The Prairie Still Lives in Winnipeg (1972)
By Robert W. Nero
Robert W. Nero is one of a handful of dedicated people who were involved with saving the Living Prairie Museum from becoming a residential sub-division. He's spent the past 25 years working with Lady Grayl, a Great Gray Owl, which he found injured. Through a process of rehabilitation the owl was tamed. Nero and Lady Grayl have spent a significant amount of time touring to schools and other public events educating people about the plight of the Great Gray Owl.
TEXTBOOKS teach that much of southern Manitoba was once covered with prairie grasses and flowers, that it has a prairie climate and is one of the Prairie Provinces. Much is said about the beauty of the prairie sky and most Manitobans know that the Prairie Crocus (anemone or pasque-flower) is the provincial floral emblem. But—who has seen a real prairie?
Prairie to most people means an open, flat landscape, windswept and alternately hot and cold; a place to grow grains and sometimes cattle. Naturalists and scientists, however, identify prairie as a particular grassland ecosystem, a complex community of plants dominated by grasses.
Prairie was the name given by the earliest pioneers to the open land covered with tall grasses and wildflowers along the western margin of the deciduous forest of eastern America. Plant scientists named this the True Prairie in contrast to the more westerly grasslands of the Plains where shorter species of grasses dominated.
The True Prairie is also called the Tall-grass Prairie because the most conspicuous plant is a species named Big Bluestem Grass that sometimes can grow to ten feet high. This is the kind of tall-grass prairie that formerly covered most of the Red River Valley in Manitoba. But today, where once there was tall-grass prairie, millions of acres of wheat, sugar beets and corn now cover the land. Most of the True Prairie has been sacrificed to agriculture.
There are still a few bits of True Prairie left, along railroad rights-of-way and in small uncultivated corners, and these remnant prairies provide an unusual living laboratory for research and education. But of all natural areas, True Prairie is one of the least studied, partly because it was so widely destroyed before anyone realized its value. In several areas of the United States, efforts have been made to re-create prairies by planting seeds gathered from plants along railroad rights-of-way, but it takes at least twenty years to achieve anything resembling native prairie. Naturalists search avidly for fragments of prairie, for such spots are rich in wildflowers and each year these places are fewer.
In 1968 a group of people set out to identify and preserve remaining prairie remnants in Manitoba. This project, sponsored by the International Biological Program, involved persons from several government departments, universities, naturalists, and laymen. To everyone’s surprise, the best of the four largest and least disturbed Tall-grass Prairies left in Manitoba was inside the limits of Metro Winnipeg, in suburban St. James-Assiniboia.
Bedrock limestone is close to the surface there and about 150 acres of native sod had survived in an area known as Silver Heights. The name is thought to stem from the abundance of silvery foliage of various prairie plants growing on the heights above the Assiniboine River. Botanists and wildflower lovers knew the Silver Heights prairie as a favourite place to visit in spring and summer. But no one would have guessed that this was the best Tall-grass Prairie in Manitoba.
A hurried campaign to preserve the prairie was started, for the property was already zoned for extensive residential development. University and museum officials, naturalists and horticulturists convinced civic authorities to forego dollars for daisies just so a piece of native prairie could be preserved. In spite of pressures from industry and developers, twenty-five acres of Silver Heights prairie was designated for preservation as a natural area in April 1970.
The grassy, flowered field that is being preserved as a living example of the Tall-grass Prairie of the Red River Valley was given the official name of ‘St James-Assiniboia Prairie Living Museum’. Although the site is relatively small, officials are convinced that by careful planning it will be possible for visitors to obtain a real prairie experience. Plans are under way for an interpretative centre where school groups can assemble to study prairie ecology and view plants before moving out to the field for a close look at the real thing. Mowed pathways have already been prepared and people can now walk through the prairie in relative comfort. People who may never have seen a prairie crocus before have an opportunity to see hundreds here in early spring.
From April to September the Living Prairie provides an attraction for tourists and residents. School children, teachers and just ordinary people now get a chance to learn about grassland ecology, to photograph native wildflowers, to view the purple stems of Big Bluestem Grass. More than 125 species of grasses and other plants, some rare, have been found living on the site. One reporter, visiting the prairie with a botanist who pointed out the numerous species as they walked along, confessed he felt as if he were walking in a garden, and he was almost afraid to put his foot down.
No other city in Canada has a natural prairie preserve. Perhaps no finer proof of the sophistication of a city population exists than the decision to set aside a fragment of original grassland. Here in the Living Museum is a place for people to learn that nature is beautiful as well as useful, to learn about the complexities of the natural world, to learn that prairie is something more than open, cultivated fields.
Public response to the preservation of the prairie has been strongly in its favour. As a local writer, Mary M. Ferguson, put it: ‘We, who have childhood memories of crocuses that carpeted the fields in early spring, remember also the summer’s dainty harebells, the daisies, buttercups, cowslips, orange lilies and the wild roses. We gathered these gaily, always assured that there would be more next year. In late August, the brown eyed susans and the graceful waving plume of the golden rod would herald Autumn . . .We feel assured now that with the careful preservation of the Prairie Park, we shall continue to enjoy all this beauty. There is a magnetism that draws humans to this changing prairie, which we so nearly let perish, but we are awakened at last to its preservation and beauty.’
Angus Shortt, noted waterfowl artist and a Winnipeg resident, has this to say in a letter to the St James Times: ‘As a former resident of St James (living for twenty years at Deer Lodge) we spent many enjoyable and relaxing hours wandering over the Silver Heights Estate which, following World War II, became a housing development. What a pleasant interlude those walks were after the rush and turmoil of the business world. The Silver Prairie can offer the same escape from the “concrete jungle”, meanwhile preserving a unique example of the prairie of pioneer days, for those who come after us . . . it is in the future that its true value lies.’
Nero, Robert W. "The Prairie Still Lives in Winnipeg". Previously published by The Beaver, Spring, 306:4 (1972). 26-29.