Making a snowman while sweating through a t-shirt is a distinctly unusual event, and yet that is exactly what happened on this past Saturday's Wilderness Witness Tour.

While most of Winnipeg slept soundly, an eclectic mix of Winnipeggers was up before sunrise on St. Patrick’s Day, gathering at a coffee shop and preparing for a day’s adventure.

We were headed off to Whiteshell Provincial Park, one of Manitoba’s oldest and most popular parks, known for its beauty and unique cultural value. Unfortunately, it also has the less-known attribute of being open for mining. Multiple mining claims, mineral leases and patent leases exist within the park’s boundaries, with the potential for active mining operations in what most Manitobans think to be a protected area. The sad reality is, our parks are not actually protected.

Wanting to see things firsthand, we unloaded, geared up, and ventured in. Two minutes into the hike we’d already come across our first claim post, this one marking the border between a mining claim and a mineral lease.

Laying a mining claim on an area is one of the first steps towards opening up a mine. It grants the claim holder rights to a variety of mineral exploration activities. Once adequate exploration work has been done, fees paid and the existence of sufficient mineral reserves proven, an application is put in for a mineral lease. A mineral lease, unlike a mining claim, grants permission to begin actual mineral production. Starting our hike off between these two sites reiterated the fact that this is not an idle threat. There is a constant push from industry to further open up our parks for exploration and development.

Near the end of the day we split up into a resting/snowman building group and an exploring group. Defending our parks is hard work!

Our final stop of the day was a beaver dam, beaver lodge and cairn clustered together. Cairns are man-made markers consisting of piles of rock, often with a wooden post in the centre. Variations of these markers have existed in different cultures around the world for centuries and they have been key sites for many modern archaeological discoveries. This cairn’s post was almost rotted away and incredibly fragile, indicating that its original purpose lay far in the past .

The whole scene, natural architectural wonder next to archaeological find, brought home the importance of protecting this unique area and gave testament to the reasons it was originally made into a park. Whiteshell was given this designation in 1961 because for over 50 years now, Manitobans have recognized its value and the need for protection. Why, then, is it still under threat from mining activities?

That we are even considering mining within our park boundaries shows just how much work still remains to be done. Manitoba’s parks are not protected, and this needs to change now. To learn more about Manitoba’s Provincial Parks and what you can do to end park mining, visit our campaign page and our online letter-writing tool.

- Kalyn