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Manitoba holds the record for Canada's greatest temperature swings between summer and winter. Some areas in the province see a 60C (140F) swing in one year!
Manitoba is nicknamed the Keystone Province because it lies in the centre of the country. It is bordered in the north by the territory of Nunavut, in the northeast by Hudson Bay, and in the south by North Dakota.
More than a million people live in Manitoba, with over half of the population living in the capital city of Winnipeg. Many different immigrant groups live in Winnipeg, including the British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Filipino, and Vietnamese peoples. The city of Gimli is home to the largest Icelandic population outside Iceland. More than 26,000 people with Icelandic ancestry live in the province.
Here are some more interesting facts about Manitoba:
- Legend says that Manitoba got its name from the Cree words Manitou bou, meaning the "narrows of the Great Spirit." At the narrows of Lake Manitoba, crashing waves make a unique, bell-like sound that is said to come from a huge drum beaten by the Manitou, or the Great Spirit.
- The famous storybook bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, was named after a black bear cub in the London Zoo. The bear's owner was Lieutenant Harry Colbourn, a Canadian soldier and veterinarian serving in Britain during World War I. He named the bear Winnie because he missed his hometown of Winnipeg.
- The Winnipeg Falcons won the first ever Olympic hockey gold medal in 1920.
- Churchill, in northern Manitoba, is the polar bear capital of the world. People can take tours onto the tundra where polar bears make their dens.
- Every spring in Narcisse, Manitoba, mating season brings thousands of red-sided garter snakes slithering out of cracks in the rocks where they live.
- The corner of Portage Avenue and Main Street in Winnipeg was the intersection of two fur-trading trails, one following the Assiniboine River to the west and the other going to Hudson Bay in the north. Many businesses opened by this corner, and this intersection is still one of the best known addresses in the country.
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