You might think of Mexico or a Caribbean island as having among the finest beaches in the world -- certainly not a lake on the Canadian plains. But the beaches of massive Lake Winnipeg have a fine powdery sand that is natural (not dumped by trucks), amazingly soft and pleasant on your barefeet. And while the lake is frozen half of the year, its bays are shallow enough that the water warms and is pleasant to swim in during summer.
These photos were taken of Victoria Beach, a summer vacation community on the southeastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, near the inlet of the Winnipeg River. The beach is about a mile long and in the summer is packed with families enjoying themselves.
The beach never used to have any rocks on it. But after a severe storm during breakup of the ice several decades ago, this boulder suddenly appeared on the beach. No one knows precisely how it got there -- presumably the breaking ice and churned up water of this massive inland sea pushed it from the lake bottom onto the beach where it has sat ever since. It's a reminder to me of the power of nature and how little we understand it and how little we can do to control it.
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