Freeze, please Relationship with city’s icy waterways warms many a Winnipegger’s heart By: Ariel Gordon Posted: 2:00 AM CST Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026

In summer, a screened porch or gazebo adds another room to Winnipeg houses, full of light and fresh air.

A balcony in a high-rise apartment seems to double the horizon available to residents: it feels like you could step out into the branches of a big old elm or a cottonwood, full of birds.

In the same way, the frozen Assiniboine, Red and Seine rivers add concert hall- and football stadium-sized swathes of space to the city.

The iced-over rivers provide new ways of seeing and understanding this place we call home.

When you spend time on the riverbank, among the riverbank trees, you might catch sight of an eagle or pelican soaring or spot a deer approaching open water for an icy sip.

You are far away from the straight lines and intersections of roads: the river curves and meanders and is divided by bridges, 49 across the city.

Becoming intimate with these new trails allows you to eavesdrop on the backs of buildings you’ve only seen from the front.

And suddenly you are alone in the middle of the bustling urban landscape.

Now, every Canadian child should know how to swim and skate, especially if they live in river cities, in lake-studded provinces. But you have to be from Manitoba to feel the energy of gathering at The Forks, echoing the past and present gatherings of the Cree, Anishinaabe and Métis peoples.

You can descend to the rivers almost anywhere along their lengths, stepping down from the sidewalks onto the riverside trails and then onto the river.

Where with some effort, you can break snowy trails or clear snow off the ice so others can hike or skate, ski or sled.

The crunch of boots on snow! The rasp of skate blades on ice!

It just depends if you want to go for a lonely snowshoe, out of sight of your neighbours, the winter sun on your shoulders, or if you want to be one of a thousand bodies, whizzing back and forth, playing shinny or exploring the warming huts.

But one thing is clear: there is nothing more loving, during a Winnipeg winter, than someone who devotes themselves to clearing a sheet of ice for the neighbourhood kids.

And there is nothing more romantic than commuting by skate, gliding down the river at twilight.

ariel.gordon@freepress.mb.ca