Pimachiowin Aki
Understand
Pimachiowin Aki translates to Land that gives life in Ojibwe and is made up of the Manitoba Provincial Wilderness Park of Atikaki Provincial Park and the Ontario Woodland Caribou Provincial Park.
Pimachiowin Aki forms part of the ancestral home of the Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe), an indigenous people living from fishing, hunting and gathering. The site encompasses the traditional lands of four Anishinaabeg communities (Bloodvein River, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi and Poplar River). The site is a complex network of livelihood sites, habitation sites, travel routes and ceremonial sites, often linked by waterways, providing testimony to the ancient and continuing tradition of "keeping the land".
The site covers 2,904,000 ha, which makes it larger than Albania..
It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018.
History
Landscape
This land was carved in the last ice age when moving glaciers scraped the surface and left behind the boreal shield. It's covered with forests of black spruce, jack pine, and poplar.
Flora and fauna
It is home to one of the largest herds of Woodland caribou south of Hudson Bay, and to thousands of other animals, birds and insects. Its rivers, streams, lakes, bogs and wetlands support fish including sturgeon, walleye and lake trout.
Climate
Get in
Fees and permits
Get around
See
Do
- Atikaki Provincial Wilderness Park, in Manitoba, There is no direct road access into the park. The most popular water route begins at Wallace Lake, south of the park. Wallace Lake is 250 km from Winnipeg via Highway 59, north to PR 304. To fly into Atikaki, arrangements can be made with lodges, outfitters, or air charter companies. There are no designated campgrounds: visitors are expected to camp at an existing site, which is usually marked by a primitive fire ring. Full-service lodges and outcamps are available.
- Woodland Caribou Provincial Park (+1 807 727-1329), in Ontario, offers almost 2,000 km of maintained canoe routes on a myriad of rivers and lakes. Only about 1,000 canoeists travel these routes each year. Excellent fishing for walleye, Northern Pike and Lake Trout and areas with Smallmouth Bass and muskellunge. Aboriginal pictographs (rock paintings) are found throughout the park and must be treated with respect. It has about 1,500 canoe-in campsites, which are remote and primitive. There is no road access to the park. The closest town is Red Lake.