All that’s done for fun in the sun

On a warm late-August Friday, St. Malo Provincial Park in southern Manitoba is set to welcome visitors. Despite the forecast predicting a thunderstorm in the late afternoon, many Manitobans still plan to make the most of their last beach day of the summer. There are no beachgoers at the park yet, but as park manager Bill Prevost drives up in a golf cart, he jokingly mentions a rule that visitors must take four geese with them—they have a problem with the geese due to their droppings everywhere.

Park staff spend their mornings cleaning up after the geese, while a beach-monitoring specialist named Tylo Chadney tests the water quality at 57 Manitoba beaches, including St. Malo. Chadney and her team are testing the water more frequently due to E. coli levels exceeding provincial guidelines. Visitors to St. Malo Beach, which is situated an hour's drive southeast of Winnipeg, can enjoy swimming in a lake that was created by damming the Rat River in 1958.

The lake is stocked with various fish species, and fishing is a popular activity among park patrons.