Final section of Winnipeg's Nestaweya River Trail closes for the season

Spring is coming, but at the expense of the Nestaweya River Trail.

Winnipeg's premier frozen playground closed for the season on Monday morning, The Forks announced.

The river attraction featured six kilometres of walking and skating trails, as well as 13 kilometres of skiing along the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.

It opened for the season on New Year's Day and was open for 72 days — three shy of tying the 2019 record of 75 days.

The Forks estimates that this year, there were 220,000 visits to the river trail, which was lined with 695 recycled Christmas trees and featured 26 warming huts scattered from the Hugo Docks to Churchill Drive.

The number of visits is close to pre-pandemic levels, said Zach Peters, communications and marketing manager at The Forks.

"We're excited to see people back out using the trail, whether that be walkers, skaters, skiers, bikers, all really enjoying and getting out there for that celebration of winter that we can have here in Winnipeg," Peters said.

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The Nestaweya River Trail officially opened today. The trail which is just over 6 kilometres spans the Red and Assiniboine rivers. Manitobans showed up to walk, bike, skate and cross-country ski on its paths.

River trail visitors could rent skates, helmets, skate assists, cross-country skis, ice bikes, ice trikes and kicksleds.

"We still have people ice biking and using the ice trikes and the kicksleds more than we ever have, and I think those types of experiences are what people are looking for," Peters said.

More than three million litres of water was pumped from the river to flood the trail, with nearly 1,200 kilometres covered by a Zamboni smoothing out the ice.

The ice crews work during the day and night when the trail is open to keep it as pristine as possible for for skaters, Peters said.

The Forks previously announced two sections of the river trail had closed due to warmer temperatures and decreasing ice thickness.

And while the Nestaweya is closed until next winter, the Forks is already looking at ways to improve the river trail in future.

"If the conditions allow, we would love to stretch further and continue to offer even longer skating trails and more walking trails and skiing trails for folks," Peters said.

"That sort of comes with the year and almost is Mother Nature's choice, not ours, in terms of how long we can get it."