Winnipeg's Nestaweya River Trail officially opens with smudge, ribbon cutting

The popular Nestaweya River Trail along across the frozen surface on Winnipeg's Assiniboine and Red rivers has been in use for a couple of weeks but an official, ceremonial opening was held Monday morning.

Niigaan Sinclair, an associate professor of Native studies at the University of Manitoba and the Indigenous curator for The Forks, hosted a ceremonial smudge at The Forks port before a red ribbon was skated through — or rather, under, as a well-timed wind gust raised it up.

Formerly known as the Centennial River Trail and before that, the Red River Mutual Trail, it's now called the Nestaweya River Trail.

Nestaweya is the original Cree name used for the site of The Forks and broader area now known as Winnipeg.

It translates to "three points" which are the three different directions from which the ancient Indigenous people first came, Sinclair said during a frigid ceremony soundtracked by the rasp and screech of cold skate blades on ice.

"This was a city well before it was a city. It was a place where thousands of people used to come here and trade and marry and share," he said.

The Anishinaabe came from the south, the Cree came from the north and Lakota-Nakota-Dakota came from the west to converge where the Assiniboine and Red rivers meet, Sinclair added.

"We're inviting everyone to now think of that journey, for people to come and retake those steps and re-travel those waters," he said. "I'd say paddle those canoes but I guess that'd be a little hard."

The trail, which sees thousands of walkers, skaters, snowshoers, cross-country skiiers and cyclists every winter, is six kilometres this year, connecting The Forks to Hugo dock on the Assiniboine and to Churchill Drive along the Red.

One of Canada's longest skating trails, it averages about six kilometres, depending on ice conditions and temperatures.

It entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest naturally frozen skating trail in 2008, when it reached 8.5 km, from Voyageur Park in the east to Omand's Creek in the west.

The following year it eclipsed that mark at 9.3 km and then surpassed that in 2018 when it hit 10 km, stretching from Arlington Street to the St. Vital Bridge.

The 2021 trail, which went five kilometres, lasted about seven weeks before it was cut short on March 1 by mild temperatures.

And in 2019, the 6.3-km trail was open for a record-breaking 75 days before being shut down on March 12.

Updated conditions for the river trail as well as the upper trails that meander through The Forks site can be found online.