Birds Hill is a community in the Canadian province of Manitoba located a few kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul. The community is a few kilometres east of the Red River. Birds Hill Park is located on the same ridge of sand eskers, but at the other end of them. These sand ridges are some of the highest elevations in south-central Manitoba.
A portion of the community is located on top of a hill formed during the last ice age by a glacial sand deposit, or esker A large property in the area was owned by James Curtis Bird, a retired Hudson's Bay Company employee, after whom the area is named. His son, Curtis James Bird inherited the property from his father. The hills in the area were a place for settlers and native peoples to escape to when fleeing high flood waters along the Red River valley. The gravel business led to further settlement of Birds Hill. CP Rail first dug the quarry at Birds Hill in the 1870s to provide ballast for the transcontinental railway. The City of Winnipeg purchased the quarry later and used the gravel for everything from building roads and house foundations to filling sandbags. Hundreds of people were employed in the quarry at one time. The dug out quarry has been reclaimed as Silver Springs Park with homes along part of its perimeter. Silverfox Estates is named after a large silverfox fur ranch once found there.
Video Birds Hill
Gallery
Maps Birds Hill
See also
- Birds Hill Provincial Park
- Winnipeg Folk Festival
References
- James Curtis Bird
- Geographic Names of Manitoba (pg. 27) - the Millennium Bureau of Canada
- Winnipeg Free Press- Former quarry a hidden gem http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/former-quarry-a-hidden-gem-163983336.html
Source of article : Wikipedia
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