Like many farmers, Nick Matheson has multiple weather apps on his phone. 

“If I find something I don’t like, I switch apps,” he laughs during a phone interview.

No amount of forecasting, however, could have prepared Matheson for the deluge of rain that hit his Stonewall-area grain and cattle farm this spring — or for the lingering challenges that have trickled through the rest of his season.

“I’m still in it,” he says in mid-October. “And I won’t be out of it until the snow flies at this point. And even then, I’ll probably be dealing with some residual effects come next spring.”

The region north of Winnipeg was drenched with 255 millimetres of rain over a 13-hour period on June 9 — a storm the local mayor described as “unprecedented.” Matheson awoke to an overflowing rain gauge, hail damage and 300 acres — a quarter of his cropland — destroyed by flooding. A promising year with “unreal” early-season germination was quashed overnight.

Since then, his herd of 100 cow-calf pairs has been plagued by insects and hoof rot, a bacterial infection triggered by muddy conditions. Harvest hasn’t gone much better. During a recent tour of his property 30 kilometres north of Winnipeg, Matheson points out patchy wheat and flax fields with poor yields and subpar plant quality. He’s also fighting weeds that have thrived in damaged fields.

Matheson, 42, is the sixth generation of his family to farm this land. Despite several recent years of drought, the extreme weather of 2026 stands out.

“It’s the worst Dad’s seen. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Matheson says. “But we just make do, pick ourselves up and try to not let it get in our head. … You’ve just gotta roll with the punches.”

Extreme weather events, from floods to droughts to wildfires, are expected to become more frequent and severe with climate change. Those in Manitoba’s agriculture sector are split on how to prepare for these kinds of unpredictable events and whether mitigation is even possible.

‘Keep the wolves at bay’: Insurance payouts in the millions keep farmers afloat

Matheson is one of hundreds of farmers to make insurance claims with the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation related to overland flooding this season. The provincial Crown corporation, which covers weather-related farm perils, paid out $11 million this year for 478 excess moisture claims on about 157,000 acres that were too wet to seed, David Van Deynze, the corporation’s chief product officer, says. It also received 790 crop damage claims across 180,000 acres; those payouts won’t be tallied until after harvest season.

Since most farmers pay for seed and inputs like fertilizer upfront, often through loans, insurance can be an important business tool when the weather goes sideways, Van Deynze says in an interview.

“Requirements to pay off those loans on an annual basis don’t stop, whether you have a good crop or a bad crop,” he says. “We hope insurance can keep the wolves at bay and allow them to continue to farm.”

Van Deynze says excess moisture insurance has become a “very major” part of the corporation’s portfolio since it was introduced in 2000, with drought being the other main cause of crop loss in Manitoba. 

He believes losses from the extreme drought of 2021, which saw Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation pay a record $570 million in indemnities, would’ve been worse without modern farming adaptations, such as new crop varieties and minimum tillage, which aims to limit the amount of soil plowed during seeding and after harvest.

At the same time, Van Deynze says there’s often little farmers can do to prepare for localized natural disasters. 

“No matter how hard you try … to mitigate losses, it seems like there’s still times where Mother Nature’s going to win out,” he says.

Farmers see risks, but also benefits, from a changing climate

Despite the spectre of extreme weather, many who spoke with The Narwhal/Free Press are optimistic about the possible agricultural benefits of climate change — such as warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons.

“I live in northern Manitoba, if the environment is warming, it’s good for me from an economic perspective,” rancher Peter Tokar says. “It will bring about new pests and whatnot, but I think with the way I manage things … I should be the most resilient when it happens.”

Tokar grows cash crops and manages 450 head of cattle on 2,200 acres of grassland near Swan River, Man. He credits regenerative farming practices for saving his season after the region 500 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg was hit with a once-in-a-200-year flash flood in June, followed by a second major downpour less than a month later. It was Swan River’s fourth-wettest summer on record, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

When the water receded, part of his pastureland was covered with more than a foot of silt deposited from the nearby Duck Mountain Provincial Park escarpment. 

The shelterbelts around Tokar’s property kept floodwater debris at bay and his pastures recovered quickly thanks to years of rotational grazing, a practice of moving livestock frequently through small sections of pasture which allows grazed areas to regrow and helps improve soil structure, carbon sequestration and water dynamics. He expects the silt-covered fields to bounce back over the next year.

“What I have been doing actually worked really, really well,” he says.

While Tokar enjoys the environmental benefits of rotational grazing, he ultimately adopted the practice for cost-saving reasons. His cows need less feed because they’re able to graze for longer and leaving fields idle requires less fuel, labour and fewer chemicals, like pesticides, he says.

Tokar has found like-minded peers through the Manitoba Forage & Grassland Association, which promotes regenerative agricultural practices within the livestock industry. Soil and water health are “vitally important” to extreme weather and climate resilience, Duncan Morrison, the association’s executive director, says.

The grassland association has developed a climate forecasting tool, called Aquanty, to help local producers understand how extreme weather and heat will impact their groundwater supply and what kinds of management tools, such as rotational grazing, can be deployed today to protect those resources.

“We’re interested in how we can recharge the aquifer through grasslands and wetlands, which are both key parts of grazing systems,” Morrison says.

The Aquanty project recently expanded to several cattle-producing regions in Alberta, B.C., Ontario and Quebec with funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Manitoba has 14 watershed districts that provide farmers with funding for projects that protect local water resources and improve regional climate resilience. The Prairie Watersheds Climate Program, for example, incentivizes the use of rotational grazing, nitrogen management and cover cropping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve soil health.

The Swan Lake Watershed District — which encompasses Swan River and a 7,200-square-kilometre section of Manitoba’s northern parkland region — has been inundated by applications from farmers for stream-bank-stabilization projects to shore up on-farm riverbanks eroded by this year’s flooding. 

“I had eight projects for 2027 and that just got blown out of the water,” district manager Edward Shao says. “I think I have 45 file folders on my desk that were brought in after July.” 

Shao spends much of his time encouraging farmers to maintain the natural features of their land — like shelterbelts, wetlands and riparian zones — that act as buffers during extreme weather events. Preventative measures can be a hard sell in normal times, due to the financial pressures of industrial farming, he says. 

“A lot of producers farm up to the water’s edge and crop every inch of land,” Shao says, adding the worst damage occurred on farms without the aforementioned buffers.

“There might not be any effects when there’s no flooding, but in a year like this you see a lot of impact.” 

Shao acknowledges there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to climate resilience, but hopes this year’s flood helps locals prepare for future extreme weather events.

‘I don’t have that crystal ball’: farmers prepare for a future of reacting to change

Back in Stonewall, Nick Matheson isn’t planning on changing how he manages his farm in light of this year’s flooding. He says he already practices minimal tillage, plants cover crops between annual harvests and keeps wetlands on his property intact.

“I don’t think there’s a lot I can plan for because I don’t have that crystal ball to see further in the future, so I’ll probably just carry on with what I’m doing,” he says.

Robert Misko, a grain farmer and head of council for the Municipality of Roblin, agrees that extreme weather is hard to plan for — even with the cutting-edge management practices.

“We try to use whatever technology that’s going to make us more efficient and more sustainable. Farmers, we’re pretty adaptive,” Misko, who manages a 7,000-acre grain operation, says.

Agriculture accounts for 27 per cent of Manitoba’s greenhouse gas emissions, but, at the moment, Misko doesn’t see many viable alternatives for individual farmers to make a dent in that number.

“We rely on diesel. I can’t buy an electric combine. I can’t buy an electric tractor to pull an air seeder,” he says.

“Climate change is sadly something that, as farmers, we have very limited control over and we don’t really have a lot of levers that we can pull to slow it down. We just have to try to adapt to it,” he adds.

Eva Wasney 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.

A group of students, residents and environmental advocates gathered in Winnipeg on Friday afternoon to discuss Indigenous sovereignty and the future of northern Manitoba.

The event at the University of Manitoba was the final stop on the Arctic Crossroads tour, an Indigenous-led public engagement campaign highlighting the potential impacts of proposed major infrastructure projects on northern First Nation communities. The tour also stopped in Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Churchill and Brandon, Man., this week.

Event host Clayton Thomas-Müller — a local climate activist, author and member of Pukatawagan Cree Nation — said concerns raised by attendees run counter to Premier Wab Kinew’s assertion earlier this year that there is no Indigenous opposition to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline to Churchill.

“There is a ton of Indigenous concern, as well as fear to speak out,” Thomas-Müller, the Arctic and Hudson Bay campaigner for Climate Reality Project Canada, said in an interview ahead of Friday’s event. 

“A lot of folks in Churchill are arm’s length away from government-funded agencies — the ecotourism industry is very much wrapped up in both federal and provincial interests and funding streams — and so folks don’t want to speak out.”

The federal and provincial governments want to introduce year-round shipping and build an offshore LNG terminal at the Port of Churchill, which is owned by the Arctic Gateway Group. The proposal to expand the deep-water Arctic port includes a new energy corridor, an all-weather road, critical mineral storage and an upgraded rail line through northern Manitoba.

In an emailed statement, Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes described the Port of Churchill expansion as a historic opportunity and said his government is committed to working closely with Indigenous and northern communities on the project. He pointed to provincial and federal efforts to establish a national marine conservation area in western Hudson Bay as a way to balance economic growth and environmental stewardship.

Feasibility studies related to the port expansion have flagged concerns about the impact of increased shipping on Hudson Bay’s sensitive marine ecosystem and resident species, including polar bears and beluga whales.  

During the tour, participants expressed worries about the cumulative effects of climate change and increased industrial activity on access to traditional hunting, trapping and fishing grounds, Thomas-Müller said. 

“There’s no Safeway up where I come from in Pukatawagan, and a lot of our people still depend on country foods,” he adds. Pukatawagan is one of 29 First Nations with an ownership stake in the Arctic Gateway Group.

Attendees also raised concerns about the social implications of the proposed northern resource projects.

“A community member in Churchill said one of his biggest fears is Churchill becoming one giant ‘man camp,’ and what that would mean for the safety of not only his sisters but future women and girls in the community,” panelist Kakeká ThunderSky, an Anishinaabkwe member of Poplar River First Nation, said.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls found high rates of violence against Indigenous women connected to work camps, or “man camps,” associated with the resource extraction industry.

In Winnipeg, ThunderSky also emphasized the importance of thinking about the multigenerational impacts of energy and mining projects. “Whatever we do to the land, we do to the children,” she said.

Questions and comments from those in attendance ranged from tactics for engaging future generations in resource-development resistance to Treaty Rights to self-care.

ThunderSky, the northern and rural coordinator for Climate Action Team Manitoba, was joined on the panel by Indigenous youth organizers and land defenders from Ontario and British Columbia who have advocated for better government consultation and opposed industrial development projects in their home communities. 

“It’s important to bring people who have had these experiences and have gone through similar things in their territories, to share and talk about what the reality is and what it actually is like and to push back on these narratives,” ThunderSky said. “We’re not alone in this.”

Denzel Sutherland-Wilson hails from the Gitxsan village of Anspayaxw in northwestern B.C. and is a member of the Fireweed Clan of the house of Git’luuhl’um’hetxw’it. He was arrested by the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group — a unit tasked with policing resource extraction protests — in 2021 while resisting the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. 

Sutherland-Wilson sought to share what he learned during that experience with Manitoba audiences. He believes Indigenous solidarity will be integral as Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to fast-track major national projects through Bill C-39, the Build Canada Strong Act. First Nation leaders across the country have opposed the bill, which would centralize Indigenous consultations and limit the timeline for environmental assessments.

“We need to find creative and new ways to resist on our own terms,” Sutherland-Wilson said. “We have to have our own people’s safety and security [in mind]. We have to develop strong protocols and … collectives that are accountable to one another, rooted in our own culture, in our ceremonies and our ways of life.”

Thomas-Müller hopes this week’s speaking tour inspires political engagement locally and nationally. Climate Action Team Manitoba has launched a petition opposing the LNG pipeline to Churchill. 

“We need to go back to the drawing board and create economic plans that don’t create sacrifice zones across the country … disproportionately in Indigenous communities, in our lands that we depend on,” he said.

Eva Wasney 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.

It’s a grey September afternoon, and a small group is gathered for a special behind-the-scenes visit with Assiniboine Park Zoo’s newest resident. 

“Heeeeere, bubba,” animal-care specialist Caitlin Gordon-Hall hollers from between a double layer of chain-link fencing.

After a beat, a small white face appears at the entrance of the private enclosure. The polar bear cub sniffs the air before trundling toward the fence, where his keepers have been working to encourage calm behaviour around humans ahead of his public debut today.

Gordon-Hall offers sing-song affirmations while the cub, who is nearly 200 pounds and 10 or 11 months old, observes the fawning strangers with guarded curiosity. 

The young bear is objectively cute. With his round, fluffy frame and oversized paws, he looks more like a gift-shop stuffie than an apex predator.

A low, persistent growl, however, is a reminder that his natural instincts are still intact. 

“In the wild, his mama would have taught him: if there’s people there, make yourself big, make noise,” Gordon-Hall says. 

But his mama isn’t here. The cub, whose official zoo name will be chosen by public voting, is an orphan.

It’s been an intensive period of relearning for the cub, who, prior to arriving at the zoo in August, spent his days roaming the tundra near Churchill, Man. 

Today’s 20-minute visit is part of a series of exposure sessions designed to desensitize the bear to the zoo’s forthcoming crowds. A few minutes into the exercise and the cub is busy scratching his back on the fence, seemingly content that the nearby photojournalist’s long lens and camera shutter pose no threat. 

This isn’t the first polar bear cub to make the trek from the shore of Hudson Bay to a zoo enclosure. And he won’t be the last.

The plight of polar bears in the face of climate change has been well-documented, and the fate of bears with less sea ice has meant they get into trouble with humans more often, with bears usually paying the price. Policy has shifted over the decades, but young orphan cubs still stand little chance of survival in the wild. Life in a zoo may be an imperfect solution — but it’s one that keeps the bear alive.

As the session ends, the group heads through the locked gate of the cub care centre, where a pair of zoo visitors are peering through the slats. They pepper the staff with questions: How is the cub doing? Will he be rooming with the other six bears? When will we be able to see him?

It’s been nine years since the last orphaned cub was transferred from Churchill, the “Polar Bear Capital of the World,” to the Winnipeg zoo. Public excitement in the south is palpable, while some northern residents are wary of a previously wild animal spending the rest of its life in captivity.

Orphan cub’s mother was found near the Churchill dump — which has long posed issues for polar bears

Kelsey Eliasson, a Churchill polar bear guide and filmmaker, encountered the bear and his mother when they lived in the wild. He knew them by the nicknames “Marrón” or “Maury” and “Blanca” — Spanish for brown and white, respectively. 

“She was a super clean, super white bear, and then Marrón was kind of dirty and muddy, like every cub,” Eliasson says over the phone. 

Eliasson spent several days documenting the pair this summer as they hunkered down in the rocks along the shore of Hudson Bay. During the warmer months, bears can often be found in an area east of town hunting for seals while trying to beat the heat and bugs.

Blanca, who was recognizable by a scar on her ear, looked healthy while she wrestled and rested with her cub, Eliasson says.

But in mid-August, the mother bear was found dead roughly a kilometre from the Churchill garbage dump. Her cause of death remains unknown, and the results of a necropsy are still pending, a provincial spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Bears have been visiting the dump with more frequency since the spring of 2024, when the town’s enclosed waste transfer facility was destroyed in a fire.

“Last year it was non-stop,” Geoff York, vice-president of science and policy for Polar Bears International, a non-profit research and conservation organization, says over a video call.

Sending orphan cubs to Winnipeg zoo has a complicated history

For a long time, there were few rules governing the lives of polar bears in Manitoba. 

The provincial government frequently exported orphaned cubs and problem bears to zoos around the world until the late 1990s, when three Churchill-born bears were discovered performing in a travelling Mexican circus. The bears had been purchased from a zoo in Germany and were living in sweltering conditions without access to water.

Widespread media coverage and public condemnation led to the creation of Manitoba’s Polar Bear Protection Act, which regulates the care and treatment of polar bears in captivity. Under the legislation, the province retains ownership of captive bears sent elsewhere, and their offspring, in perpetuity. 

The act changed Assiniboine Park Zoo’s relationship with the charismatic predators as well.

The zoo has housed polar bears since at least 1939, when an orphaned seven-week-old cub, dubbed Charmichael, arrived via train after his mother was shot by a trapper on the shore of Hudson Bay, according to a Winnipeg Tribune article from the time. 

Bears remained a popular fixture at the zoo until the death of Debby, the world’s oldest known polar bear, in 2008 at the age of 41. Her concrete enclosure was deemed too small and ill-equipped by Manitoba Conservation standards to host a new bear without significant renovations.

Amendments to the Polar Bear Protection Act created rules for rescuing orphaned cubs and paved the way for the Leatherdale International Polar Bear Conservation Centre. The $4.5-million research lab and cub transition centre opened at the zoo in 2012, followed by three new polar bear habitats at the 10-acre Journey to Churchill exhibit in 2014.

Decisions to send an orphaned cub to Winnipeg are made on a case-by-case basis with input from an advisory committee of provincial appointees, zoo administrators and polar bear experts. Age is a significant consideration since polar bear cubs typically spend two years with their mothers learning to hunt and navigate. Orphans less than a year old stand little chance of survival in the wild.

Eleven cubs were transferred to the zoo between 2013 and 2017 — a pace that sparked public outrage in Churchill and pushed the Winnipeg facility’s capacity to the limit. The zoo is currently home to seven rescued polar bears, including the new cub. 

 “There’s definitely been times when we were worried about our ability to take new bears,” Stephen Petersen, Assiniboine Park Conservancy’s director of conservation and research, says, referring to space constraints.

There are few other options. The province has conducted two foster parenting studies with the Born Free Foundation, a British animal welfare organization, to determine if mother polar bears with one healthy cub would adopt a second. The project was cancelled due to lack of success. 

A rare case of wild adoption was observed in Manitoba last year, when a mother polar bear was seen travelling with a second cub. It was the 13th documented case of adoption in the western Hudson Bay subpopulation.

Orphaned cubs raised in captivity can’t currently be returned to the wild because they lack hunting skills and natural instincts.

That leaves the zoo. The province has updated its cub management policy since the first influx of orphans and the zoo now only takes bears whose mothers have died through suspected conflict with humans, Petersen says.

One of those points of conflict can come from garbage dumps.

‘Polar bears will break into everything’: Churchill garbage dump struggles to keep bears out

Dealing with municipal garbage in a northern community like Churchill, which is surrounded by rocky, intermittently frozen ground and hundreds of polar bears, poses challenges. While the previous facility allowed for indoor garbage sorting and storage, the 2024 fire forced the Town of Churchill to return to an open-dump system with an electrified fence. 

“The trash doesn’t just sit nicely inside this little fenced-in area. It gets pulled out by animals, and it gets blown out by the wind. So it’s created quite an attractant,” York, who specializes in reducing conflict between bears and humans, says.

Dozens of bears were able to break into the dump site when the electric fence failed during a storm, he adds. The barrier has since been upgraded with funding from Polar Bears International. The group plans to install new bear-deterrent technology in the town and dumpsite.

Churchill is in the process of rebuilding its garbage facility and is developing a long-term waste management strategy, a municipal spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The town also plans to revisit the feasibility of trash incineration — a concept that was shelved following the fire but has proven beneficial in other northern communities, like Nuuk, Greenland, where the energy generated from burning household garbage is used to heat homes. 

Eliasson thinks incineration should be given higher priority.

“Churchill has been talking about an incinerator [for a long time] and … we’re just not building one. It’s the only solution,” he says. “Polar bears will break into everything else.”

Polar bears, impacted by climate change, are increasingly moving into towns

The western Hudson Bay subpopulation, which includes Churchill and ranges from Chesterfield Inlet in Nunavut to the Manitoba-Ontario border, is the most researched group of polar bears in the world, according to Polar Bears International. 

There are roughly 800 bears living in the territory today, representing a 30 per cent population decline over the last 46 years due to shrinking sea ice caused by climate change, Evan Richardson, a polar bear research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, says.

“This is one of the most southern polar bear populations in the world, and it was among the first to show impacts of reduced sea ice availability on individual body condition, growth, reproduction and survival,” Richardson says. 

Polar bears make their living on the ice, using the frozen platforms to hunt for seals. Open water makes the speedy prey increasingly harder to catch. 

The Hudson Bay population is experiencing an era of relative stability thanks to several good ice seasons, Richardson says. While this gives current generations of bears a positive start, the survival of the species is dependent on the long-term health of their environment.  

“Polar bears don’t occur anywhere where there’s not persistent annual sea ice, and so as the habitat melts, it threatens the bears’ existence,” he says.

Climate change is further straining the coexistence of bears and humans in northern Manitoba. 

“It’s a bit of a perfect storm,” York says. “Less ice means the area is more accessible to more human activity. At the same time, more bears are spending more time on shore.”

As the ice-free season grows longer, Hudson Bay is seeing more traffic, whether it be freight, tourism or research. In Manitoba, the provincial and federal governments are keen to expand operations at the Port of Churchill to include year-round shipping, an all-weather road, an upgraded rail line and a liquefied natural gas terminal — all of which will bring more people and disturbance to the region. 

To ease the pressure on residents — bears and humans alike — York believes the governments should focus on shoring up local infrastructure, including Churchill’s garbage facility, before embarking on major national projects in remote northern communities.

“Take a quick step back and say, ‘Hey, what’s needed here today for the people who are there now?’ ” he says. “This waste management need has been acute, and we haven’t had the best luck getting the attention we think it merits, from the human-health side, but also the environmental-health and wildlife-health side.”

There have been 159 bear sightings and encounters reported so far this year in Churchill to the province’s Polar Bear Alert Program — a 24-hour hotline designed to minimize dangerous interactions while the animals move ashore from mid-July to mid-November.

If a bear is reported near the town or dump, Manitoba Conservation officers will chase them away with non-lethal scaring devices, such as noisemakers or flares. “Problem bears” that return repeatedly or refuse to leave the area are placed in the province’s polar bear holding facility near the Churchill airport and relocated more remotely via helicopter. Seven bears have been flown out of town this year.

The holding facility, colloquially known as polar bear jail, is also where orphaned cubs begin their journey to Winnipeg.

‘A really smart little bear, and he’s doing very well’

After his mother died, the zoo’s new cub was captured by conservation officers and held in polar bear jail while decisions were made about his future. Within a week, he was on a plane to Winnipeg accompanied by veterinary staff from the zoo. 

His first 30 days were spent in medical quarantine at the cub care centre, which includes indoor and outdoor enclosure space with a shallow pool, foliage and natural ground cover for digging. 

The cub’s introduction to captivity has been closely managed by a small circle of trainers.

“It has gone through a traumatic event of losing its mother,” Jackie Enberg, the zoo’s curator of animal care, says. “We’re here to offer a safe home and daily care. … A lot of that is relationship building and a good diet.”

Enberg has overseen the transitions for all of the cubs transferred to the zoo. Unsurprisingly, food is the fastest way to a polar bear’s heart.

Once the cub’s stomach adjusted to his new diet of ground meat, fish and “marine mammal chow” — a kind of dry kibble — his trainers added tong-feeding sessions to the menu. The goal is to associate humans with food delivery and reward calm behaviour, which can help with future vet checkups. 

Visitor exposure sessions were added post-quarantine. Over several weeks, the cub’s trainers paid close attention to his behaviour as larger groups of zoo staff and patrons stopped by his enclosure for longer periods of time. If he showed signs of distress, such as charging the fence or growling, the process was slowed, Enberg says.

So far, the cub has adapted to captivity as well as expected. (A fecal cortisol study conducted on bears at the zoo, and published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology earlier this year, found orphaned cubs can adjust to living under human care within two weeks of relocation.)

“I’m really impressed with how far he’s gotten. He’s just a really smart little bear, and he’s doing very well,” Enberg says. “And he’s spunky.” 

That spunky temperament may come into play when the cub is big enough to integrate with the zoo’s adult polar bears. Staff use personality assessments developed in the onsite research lab to determine which bears will mesh well together. The cub joins a long line of Assiniboine Park polar bears involved in local and international research programs — from non-invasive tracking techniques to whiskerprint identification to thermal imaging. Scientists at the zoo are also studying how climate change is impacting denning in the Arctic and how stress affects a bear’s DNA. 

“We really want the bears in our care to participate in as much research that contributes to wild bear and bear welfare overall as possible,” Petersen says.

For the zoo, the new cub promises to boost ticket sales as a novel attraction while serving as an ambassador for his northern brethren. 

It’s a tough sell for Eliasson, the Churchill polar bear guide, who would rather see orphaned cubs returned to the wild or paired with adoptive mothers. 

“It’s 2026, and Manitoba has a polar bear cub rehabilitation centre where the only option is to fly the cub to Winnipeg and put it in a zoo. To me, that doesn’t sound like rehabilitation,” he says. 

Petersen, however, says release isn’t a viable option. 

“Putting a grown, healthy bear that has relied on humans for all its food back on the landscape is just a huge risk to communities further north,” he says. 

Meanwhile, the cub is spending his days climbing logs and splashing in the pool of his enclosure as visitors watch from beyond the fence.

And soon, he’ll have a new name. The public can vote for Duke, Marly, Fletcher or Mantayo — ideas compiled by students from the Duke of Marlborough School in Churchill that speak to landmarks in the North.

Updated Oct. 13, 2026 at 11:56 a.m. CT: This story has been updated to correct the fact that Nuuk is located in Greenland, not Nunavut as previously stated.

Eva Wasney 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.

Patricia Dutchak was devastated when she first saw the wide swaths of crushed grass and upturned soil at Winnipeg’s Rotary Prairie Nature Park, a municipal heritage site.

“This is a very rare ecosystem, a remnant of tallgrass prairie, there’s barely any left in the world, and to come here and see all this damage was heartbreaking,” Dutchak, chair of the Transcona Rotary Club’s parks committee, says. 

The club is responsible for maintaining the protected green space, which was significantly damaged this summer when a fence between the park and the neighbouring Amazon distribution centre was relocated.

The eight-hectare nature preserve is situated on a narrow tract of land on Regent Avenue West in the commercial heart of Winnipeg’s Transcona neighbourhood. The park received its municipal heritage designation in 1992 and is, today, surrounded by high-traffic streets, industrial warehouses and car dealerships. 

In early August, a contractor hired by Amazon moved a section of chain-link fence running along the distribution centre’s parking lot a couple of metres to the west toward the park. The work was carried out to allow for safer snow and ice removal over the winter, an Amazon spokesperson said in an email statement. 

During the process, grass and shrubs along both sides of the fence were mowed down and dumped in the park without permission from the Rotary Club. Wooden fence posts marking the western perimeter of the preserve were removed, leaving deep holes in the soil, and a black plastic pipe originating from the Amazon facility was left snaking through the grass.

Dutchak was alerted to the situation by a member of the public, who shared footage of a skid steer being driven inside the park, leaving wide tracks of trampled greenery. 

“The person I would really like to talk to is the operator of the equipment. What were you thinking? At the minimum, it’s trespassing,” Dutchak says during an interview at the site last Thursday.

She hopes those responsible for the damage will be held accountable for the park’s restoration.

The city is investigating and working toward a resolution, a city spokesperson said in a statement. 

The Amazon spokesperson says the company is reviewing its internal procedures, its oversight of the third-party contractor and plans to make a financial contribution to support the stewardship of the park. The Bezos Earth Fund, an environmental charity started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has committed $2 billion globally to nature conservation projects.

New threats to an already-threatened tallgrass prairie landscape

Tallgrass prairie was once ubiquitous across North America, covering the central plains of the continent from southern Manitoba to the Gulf of Mexico. As European settlers colonized the prairies, much of the existing grassland was converted to farmland. 

Today, less than one per cent of the original tallgrass prairie habitat remains, making it one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world.

The Rotary Prairie Nature Park is an example of “wet” tallgrass prairie, meaning its heavy clay soil is especially effective at diverting and storing surface water, Rafael Otfinowski, associate professor of biology at the University of Winnipeg, says. 

“That could give away why it’s still conserved,” Otfinowski says. “If you’re trying to build or farm, often you go for the best land first. So some of the areas that are best preserved in Manitoba for tallgrass prairie … are very rocky and very poorly drained.”

In passing, the Rotary nature preserve looks like an overgrown field with a narrow walking path and a smattering of aspen. The ecological reality is much more complex. 

The area is a remnant prairie ecosystem, meaning it has never been ploughed. Surveys by the city’s naturalist services branch have identified 142 different plant species in the park since 1993. The site is also home to a number of rare native Manitoba plants, including blue flowering gentians, mountain sneezeweed and whorled milkweed. Small songbirds can be seen among the flora.

The park’s iconic grass, big bluestem, is commemorated in a metal sculpture at its southern entrance. Unlike the shallow root systems of lawn and ornamental grasses, bluestem roots can extend several metres underground. 

“They have very, very deep root systems, which means they can build, essentially, a composter that goes deep into the soil and does all kinds of wonderful things — from nutrients to carbon [sequestration] to water storage,” Otfinowski says. “That takes many years to develop … so they really do require a special, long-term, undisturbed environment where they can thrive.”

Winnipeg has several hectares of unconnected tallgrass prairie preserves. These islands act as important seasonal “cafeterias” for pollinators and migrating birds since native plants tend to have longer blooming periods than their cultivated counterparts.

Beyond the ecological benefits, the preservation of these sites can serve as a form of reconciliation, Otfinowski says.

“The cultural reasons, the historic reasons, the social reasons are huge — especially inside an urban area,” he says. “It’s a form of acknowledging what our ecosystems were before settlement.”

Dutchak worries about the external threats facing the green space. 

She has documented unauthorized encampments and fire pits on the grounds and has heard rumblings from residents about turning the grassland into sports fields.  

“I don’t want to be living in the generation where this is going to disappear,” she says.

How to bring back a tallgrass prairies

Restoring damaged tallgrass prairie is a time-sensitive process. 

“Within a year or two of disturbance happening, you can have a really bad non-native species takeover,” John Morgan, a retired ecologist who spent most of his career restoring tallgrass prairie ecosystems in Manitoba, says. 

Native prairie plants evolved under different circumstances than the opportunistic weeds brought over from Europe during colonization, Morgan explains. 

Most non-native species, such as dandelions and Canada thistle, have adapted to grow quickly in bare soil because they evolved alongside western agriculture, where the ground is tilled annually. Tallgrass prairies in North America, on the other hand, grew alongside 60 million grazing bison, Morgan says.

While prairie grasslands can withstand harsh above-ground conditions thanks to deep, slow-growing root systems, they struggle to compete with more aggressive plants when their landscape is disturbed. 

“They’re very tough as far as the climate goes and the vagaries of floods and droughts,” Morgan says. 

“[But] most of the grassland species here, with very few exceptions, are not really competitive. They didn’t have to be for thousands of years.”

Within the first few months of damage to a tall grass prairie, Morgan recommends replanting with native seeds and developing a long-term plan for weed control. It can be a challenging but worthwhile endeavour, he says.

“Every little bit that you lose is a significant amount of the remainder,” he says. “We all hear about the South American rainforest and how fast that’s disappearing … in Manitoba we have what I call the rainforest of the prairies, which is the tallgrass prairie.”

Eva Wasney is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Updated Oct. 6, 2026 at 12:08 p.m. CT: This article was updated to remove an image and a map that depicted grasslands that were not specifically tallgrass prairie grasslands.

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.

As other western provinces struggle to address the environmental and economic fallout from thousands of orphan oil and gas wells, only a tiny portion of Manitoba’s petroleum infrastructure is sitting idle and unclaimed. 

But it’s unclear, however, if the province’s small roster of orphan wells is the byproduct of effective regulation — or a historic lack of departmental oversight. Manitoba’s oil and gas industry is relatively small and generally opaque. None of the experts contacted for this story had direct knowledge of the province’s orphan-well landscape.

“My lab has probably measured the most non-producing wells in the country. I don’t think anybody I know is working on it [in Manitoba] who are in the academic realm,” Mary Kang, an associate professor in civil engineering at McGill University, says.

The province’s petroleum branch has only been compiling and sharing orphan-well data for the past five years. Its 2025 inventory lists 31 well sites without a legally or financially responsible owner, which make up less than one per cent of the 4,000 wells currently producing oil in Manitoba.

The reasons for this are many: Manitoba’s oil and gas industry is smaller than other western provinces, allowing for regular inspections of batteries and most producing wells, according to an emailed statement from a provincial spokesperson.

But the intricacies of regulation also differ across the provinces. At the same time, the government body tasked with keeping tabs on the issue has been chronically understaffed. Whether Manitoba offers a lesson for other provinces or if it should be eyeing the rapidly escalating orphan well inventories of its neighbours with caution remains to be seen.

Environmental impacts of old wells can include methane, contamination

Orphan wells are oil or gas drilling sites that have been left to languish without being properly cleaned up, often because the company that owns them has gone bankrupt. Wells are often thousands of metres deep and these sites can leak methane, a potent and volatile greenhouse gas, and contaminate soil, air and groundwater.

A 2025 study co-authored by Kang suggests Canada’s non-producing oil and gas wells emit a combined 230 kilotonnes of methane per year — a figure seven times higher than estimates from Environment and Climate Change Canada. Wells that have been properly sealed with cement and decommissioned are referred to as plugged or “abandoned.” Most orphan wells are not yet plugged.

“In general, plugged wells emit less [methane] and are less of an environmental concern,” Kang says, adding unplugged wells are a bigger concern. “But even among unplugged wells, some emit nothing and some emit a lot.”

Orphan well inventories can grow ‘in leaps and bounds’

Orphan wells are an issue that can expand quickly.

“The concern is that the inventory can grow in leaps and bounds from year to year. We just saw that happen here in Alberta,” Amanda Bryant, manager of the oil and gas program at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental think tank, says. 

Alberta’s orphan-well inventory ballooned to more than 7,300 sites this year after thousands of wells owned by an insolvent Calgary-based oil company were transferred to the province’s Orphan Well Association.

The association — a non-profit funded by industry — is responsible for decommissioning and cleaning up orphan oil and gas sites. Alberta had fewer than 300 orphan wells when the organization was founded in 2002.

That exponential growth is due to poor provincial regulation, Bryant says. 

“The main problem is that there’s nothing stopping companies from deferring the costs of closure and cleanup,” she says. “The other half is the so-called liability-dumping behaviour that a lot of companies engage in.”

The practice of liability dumping cited by Bryant has made insolvency a growing concern as larger companies sell off risky assets to smaller companies, which critics say happens with too little financial vetting from the regulator.

As in Manitoba, oil and gas companies in Alberta are legally required to clean up well sites that are no longer in use. Yet, because the Alberta Energy Regulator provides no concrete timelines for closing unused wells, operators often leave the sites for years or decades to avoid paying clean-up costs. 

If a company files for bankruptcy prior to remediation, that cost is passed on to the Orphan Well Association. Taxpayers can be left footing some of  the bill for closure costs — which carry an estimated $1.66-billion price tag — due the association’s lack of adequate funding, while also covering delinquent oil and gas companies’ unpaid oil and gas land rent and taxes owed to municipalities.

To address the issue, the Pembina Institute has recommended increasing the orphan-well levy, enacting an escalating inactive-well fee and introducing strict timelines for cleanup.

The situation is similar in Saskatchewan, which has nearly 4,500 orphan wells, and British Columbia, which has 998.

Manitoba’s unique regulatory environment

Manitoba’s oil and gas industry is an outlier in several ways. 

For one, it has a comparatively small oil patch, which is concentrated in the southwest corner of the province and dominated by Tundra Oil & Gas — a locally owned subsidiary of James Richardson & Sons. 

It also differs in provincial regulation. Operators have to submit an application to suspend drilling at a well site to the petroleum branch. Suspensions are valid for a maximum of three years, after which the company needs to apply for an extension.

“What it means is that Manitoba has a much lower proportion of its wells that are in a suspended state,” Bryant says. “If [wells] sit there in a state of inactivity for a long time … there’s a risk that they’ll end up orphans, and so that’s a positive policy move that the province has taken.”

Unlike other provinces, where insolvency is a driving force, most of Manitoba’s orphan wells are the result of petroleum branch seizures following non-compliance of shutdown orders or failure to meet regulatory requirements, a provincial spokesperson said. 

If a seized well is capable of producing oil, the province can sell the facility or transfer the licence to a new owner.  

Nearly all of the companies with orphan wells are still actively drilling elsewhere in the oil patch.

Four inspectors are now employed in Manitoba’s petroleum branch, up from one

Manitoba has been addressing orphan wells for many years, according to the province, but only released its first consolidated inventory in 2021, with an update posted publicly last year. 

Of the 23 wells listed on the original inventory, all but six remained orphaned in 2025, according to a Narwhal/Free Press analysis of the publicly available records. The others were removed from the list after their status was updated to abandoned (as in, properly plugged) in 2022.

The 2025 batch of 25 seized wells is largely due to improved staffing capacity, allowing the department to clear a backlog of investigations, the spokesperson said.

Manitoba currently has four provincial petroleum inspectors, up from the single inspector employed in early 2024, when a major Imperial Oil pipeline shutdown prompted the government to address gaps in its monitoring program.

Mya Wheeler, a Winnipeg-based social scientist and researcher whose PhD thesis focused on the local oil and gas industry, found staffing was a perennial problem that undermined departmental efforts to adhere to legislated regulations. 

“As the ramping up of oil wells occurred, there was the same and then less staff, and there was a 600 per cent increase in drilling during the fracking boom,” she says.

“There’s not a lot of ability to make compliance happen because of low staffing.”

Eva Wasney 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.

It’s been a whirlwind year for tornado researchers in Manitoba. 

“It’s the busiest we’ve ever been, by far,” John Hanesiak, a professor in the department of environment and geography at the University of Manitoba, says. 

Hanesiak is a collaborator with the Northern Tornadoes Project, a national research program based at Western University that aims to better understand tornadoes in Canada.

Since late May, Hanesiak and his team have spent 43 days in the field surveying damage caused by tornadoes and severe weather events across Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Previous seasons have required a maximum of 19 days on the road. 

Fifteen tornadoes have touched down in Manitoba so far in 2026, including two within the city of Winnipeg — and that number could still rise as other storms are evaluated. It’s a substantial  jump from the six to eight that typically occur in the province each summer, but doesn’t surpass the record of 18 tornadoes set in 1991.

It’s been a similarly busy season nationally, with 121 tornadoes recorded from northern Alberta to Nova Scotia. According to the federal government, Canada records an average of 97 tornadoes annually. 

“This may end up being a year where we have the biggest tornado count overall,” David Sills, director of the Northern Tornadoes Project, says. 

And the season isn’t over yet. 

Why have there been so many tornadoes in Manitoba this year?

High levels of humidity and a series of particularly strong weather systems have resulted in the above-average tornado season, Hanesiak explains. 

A tornado is a rapidly rotating vortex of air that stretches from the base of a thunderstorm cloud to the ground. Four ingredients are needed to generate thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes.

The first is high humidity, which acts as atmospheric fuel and can lead to more intense storms. Second is a high degree of instability in the upper atmosphere due to temperature changes. Third is a trigger that moves air upwards, such as a low-pressure trough or weather front that causes warm surface-level air to rise vertically like a hot air balloon. And fourth is wind shear, or sudden changes in wind speed and direction at higher altitudes.

After several years of drought conditions in Manitoba, these ingredients have been converging more frequently this summer thanks to a deluge of rain in June that led to widespread flash flooding. 

“That just helps humidity, so you have a lot of potential storm energy available,” Hanesiak says. “And we’ve had some pretty intense weather systems.” 

The tornado-producing storms in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in early June caused more than $840 million in insured damage, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Why does it take so long to confirm if a tornado has touched down?

Tornadoes are small, fast-moving events that can’t be tracked in real time with existing weather radar technology. Suspected tornadoes can only be verified through damage surveys; as well as reports, photos and videos from witnesses — the analysis of which takes time. 

Researchers use the Enhanced Fujita scale to determine a tornado’s intensity based on the extent and degree of damage to foliage, vehicles and infrastructure. The weakest tornadoes are rated EF-0 and have a minimum estimated wind speed of 90 kilometres per hour, while the strongest are rated EF-5 and can reach wind speeds of 315 kilometres per hour or higher — about as fast as the top speed of a Formula 1 race car.

Most tornadoes fall on the weaker end of the spectrum. The strongest to hit Manitoba this year was an EF-3 near Rossburn, Man., which reached a maximum estimated wind speed of 230 kilometres per hour, destroyed two homes and levelled trees. Canada’s only recorded EF-5 tornado landed in Elie, Man., in 2007.  

Tornadoes that occur in remote, unpopulated areas are often confirmed well after they make landfall. At the end of the season, Northern Tornadoes Project staff spend hundreds of hours combing through satellite imagery of Canadian forests to find evidence of unreported tornadoes, which look like long narrow scars from above. 

“We usually find somewhere between 15 and 30 new tornadoes that we didn’t know about,” Sills says. 

The project also tracks downbursts, which can produce damaging winds when air drops rapidly toward the ground during a thunderstorm. There have been five confirmed downbursts in Manitoba, including in Selkirk and Caddy Lake, and 47 across the country this year.

When and where do tornadoes occur in Manitoba?

The severe storm season typically begins in May and ends in September. While most occur in southern Manitoba, tornadoes have been reported as far north as Churchill, according to historic data from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The majority of tornadoes take place in rural areas because most of the province is rural — but they can happen anywhere. Case in point: two EF-1 tornadoes landed within the city of Winnipeg this year.

The first destroyed a home in the Whyte Ridge neighbourhood and travelled more than six kilometres through southwest Winnipeg in June. The second tore through the River Heights neighbourhood on Sunday with estimated wind speeds of 155 kilometres per hour. No one was injured, but the storm left thousands of residents without power.

It’s a common misconception cities are less likely to experience tornadoes due to their taller buildings or higher temperatures (a.k.a. the urban heat island effect). This is false, according to Hanesiak. Urban tornadoes are rarer simply because cities make up a smaller proportion of the map. 

“It certainly happens,” Hanesiak says, adding urban sprawl may affect this dynamic in the future. “As cities get larger there’s a higher probability of actually getting hit.”

Changing storm trends may also increase the likelihood of tornado activity more broadly, Sills adds.

How is climate change affecting tornadoes?

More research is needed to understand the complex relationship between tornadoes and climate change, but Canada’s warm-weather storm season appears to be starting earlier and ending later, according to Sills.

“We believe that the severe storm season is actually extending,” he says. “If you have a longer season, there’s more chances for tornadoes, more chances for the really big stuff.” 

A warming planet is likely to alter weather patterns in ways that both encourage and hinder the development of tornadoes.

Wildfires, for example, are becoming more frequent and can produce their own extreme weather events, such as lightning and tornadoes. At the same time, drifting smoke can cut down on the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground, Sills explains, creating cooler temperatures and reducing the amount of solar energy available for thunderstorms. 

“It’s really not just a case of climate change equals more tornadoes. It’s changing by region, changing by season,” he says.

North America’s “tornado alley” is also moving eastward. Over the past 40 years in Canada, the number of tornadoes in the Prairies has gone down, while the number of tornadoes in Ontario and Quebec has gone up. This trend carries into the United States, representing a subtle but significant continental shift, Sills says.

Is tornado forecasting improving in Canada?

Yes, gradually. 

Environment and Climate Change Canada is responsible for issuing tornado warnings and severe weather alerts across the country. In August, the department rolled out a new system called Convective Alert Modernization, which was designed to reduce “alert fatigue” by enabling forecasters to deliver more precise warnings to targeted areas.

The timeliness and accuracy of the department’s tornado warnings have improved from an F to a C since 2019, according to independent annual report cards issued by the Northern Tornadoes Project.

The project’s scope has grown since its founding in 2017. The project is now under the umbrella of the new Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory, which also collects data on hail storms. Flash flooding — a worsening phenomenon owing to climate change — is the lab’s next priority. 

“Anything we can do as a community to help improve community resilience, improve the way the prediction is done, it all helps us adapt to this new reality,” Sills says.

Days after Sills spoke with The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press, staff at the Northern Tornadoes Project were busy analyzing the aftermath of another Manitoba storm using ground and drone surveys.

The project confirmed two more tornadoes touched down in the province on Sunday — the one in River Heights, the second west of Elie — leaving swaths of splintered trees, toppled Hydro poles and damaged cars and homes in their wake.

Eva Wasney 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

• 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.

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.

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.

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