Wanipigow Lake Archaeological Site

The Wanipigow Lake Archaeological Site, one of the most significant in Manitoba, is valued for the wealth of information it contains about indigenous habitation over the past six millennia in the boreal forest east of Lake Winnipeg. Archaeological recoveries indicate the most intensive use of the site began about 2000 years ago with the Laurel people (named for their distinctive pottery, the oldest identified in Manitoba), followed successively by other groups, as revealed by Blackduck, Selkirk and Sandy Lake pottery types, among other artifacts. The Laurel presence, along with evidence of local harvesting of wild rice and goosefoot, are especially notable. They represent important shifts in Aboriginal lifeways from reliance on grassland resources to forest and aquatic resources, and from subsistence strategies based on small nomadic groups toward larger, more socially complex and seasonally sedentary concentrations of people. The natural advantages which made the Wanipigow site attractive, such as many nearby water bodies and a seasonal abundance and diversity of flora and fauna, are still apparent. This extensively researched site has contributed much to the field of archaeology in Manitoba and to the understanding of the province's early boreal forest inhabitants.