Although this landform is beautiful, the Manitoba Escarpment is not without its share of problems - serious land and water problems. In some places, the difference between the highest and lowest elevation can be as much as 400-600 feet within only a few miles of distance. Compare this to the flat Red River Valley, where elevation can drop as little as two inches per mile. With such a rapid change in elevation, runoff water flowing through the creeks and streams which drain the escarpment's watersheds can result in torrential amounts of water coming off the escarpment face into the valley.
90-110 years ago, prior to agricultural settlement, natural processes were at work. In these earlier years, heavy bush cover and wetlands in the uplands worked to keep the potentially devastating forces of water at bay, and alluvial fans naturally accumulated shale and glacial till eroding from the escarpment. However, as new families migrated into the central part of North America to build new lives based on agriculture, the land was cleared and broken, sloughs were drained and roads were built . At first this transformation of the landscape was slow, particularly within the rugged escarpment country. In fact, upland cordwood and milling operations were more popular than agriculture in many areas for some time.
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In the Red River Valley, major public land drainage works were implemented in the early part of the century. During the 1940's, the tractor became common place on the farm. Also, machines like the bulldozer and backhoe were readily available to improve the efficiency of bush clearing and drainage. The photo to the right was taken in 1954, and shows part of a local road crew building a bridge in Thompson municipality. |
So it is during this period that drainage and clearing within the escarpment really begin to have an impact. By the 1950's and 1960's, high wheat prices, government policies towards increased agricultural acreage, and traditional agricultural practices i.e. (summerfallow ) which were common in Europe but largely inappropriate to the prairies, especially on the escarpment combined to result in significant land use changes, and increased flooding and erosion problems.
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Reduced bush and wetlands also caused
a reduction in the natural water retention ability of the escarpment landscape.
Water was now able to collect in sizable volumes, flowing at high speeds
through a network of creeks, streams, and drainage channels. With the entire
system affected, and no means by which to collect water or control runoff
peak flows, water damage increased.
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The results of this process have been devastating. Downstream flooding, washouts, and severe erosion have been experienced throughout the region. Communities have been inundated with floodwaters because of spring runoff and summer storms. Local governments have routinely experienced costly road and bridge washouts, and individual landowners have lost farmland due to gully and sheet erosion, land productivity losses, and actual crop losses (sedimentation, flooding). The awesome power of this water is easily visible.