The end of the journey

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The weekends of fishing, canoeing, and hiking in three different sections of Manitoba’s vast northern wilderness, including Paint Lake, south of Thompson, were extremely memorable. (NEIL BABALUK FOR THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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While the rumoured ghosts of the Criddle and Vane families didn’t make an appearance at Criddle/Vane Provincial Heritage Park, there was definitely a haunted feeling permeating out of the cracked walls and scuffed floors of the massive farmhouse. (NEIL BABALUK FOR THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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Manitoba’s provincial parks encompass many diverse landscapes, from rolling hills to tallgrass prairie to wild forests and lakes and even a desert, the Spirits Sands at Spruce Woods Provincial Park. (NEIL BABALUK FOR THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

Earlier this month, Travel Manitoba introduced its 2011 marketing campaign with the slogan "It's Manitoba Time."

The slogan was met with harsh criticism from both marketing professionals and the public-at-large. The common thread of these complaints was that it didn’t connect with what Manitoba has to offer visitors.

When I heard the new slogan, it provoked a different reaction. I thought to myself, "It’s Manitoba Time: That pretty much sums up the last eight months of my life."

My Manitoba Parks: A(sessippi) to Z(ed Lake) project began on the May long weekend with the goal of visiting all 77 of the road-accessible provincial parks in Manitoba.

After a few years of travelling and living outside of Manitoba, I wanted to get to know my home province better and journeying to provincial parks in every corner of the province seemed like a great way to accomplish this. Every weekend was "Manitoba Time."

That first weekend trip, to the Turtle Mountain area, was just the beginning of an odyssey that wrapped up just prior to Christmas, with a visit to Asessippi Provincial Park.

In between, there were 23 additional weekend trips and over 14,300 kilometres put on my trustworthy Mazda 3.

My travel companions and I were able to visit the sandy beaches of Manitoba’s "Great Lakes," the cold, rushing rivers north of the 56th parallel, and the wooded hills of western Manitoba. For me, it was the ultimate Manitoba adventure.

While there were some trips that were rain-drenched and miserable (e.g. the Manipogo and Saint Lakes weekends), the positive experiences greatly outnumbered the negative ones. I was able to experience the vast and varied wilderness of Manitoba and see large swaths of the province for the first time.

Looking back, the high points of my travels were the three journeys to northern Manitoba. I had been to the Flin Flon area when I was younger, but over 15 years later this was just a distant memory.

Every kilometre of the journeys to the Lynn Lake, Flin Flon, and Paint Lake areas was a brand new experience. The weekends of fishing, canoeing, and hiking in three different are of Manitoba’s northern wilderness will be locked away in my memory for the rest of my life.

The trip to the Criddle/Vane Provincial Heritage Park stands out as well. Wandering through the empty rooms of the 100-year old house, beneath a full moon, was one of the most eerie moments I have experienced. While the ghosts of the Criddle and Vane families didn’t make an appearance, there was definitely a haunted feeling emanating from the cracked walls and scuffed floors of the massive farmhouse.

Beyond the parks themselves, the best part of the journey was the people that I met along the way. They lived up to Manitoba’s former slogan, and the one that is still on our license plates, "Friendly Manitoba."

There was the woman from The Pas, who we met on the rocky shore of Zed Lake, north of the isolated community of Lynn Lake. Every summer, she and her family would converge on Zed Lake Provincial Park, from all over Western Canada, for two weeks of fishing and camping. When we were forced off the lake by an electrical storm before we could get our fishing lines in the water, she was quick to offer us several packs of fresh walleye fillets.

Then there were the good Samaritans we met at a gas station in Grand Rapids. While my travel companions and I had been taking photos outside of town, one of our cameras was accidentally been left behind without any of us noticing. A couple found the camera on the side of the road and tracked us down at the nearest gas station. Instead of pocketing the camera, they went out of their way to find us and return it.

Beautiful landscapes and friendly people were the high points of a journey that took me all over my home province, a place that I never truly appreciated until these past eight months.

Manitoba’s provincial parks encompass many diverse landscapes, from rolling hills to tallgrass prairie to wild forests to lakes of all sizes and even a desert. I hope that my journeys and my writing about them have inspired readers to visit parks that they’ve never been to before.

Manitoba is a land of beauty that needs to be explored to be fully appreciated. As spring and summer of 2011 approach, plan to visit at least one of Manitoba's fabulous provincial parks. You won't regret it.