Pinawa Dam in Winter
Looking for a family adventure in Manitoba and don’t know where to go? Pinawa Dam is a great day trip for families. Not too far from Winnipeg (about an hour and a half away), it’s a place you can explore outdoors and enjoy together.
We spent the day at Pinawa Dam Provincial Heritage Park with friends. It was a beautiful sunny day to explore outdoors. This was our first time here and it was so interesting to see and hear the open water (we are used to frozen rivers and lakes during winter). Pinawa Dam looks picturesque in winter! Can’t wait to see what it looks like in summer- I’m sure amazing too!
What is Pinawa Dam you ask? Well… here’s a little history about it: located on the Winnipeg river, it’s Manitoba’s first hydro-electric generating station. It started operation in 1906 and closed in 1951. Curious and want to learn more? Read Manitoba Parks info here: https://www.gov.mb.ca/nrnd/parks/park-maps-and-locations/eastern/pinawa.html
Do you know what Pinawa means? From Manitoba Parks, the brochure says it's an Indigenous word meaning “it is slow, calm or gentle”. And the Manitoba Historical Society says it means “sheltered waters”.
Exploring Pinawa Dam- takes about one hour and the trail is approximately 1.4 km. There’s a self-guiding trail around the dam ruins. There are approximately 13 signs that explain the history of the dam.
The details of our family adventure to Pinawa Dam:
Good Morning: we woke up around 7 am, ate breakfast and started to get ready for our mini adventure to Pinawa Dam.
Getting ready: packing consisted of trying to find all items that I once knew where they were and now they are missing. Fun game right? Here’s the scenario: while holding a pair of socks, where’s your water bottle? I knew where it was an hour ago. Where is it now?! Put down socks… spends the next 10 minutes trying to find the water bottle. Locates water bottle. Now where are the socks that I just had. Repeat scenario for every item that was needed to be packed. Sigh.
Leaving: around 10:30 am our family friends came to our house and we packed our family in their van. Kids were so excited to be together in the van for our adventure.
Exploring: about an hour in, we stopped at Cook’s Creek to check out the incredibly large church (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) and the Grotto of Our Lady Lourdes (also known as the castle by our kids). Kids wondered if there were real Knights that lived there. They may have been both disappointed and relieved that there were no Knights living there.
More Driving: after about 30 minutes exploring the outside of the church and castle, we got back into the van and headed to Pinawa Dam.
Eating Lunch: with preschool/elementary kids this is a great way to entertain kids- feed them food in the car.
Arriving: we got to the Pinawa Dam Provincial Heritage Park at 1:30pm.
Walking and Whining: I guess parking in the parking lot is closed in winter. So we had to park along the road and then walk in. This added about 500 meters of extra walking to the Pinawa Dam. And for those that have kids or have been near kids or remember being a kid… 500 meters can be WAY TOO MUCH WALKING. And so it was for one of our kids. After about 100 meters of walking, he was way too tired to continue. He collapsed in “exhaustion”. But once he saw the others up ahead and noticed that there was a playground further ahead, he got his strength back in his legs and was able to walk all the way to the playground and run around for the next 45 minutes.
Walking the Dam Ruins: after the kids played in the playground, us adults were ready to explore the ruins (because this is why we came right?!). So off we went down the hill to look at the big metal thing (aka turbine).
The big turbine!
For those that have small children, there are lots of places along the way that have railings and fences on the ruins and on the bridges so that kids don’t fall off the ruins or fall in the water (thank you Manitoba Parks!), but there’s also areas that are not blocked off or fenced off, so take precaution around the water.
The self-guiding trail- I’m assuming it was very interesting and informative. But with kids, you know how it is, you read the title and then they run off, so you have to keep moving too. Sometimes I take a picture of the sign and read it later.
Fences and railing!
Throwing: it was fun to explore the ruins and the running water with the kids. One thing our kids love to do is throw things in the water. So we did. Usually we like to throw rocks and sticks in the water but since it’s winter, there’s snow everywhere, so we threw snow chunks and snowballs in the water.
Ending: after about an hour and 15 minutes of exploring the ruins and rapids, taking pictures, quickly reading the self-guiding signs and throwing snow in the water, we got back to the parking lot and had to walk back to the van. It could have been a very long 500 meters from the parking lot to the road where our van was parked but we had fun playing blob tag and thus the kids completely forgot to complain about walking. Parent win!
Driving home: we got into the car at 3:45pm and drove all the way home. Got home around 5:15 pm, tired, hungry and satisfied.
Hot Tips:
Reminder: Pinawa Dam is a provincial park, remember your park pass!
Hot tip: if it’s hard to get your kids outside, invite their friends and then it can be a fun adventure together.
In winter the provincial park was closed. This was our first time here, so I am assuming that in summer the parking lot is accessible.
We will have to go in summer. There are picnic tables, picnic shelter and fire pits, washrooms.
If the park is closed, do not go down the small path with your vehicle. A family did this and then got stuck. We spent about 30 minutes helping them out of the rut they were in. Thankfully we were able to get them out and they didn’t have to call for a tow truck.