the summer blazes. 

Manitoba brought in more than 250 personnel, both from Parks Canada and provincial fire teams from Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The province also hosted another 250 firefighters from the United States, 200 from Mexico, 40 from France and 65 from New Zealand and Australia. 

The province did not provide a breakdown of its payments to other jurisdictions.

Instead, The Narwhal and Free Press reviewed publicly disclosed provincial government contracts valued over $10,000 and labeled: “Emergency services related to forest fires.” The review found 20 contracts worth a combined $6.5 million inked with other government departments.

The Société de protection des forêts contre le feu, a non-profit fire protection agency based in Quebec, received about 40 per cent of those funds. The agency sent more than 150 firefighters from Quebec and France, as well as logistics support, through June and July. While Manitoba’s records show contracts totalling $2.8 million, the agency’s annual report indicates it billed Manitoba for more than $5.1 million in 2025. This suggests some out-of-province payments are not yet recorded in Manitoba’s contract records.

The province also paid $2.7 million to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which “coordinates the sharing of firefighting resources” across Canada, and helped mobilize aircraft and international personnel to fight the Manitoba fires, according to a statement from the centre. Manitoba also recorded eight contracts worth just under $500,000 for “other firefighting equipment.”

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Largest evacuation in Manitoba history costs millions

According to Manitoba’s recently released interim review of the wildfire season, it was “one of the largest evacuation operations in Manitoba’s history.” 

Consider the numbers: 59 communities impacted, more than 33,000 residents evacuated, including 4,100 air evacuations by the Canadian Armed Forces and 2,300 people temporarily relocated outside the province.

Both the Canadian and American Red Cross were called on to support evacuations; many evacuees lived in congregate shelters in Winnipeg, Thompson, Winkler and Portage la Prairie after hotels became overwhelmed. 

These evacuations, some of which lasted several weeks, others months, took an unprecedented toll. Evacuees suffered mental health impacts owing to the fear, uncertainty and stress of being separated from family and their homes, many missed school and work, or were forced to close their businesses. First Nations evacuees, particularly those in remote, northern communities, reported additional strain as they were relocated to urban environments, isolated from familiar foods, community and culture. 

Not all of these impacts can be quantified, but will nonetheless have long-lasting effects on many Manitoba communities.

The financial responsibility for evacuee support is spread across federal, provincial and local governments, with Indigenous Services Canada responsible for evacuations affecting First Nations, and the federal government providing disaster financial assistance to affected municipalities. According to the interim review, nine disaster financial assistance payments have been made thus far, totalling $3.4 million.

While the province did not specify how much of the $375-million emergency expenditures were earmarked for evacuees, government contracts show Manitoba spent upwards of $60 million on accommodations, food, transportation and other evacuation support. 

Most of that money — $53 million — was paid to the Canadian Red Cross, which helped lead evacuations. These payments do not include the Red Cross’s work with Manitoba First Nations, which is paid for by Indigenous Services Canada. 

Contracts show approximately $4 million in space rental and cleaning fees, including a $1.7 million contract with Canad Inns, and 40 other contracts with hotels, inns and resort centres across Manitoba and western Ontario, where some evacuees were sheltered. 

Catering, groceries and other food bills amounted to $813,000, while the bill for planes, cars, fuel and other transportation was more than $3 million. 

Evacuations are particularly challenging for residents living in hospitals and personal care homes, or receiving regular medical care like dialysis appointments. According to Shared Health, Manitoba’s provincial health authority, the Flin Flon hospital was evacuated in May, as were personal care homes in Flin Flon, Lynn Lake and Thompson.

“The evacuation in the north was the biggest the province has seen,” Shared Health wrote in a May 2025 press release. 

Those patients were transported either by commercial, chartered or, in some cases, individual medivac flights, Jessica Davis, who served as the provincial air ambulance manager for Shared Health through the 2025 wildfire season, said in an interview. 

MedEvac flights cost between $10,000 and $20,000 each direction, she said, while commercial medical flights come with costs between $50,000 and $60,000. 

Shared Health has not yet compiled the final figures, but estimates more than 100 patients were evacuated from hospitals and personal care homes in northern communities. While some of the evacuation costs were shared with the federal government, Kristyn Ball, director of patient flow, noted at least one health-care facility sustained “significant damage,” and many others were costly to shut down and start up again during the evacuations. Davis emphasized the overtime accrued by health-care staff added to the evacuation costs.

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Damaged property, damaged infrastructure

Governments typically absorb the bulk of natural disaster costs, spreading the economic impacts across multi-billion-dollar budgets. For homeowners in the fire’s path, the impacts are acute.

According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, insurers handled several thousand claims related to the Manitoba wildfires last year, the majority of which came from homeowners. 

In the wake of a natural disaster, Canada’s insurance companies navigate an influx of claims, ranging from “the worst, which is when people have lost everything,” to claims for evacuation-related expenses like hotel rooms and rental cars, Aaron Sutherland, the bureau’s Pacific and Western region vice-president, said in an interview. 

When the sum of insurance claims reaches $30 million, the industry conducts surveys to estimate the total recovery costs. The fires in the Flin Flon and Lac du Bonnet regions both met those thresholds, Sutherland said. 

Estimates compiled in September pegged insured damages from the Flin Flon and Lac du Bonnet fires at $250 million and $60 million respectively. They’re expected to be updated as the one-year mark approaches.

While these estimates help form a picture of the individual costs to rebuild after a fire, they’re only part of the picture. About 90 per cent of Canadians have some form of property insurance; those without may incur steep losses that are neither recoverable or tracked. 

“There’s a real human toll to these events as well,” Sutherland added. “If you’re in the unfortunate situation where you have lost everything, that has a massive impact on your life. Even if you’ve got your insurer there to help you begin to put those pieces back together, you’re looking at belongings, mementos, pictures, things like that, that you may never get back, and it’s absolutely devastating.”

Even for those whose personal property is unscathed, damage to wider infrastructure can have knock-on effects.

Last year’s fires damaged more than 1,200 Manitoba Hydro poles, interrupting electrical service in several communities. Five generating stations were temporarily shut down or evacuated — the first time the utility has ever evacuated its power infrastructure — leading to about 70 megawatts of lost generating capacity. 

In addition to power interruptions, “telecommunications disruptions affected multiple communities, boil-water advisories were issued and postal and other essential services were suspended in several areas,” the review notes. 

According to a statement from the Crown utility, 1,500 customers were affected by power outages, “including some communities where the outages lasted for weeks or months.”

Manitoba Hydro estimates the wildfires cost the utility approximately $50 million between infrastructure repairs, emergency response crew wages and service interruptions.

It was “without doubt the most impactful wildfire season in Manitoba Hydro’s history, in terms of the number of assets impacted, employees involved in wildfire response, and communities impacted by power outages,” Peter Chura, Hydro’s media relations officer said.

Meanwhile, the increasing frequency of wildfires, severe floods and other natural disasters is causing concern for the insurance industry. In time, it could lead to increased premiums as insurers look to balance growing recovery costs.

“Insurers, for a long time, have been a bit of a canary in the coal mine,” Sutherland said. 

“We are trending in the wrong direction in terms of the cost of these types of events. It’s a clear indication of the need for us, as a society, to improve our resilience.”

Insured damages from weather-related disasters totalled $14 billion nationwide between 2006 and 2015. In the decade since, that total has more than doubled to $37 billion, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. The average number of claims has doubled, too. 

“Insurance price is risk; that risk is growing. If we want to see a more affordable insurance marketplace, we have to take action to begin to reduce the risk facing communities, facing our properties and facing our families,” Sutherland said.

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Business closures dampen economic activity

In 2025, Natural Resources Canada released a research paper outlining a method to estimate the direct and indirect costs of extreme wildfires, acknowledging there are “numerous gaps” in the current understanding of socioeconomic impacts from wildfires.

The study notes it can take several months to fully understand how wildfires have impacted regional economies as business disruptions, lost opportunity costs and the impacts of ecosystem loss ripple through industries. 

Natural resource sectors including mining and forestry, as well as local tourism economies, tend to be most directly impacted by wildfires. For communities in the north, these industries are often the backbone of the local economy.

Last June, Statistics Canada estimated the potential economic disruption from the 2025 wildfires, and found 2.4 per cent of Manitoba’s GDP, including one quarter of the northern region’s economy, was at risk of fire-related disruption — the largest share of any province.

The fires that tore through the eastern portion of the province forced several popular provincial parks to remain closed throughout the busiest season. 

While it’s still too early to pinpoint the exact impact the 2025 wildfires had on visitation and revenue (numbers will be available in August), Travel Manitoba conducted an internal survey of tourism operators last summer to gauge the scope of the impacts, chief operating officer Angela Cassie said in an interview. 

A little more than half of tourism operators — from lodges and outfitters to campgrounds, festivals and outdoor recreation services, to restaurants and transportation — reported cancellations, Cassie said. 

Forty per cent reported lost revenue due to decreased visitation and 18 per cent had to close their businesses entirely for mandatory evacuations, she added.

Impacted businesses reported average revenue losses of about $175,000. 

“The earnings from that summer season often sustains their businesses all year,” Cassie said. “A lot of them are looking at the summer of 2025 as a lost summer.” 

For some businesses, the impacts will extend far beyond one season of depleted revenues. Five per cent reported damaged or lost property as a result of the fires, while others lost habitat, which could impact future bookings. 

One in 10 tourism operators reported mental-health challenges in response to the crisis, Cassie said. 

The high-profile nature of last year’s wildfires had an impact too. As Manitoba declared successive province-wide states of emergency, countries in Europe, for example, warned travellers of the risks of visiting Manitoba. As the province worked to shelter tens of thousands of evacuees, Premier Wab Kinew asked tourists to avoid booking hotel rooms. 

“There’s the physical loss because of cancellations or just people not booking last year but then are you losing people who are maybe now choosing other locations for the summer and not choosing Manitoba?” Cassie said.

Travel Manitoba is on a mission to “earn that business back” with a $1.35-million marketing campaign. The industry group has earmarked an additional $1.35 million for a wildfire assistance program that will cover up to 90 per cent of the cost of fire prevention equipment (such as sprinklers, hoses and water pumps) and training for tourism businesses. 

“This year will be really important for a lot of [businesses]. They’ve come through this winter extremely lean, so this summer is going to be extremely important,” Cassie said. 

The province’s mining industry was impacted, too, with at least four companies reporting shutdowns, evacuations or delays related to the wildfires. 

The Tanco lithium mine in eastern Manitoba, owned by Chinese company Sinomine, was evacuated in early May. Hudbay’s Snow Lake operation was shut down for seven weeks in July and August, incurring more than US$4 million in costs, according to the company’s financial reporting. Grid Metals’ Makwa facility was shuttered for several months, from early May until late July, and was only able to complete one day of field work in the second quarter.

Alamos Gold, near Lynn Lake, was investigated in connection with a major fire in the region, after a burn pile reignited at the MacLellan mine site. 

The company was forced to evacuate, delaying the ramp up of construction on a new mine and contributing to a 48 per cent increase in capital funding for the project, according to the company’s latest quarterly report.

Mining companies also contributed to evacuation and firefighting efforts in the communities where staff live and work, and donated a combined $1.25 million to the Red Cross relief effort.

While impacts to Manitoba’s forestry industry are not yet tabulated, analysis of fire boundaries shows 1.2 million hectares of the province’s logging licence areas burned — about 10 per cent of Manitoba’s regularly harvested forests.

According to the province’s economic development council, “wildfires lead to reduced supply, processing shutdowns and volatile price swings” for the forestry industry. The 2023 wildfires prompted a 20 per cent dip in June and July lumber production compared to the previous five-year average, according to a report from the Canadian Climate Institute.

“Whole regions now have nothing but young trees. There’s nothing to harvest,” B.C.-based wildfire researcher Bob Gray said last October.

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Intangible impacts: health, carbon emissions will add to future costs

The costs compiled here represent only a portion of the long-term economic impacts wildfires will have on Manitoba’s economy. It will take several months for government agencies and private companies to finish taking stock of the damage; some losses will never show up in financial records or industry reports.

For example, communities are left to clean up debris, remediate damaged sites and conduct inspections; these costs can be difficult to tabulate, according to the federal government’s report on the economic impacts of wildfires. 

Other indirect impacts are unlikely to be formally tied to the 2025 fires, making them challenging to capture when calculating the costs of a natural disaster.

The Manitoba wildfires released a total 44 megatonnes of cumulative carbon emissions by mid-summer — a provincial record — according to data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, part of the European Union’s environmental monitoring programme. That’s equivalent to two years of Manitoba’s annual, human-caused emissions. 

“As a result, smoke plumes repeatedly blanketed large parts of Canada and North America, and on several occasions travelled across the Atlantic, reaching western, central and eastern Europe,” the Copernicus report notes.

Wildfire smoke increases risk of respiratory and cardiovascular illness, putting long-term strain on health-care systems.

A Health Canada study published in 2024 estimates that between 2013 and 2018, air pollution from wildfire smoke contributed to 240 deaths from short-term exposure and 2,500 from long-term exposure, and generated annual health-care costs between $4.7 and $20 billion.

There were 18 days between May and October last year where Winnipeg’s daily average concentration of fine particulate matter — one way to measure wildfire pollutants — exceeded federal limits of 27 micrograms per cubic metre. The average concentration peaked at 57 micrograms per cubic metre in early June.

Only nine days exceeded federal limits in Winnipeg amid Canada’s worst-ever wildfires in 2023.

The trauma of fires, evacuations and destruction will also have far-reaching mental health impacts for impacted communities and the front-line workers responding to the crisis. 

“The mental-health support part of the [health-care] system is one that’s required long after the fire is out,” Jeff Martin, director of emergency and continuity management for Shared Health, said in an interview. 

With its interim review, Manitoba has started to strengthen its wildfire preparedness and response systems across several government departments. In addition to financial investments to boost emergency staffing and firefighting resources, the province plans to improve evacuee support with more culturally-responsive services, smoother registration systems, more robust financial support and more assistance geared at vulnerable populations. It plans to streamline its overall emergency funding processes, update its wildfire response guidelines and improve coordination and communication between agencies and jurisdictions. 

“We were as prepared as we could possibly have been for a season like we had,” Lisa Naylor, the minister responsible for the Emergency Management Organization, said at a news conference this week for the release of the interim report.

“We hope we won’t see a season like that this year and, at the same time, we’re going to be even more prepared.”

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Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Updated Friday, April 24, 2026, at 9:16 CT: This article has been updated to correct how much more the Manitoba government spent on emergency wildfire expenses compared to the total operating budgets of two of its departments. It was 42 per cent more, not 35, as previously stated.

Updated Friday, April 24, 2026, at 10:50 CT: This article has also been updated to correct an earlier statement from the Insurance Bureau of Canada about the total of insured damages from weather-related disasters in recent decades. The bureau clarified the figures were cumulative, not annual, as they had previously stated.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Seven years after a coalition of four northern Manitoba First Nations banded together to conserve the province’s last major undammed river, the Seal River Watershed is now “on the cusp” of permanent protection.

On Friday, the Seal River Watershed Alliance, the province and the federal government released a joint proposal to designate the 50,000-square-kilometre ecosystem — one of the world’s largest intact watersheds — as an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area.

“This announcement is an absolutely historic moment in time where we have all different levels of government [and] … the nations coming together to preserve some of the most beautiful areas in the world,” Manitoba Environment Minister Mike Moyes said Friday. 

“I am so proud to be part of a government that is moving forward on this historic agreement that is going to protect seven per cent of Manitoba.” 

The proposal recommends creating a “mosaic” of national and provincial parks across the region, including a national park on the eastern third of the watershed and a new Indigenous traditional-use provincial park on the western two-thirds.

To accommodate a new national park, the proposal recommends adjusting the boundaries of the three existing wilderness parks, Nueltin Lake, Caribou River and Sand Lakes, and transferring about 18,500 square kilometres of predominantly Crown lands to the federal government. 

The mosaic approach would allow for a variety of economic activities including tourism, recreation and traditional harvesting practices, the proposal says. A little under half of the national park would remain open for licensed hunting and outfitting for 10 years as a “transitional measure,” while hunting, outfitting “and the full range of outdoor activities that typically occur in Manitoba’s provincial parks would continue to be permitted in the new provincial park.”

Industrial activities like mining, hydroelectric developments and forestry would be barred throughout the protected region. Future land management decisions would be made by a joint management board elected by leadership from all parties, the proposal says.

Alongside the proposal — which is open for public comments through EngageMB — the province announced a $4-million endowment contribution to support long-term operational funding for the project. 

“We are celebrating major new investments in the Seal River Watershed, we are sharing a proposal for protecting these lands and waters for all people, and we are breaking trail for what protected areas in the province can look like,” Stephanie Thorassie, executive director of the Seal River Watershed Alliance, said Friday. 

“It’s inspiring to see you standing side by side and talking about our work together. You are showing the world what nation-to-nation-to-nation partnership looks like — not just in words, but in action.”

The Alliance, made up of members from the Sayisi Dene, Northlands Denesuline, Barren Lands and O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nations, formed in 2019. By 2022, it had secured a commitment from provincial and federal governments to explore a protected area in the region.

It took two years — and a change of government — for the parties to sign a memorandum of understanding agreeing to move forward with a feasibility study for the protected area, and to temporarily ban mining in the region. The study was completed in early 2025, concluding that an Indigenous-led protected area was feasible, and would come with ecological, cultural and economic benefits.

The watershed is wintering habitat for scores of caribou and home to more than 30 species at risk, including polar bears, wolverines, belugas and lake sturgeon. The landscape itself stores 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to about eight years’ worth of total greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

Tourism in the region generates about $11 million in revenues per year, according to the feasibility study, and the Alliance has already created about two dozen jobs for community members and youth. 

“This is a practical, community-driven approach. It protects the land and supports opportunities for the future, from land-based education and sustainable tourism, to jobs that keep people rooted in their home,” Rebecca Chartrand, Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs and member of Parliament for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, said Friday. 

In late March, the federal government released its $3.8-billion nature protection strategy, which included a commitment of $74.7 million over 11 years and nearly $8 million in ongoing funding to support the Seal River protected area. 

“The investments announced today will create more opportunities for these youth, opportunities to find jobs and stewardship and tourism, to gain knowledge and training and to feel pride in who they are and the work that they do,” Sayisi Dene Chief Kelly-Ann Thom-Duck said Friday. 

The proposal is now open for public consultation. Manitobans have until June 2 to submit feedback on the plan through the province’s EngageMB portal, including the proposed boundary changes to existing provincial parks and the transfer of Crown land to the federal government for a new national park. 

Public feedback will be shared with the Alliance and Parks Canada to help inform next steps.

“We think this is a very important way to have a safe, clean and healthy environment, to support Indigenous cultures and also to open up new tourist opportunities for Manitobans and Canadians,” Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Friday.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Manitoba released its latest budget last week.
• Conservation groups released a joint statement following the budget’s release saying it does not adequately address environmental issues.
• The Manitoba government points to a new fare-free transit program for youth and an 11 per cent funding increase for the Environment Department, though advocates point out the funds are mostly for existing initiatives.

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The Manitoba government has made big promises to protect and prioritize the environment as it works to boost economic development and become a “have province.” But climate groups say the latest provincial budget, released Wednesday, has failed to deliver.

A coalition of environmental organizations including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), Manitoba Eco-Network and Climate Action Team Manitoba gave the province “a near failing grade for its lack of meaningful investment in climate action and environmental protection,” according to a Friday release.

“Manitoba’s 2026 budget and the past two budgets before it have been extremely disappointing for climate and nature,” Ron Thiessen, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s Manitoba chapter, said in an interview.

“The accelerating rate of extreme wildfires that have been choking our airways show we can’t wait to reduce emissions and protect the lands that remove carbon from the air. We feel quite strongly that without very strong provincial investment in climate and environment, our well-being suffers and health-care costs will continue to rise.”

In late January, the organizations were among more than two dozen local climate, business and labour groups that presented a letter to the government calling for increased investment in energy efficiency initiatives, public and active transportation and land and water protection in this year’s budget.

While Manitoba’s Environment and Climate Change Department saw an 11 per cent funding increase, the funds are predominantly earmarked for existing initiatives, including $10 million in ongoing funding for Efficiency Manitoba’s home energy retrofit program and extending the electric vehicle rebate, which has helped more than 5,000 Manitobans switch to electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles since July 2024.

It also includes a pledge to work with the City of Winnipeg and other municipalities to make transit free for children and youth, acknowledging “public transit is a key component in our path to net zero.”

Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes said the fare-free program will cost approximately $10 million and discussions are currently underway with Manitoba municipalities including Flin Flon, Selkirk, Brandon and Winnipeg about its implementation.

“It’s something I’m hearing lots about in the community and that lots of parents are excited about, both in terms of saving money for bus passes and bus tickets, but it’s also building out the next generation of bus riders,” Moyes said in an interview.

On conservation, the budget reiterated Manitoba’s $250,000 contribution to study the feasibility of a marine conservation area in Hudson Bay as part of the Port of Churchill expansion. The budget also included a modest increase to the parks and trails budget, including $1 million to “fully staff our parks,” capital funds for upgrades at five provincial parks and disaster relief funding to rebuild wildfire-damaged campgrounds at Nopiming Provincial Park.

Environmental organizations say these investments “fall short across the board.”

“The choice to double down on balancing the budget while further cutting taxes is pushing greater climate costs and devastation onto the next generation, while missing myriad opportunities to grow low-carbon industries and jobs,” Laura Cameron, director of Climate Action Team Manitoba, said in Friday’s release.

“A climate plan without investment is simply a wish list.”

Thiessen said he applauds the province’s conservation efforts and its commitment to 30-by-30 targets — targets adopted at the 2022 United Nations Convention on Biodiversity to conserve 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030. But a “revolutionary investment” is needed to meet that ambitious goal, Thiessen said, including a funded plan to support Indigenous communities identifying and planning new protected areas, and support for new parks and campgrounds within a 200-kilometre radius of Winnipeg.

“We’re seeing serious and accelerated new investments in development, which is much needed, however, we’re not seeing the investments in climate and conservation to balance those outcomes,” Thiessen said.

While the report card called the free youth transit program “a positive step, and a great affordability measure,” climate action groups and transit unions have been calling for the province to increase operational funding for Winnipeg Transit, and ultimately restore the 50-50 funding partnership with the municipality.

“Public transit is one of the most effective tools we have to reduce emissions and improve affordability, yet the government continues to underinvest in the services Manitobans rely on every day,” Cameron said in the release.

Asked to respond to the failing grade from environmental groups, Moyes said the province is “incredibly proud” of its climate record thus far.

“We recognize that we’ve achieved a lot, but that there’s more to do,” he said.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.