Carberry Spirit Sands

The park's most fascinating and fragile feature is Spirit Sands. There are a few places in Canada and nowhere else in Manitoba with such large stretches of open sand.

When the last great glacier began to melt locally about 12,000 years ago, the Assiniboine River was 1.5 km wide. It was laden with sand and other sediments from melting glaciers in what is now Saskatchewan. It drained into the huge Lake Agassiz just south of present-day Brandon. From the mouth, the fine sand fanned out into the 6,500 km2 Assiniboine Delta which almost extends to Portage la Prairie. As the glacier continued melting northward and Lake Agassiz drained to the south, sands of the delta became exposed.

Photo Credit: Photograph from: http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/parks/popular_parks/western/spruce_info.html

Text Credit: Site description from: http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/parks/popular_parks/western/spruce_info.html