The Red River has flooded over the centuries.  My mom was around for the 1950 flood, and I was in Winnipeg in 1997 and 2011 (we were in Australia in 2009 so I missed that one).  Epic and monumental are words that spring to mind.

It's amazing to observe, and in 2011, I was inspired to document an item I heard on the radio. The show was about flooding and the Red River Floodway which was completed in 1968 and expanded in the 2000s. The Floodway was dismissed by opponents of then Premier Duff Roblin, who proposed it, labelling it as "Duff's Ditch".  Little did they know ...

 

The river is high again 

rushing north.  Rained hard at night and then for a few days.

 

A geographical anomaly

Remnant of the last ice age

 

Fossils are part of the local architecture.

 

The ancient lake wants to reach equilibrium

and I heard an old man talk about his achievements

which are visible every time the rivers rise. 

He was modest;

"priggish", said an announcer from the 1960s.

But our social structure has a lot to do with what he brought into being

including the big gates that divert the mighty Red from terrorizing the city that was built at the confluence of two prairie rivers.  They are the bottom of the ancient lake bed and all water will run through those channels.  The ancient clay bottom doesn't soak up much.  

The water moves along.

 

Our wheelbarrow was full of water in the morning.

I rode my bike over the rushing Red, several times today. Suspended on a bridge spanning the flood. 

Spring 2011