Posted
on June 7, 2015
Do
you know what the “mouth” of a river is?
It's
one end of the river – the end that is “downstream” – the
part where the river flows into a lake, reservoir, ocean, or maybe
just another river.
That
is the opposite end from the “headwaters,” the source of the
river, which is often an underground stream or a melting glacier but
is sometimes a lake or a marsh.
On
this date in 1800, famed explorer David Thompson reached the mouth of
the Saskatchewan River, in what is now Manitoba, Canada. The river
empties into Lake Winnipeg.
Many
Americans don't know much about Canada, especially the central
provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These two provinces are
largely prairie, and of course a few lakes.
And
when I say “a few lakes,” I mean over 110,000 lakes in Manitoba
alone, including the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the entire
world, Lake Winnipeg.
I
don't know if you noticed that I referred to David Thompson as a
“famed” explorer. He is widely known by Canadians, but not so
much by citizens of the U.S. Thompson surveyed huge swaths of land
and traveled miles of rivers; he filled in gaps of knowledge about
almost two million square miles of Canada! |
| This map shows Thompson's exploratory routes. |
Here are some cool things to see in Manitoba:
The
Canadian Museum for Human Rights has interactive exhibits and a Tower
of Hope.
The
interior of the Manitoba legislative building features hieroglyphics,
free-masonic symbols, and numeric codes – but in a pretty subtle
way. A tour guide is helpful to point out such things as a bust of
Medusa, the repeated use of the numbers “666” and “13,” and
Egyptian sphinxes!
 |
Lake Winnipeg (above)
and Hudson Bay (below)
|
Check out the beautiful Manitoba lake below. There seems to be a mysterious "hole" in the lake.
Also
on this date:
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