Big skies, big fields, big yawn. Is that what you think about the Manitoba prairie? Wrong. Time to readjust the screen. There’s much more geographic wonder to the Canadian heartland than meets the eye from the sweeping Trans-Canada Highway. Think exotic desert and teeming bird sanctuary.
A half-hour drive southeast of Brandon, MB, you’ll find Spruce Woods Provincial Park. Home to Spirit Sands, this is a vast, unexpected natural sandbox in the middle of a spruce forest. Thousands of years ago, the old Assiniboine River much larger than it is today, created an enormous delta as it poured glacial melt water into the ancient (and now disappeared) Lake Agassiz. Of the original 6,500 sq km of delta sands, only four sq km remain. A 1.5-km hiking trail rings the dunes—for centuries an Aboriginal sacred site—and offers primeval views of the blue-green Devils Punch Bowl. That’s a mélange of shifting sand dunes, spring-fed pond, pincushion cacti and the odd hognose snake. www.manitobaparks.com   Big marsh on the prairie The best environmental experience in the world? Yup. British Airways recently awarded Oak Hammock Marsh, a short drive north of Winnipeg, MB, this honour. It challenges the imagination to consider that much of southern Manitoba was a sort of marshland before early settlers siphoned it for farmland. At 3,600 hectares, Oak Hammock represents the last eight percent of Manitoba’s original wetlands. The area supports almost 300 species of birds, 25 species of mammals, and lots of reptiles, amphibians, fish and insects. Especially in spring and fall, the wetlands serve as a kind of avian Hilton, delivering first-class room and board for migrating waterfowl and shorebirds. www.ducks.ca/ohmic