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Whiteshell Provincial Park takes its name from the small, white seashell, the megis , that was sacred to the Ojibwa, who believed the Creator blew through the shell to breathe life into the first human being. These shells, left by the prehistoric lake that covered the entire region, were concentrated along the park's two main rivers, the Whiteshell to the south and the Winnipeg to the north, the latter an important part of the canoe route followed by the voyageurs of the North West Company on their way from Montreal to the Red River. Most of the park's visitors head for FALCON LAKE and WEST HAWK LAKE , two well-developed tourist townships situated on either side of the Trans-Canada Highway, near the Ontario border. Crowded throughout the summer, neither has much to recommend it, though each has a full range of facilities from serviced campsites ($12-17), resort hotels - try the Penguin Resort at Falcon Lake (tel & fax 349-2218; $40-125) - petrol stations, grocery stores and miniature golf through to boat and watersports equipment rental. West Hawk Lake, the deepest lake in Manitoba is particularly good for scuba diving. The best places to eat in West Hawk Lake are the Nite Hawk Cafe , for home-made burgers, and the Landing Steak House , which serves juicy steaks and prime rib. For day-trippers, there's a $5 entrance fee (valid for 3 days) if you're in a car. On the south side of West Hawk Lake, which was formed by a meteorite, the sixteen-kilometre loop of the Hunt Lake Hiking Trail passes through cedar and white-pine forests, across sticky aromatic bogs and over rocky outcrops, all in the space of about eight hours. There's a primitive campsite on the trail at Little Indian Bay, but be sure to register at the West Hawk Lake park office (May-Sept daily 8.30am-4.30pm; Oct-April Mon-Fri same hours; tel 349-2245) if you're planning to stay overnight, canoe down the Whiteshell River or hike the Mantario Trail . From West Hawk Lake, Route 44 cuts north towards CADDY LAKE (campsites and two holiday lodges), the starting point for one of the area's most beautiful canoe routes , the 160-kilometre journey along the Whiteshell River to Lone Island Lake, in the centre of the park. Experienced walkers could tackle the sixty-kilometre loop of the Mantario Hiking Trail just to the east of Caddy Lake, along Provincial Road 312; for beginners, there are the Bear Lake (8km) and McGillivray trails (4km), clearly signposted walks from Hwy 44 to the west of Caddy Lake; they reveal a good sample of the topography of the park - dry ridges dominated by jack pine, bogs crammed with black spruce, and two shallow lakes brown from algae and humic acid. Opposite the start of the Bear Lake Trail, the Frances Lake canoe route makes for a pleasant overnight excursion, a twenty-kilometre trip south to the Frances Lake campsite, with three portages past the rapids, and twelve hauls round beaver dams. Further west, 32km from West Hawk, the village of RENNIE is home to the park headquarters (Mon-Fri 8.30am-4.30pm; July & Aug also Sat & Sun 9am-4.30pm; tel 369-5426), which has a comprehensive range of information on local trails and canoe routes. The nearby Alf Hole Goose Sanctuary (late May to mid-Oct Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, also Sat & Sun until early Sept 10.30am-6pm; free) is best visited in spring or autumn, when the Canada geese pass through on their migration. If you need to stay in Rennie as a base for excursions into the park, your choices are the rather primitive Rennie Hotel (tel 369-5536, fax 369-5261; $40-60) or the Rocky Ridge Campground (tel 369-5507; $12-15; May-Sept). From Rennie, the eighty-kilometre stretch of Route 307 passes most of the park's other campsites, lodges, trails and canoe routes.
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