Winnipeg, Manitoba, has long been the trading center of the Canadian heartland.

The confluence of two rivers made it such in pre-settlement days; its importance continued with the arrival of Europeans seeking to prosper from fur trading.

Growth of agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries reaffirmed its role as a major urban presence on the prairie.

METIS RIGHTS PRESERVED

The history of Manitoba can be a bit confusing. Fur traders arrived early, but it was the Hudson's Bay Company that dominated early commerce. Building upon trading posts and forts established in the far north, the company was granted all the land that drained into Hudson Bay. Check out a map, and you'll see this includes much of present-day Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Thus, when Canada sought to expand west of Ontario during the 1860s, the new country had to purchase the land from the Hudson's Bay Company. Plenty of people proved anxious to move west and stake their claims. But they didn't understand the presence of the Metis (pronounced met-TEE) people, descended from intermarriage between native Amerindians and French traders. The Metis wanted their political, religious and language issues addressed.

When Canada sent military surveyors to sort things out, Metis leader Louis Riel rallied supporters in protest. He formed a provisional government strong enough to force a meeting with Parliament. The Manitoba Act helped preserve Metis rights while still facilitating admission of Canada's newest province in 1870.

NATURAL PRAIRIE

The Forks National Historic Site, where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers merge, marks the beginning of Winnipeg's settlement. Important to natives and eventually to fur traders, the location later became a hub for steamboats and eventually the railroads. We found it a good spot to begin our explorations.

Walking paths brought us close to the river. Signs and self-guided tours interpreted early native presence, European settlement, fur trade, early forts and finally trends in transportation and immigration. An area has been kept as natural prairie. Former rail stations and freight warehouses have been transformed into restaurants and shopping centers.

One pavilion houses Explore Manitoba Center, a useful stopping point for background information on Winnipeg and its environs. Dioramas especially emphasized farming, so important to Ukrainians, Mennonites and other agrarian groups who flocked to Canada's midwest.

There were the usual assorted tidbits of local history. For instance, the Northwest Mounted Police, set up in 1874 to assure order as the prairie provinces were settled, was the forerunner of the vaunted Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And an orphaned bear cub brought back to Winnipeg by local soldiers from World War I became Winnie the Pooh.

19TH-CENTURY WINNIPEG

We gained a more comprehensive approach at the Manitoba Museum in downtown Winnipeg. Extraordinary life-sized re-creations depict a Metis bison hunt, a Ukrainian rye farm and the Nonsuch, the Hudson's Bay Company ship whose arrival in 1668 began three centuries of business domination.

Natural history installations are especially impressive. Within the Boreal Forest section are life-sized dioramas of moose and of a wolf den. There's a bat cave (no, not Batman's), plus a sod house of the type once built on grasslands. Caribou are featured in the sub-Arctic area, but the star is a wonderful polar bear specimen looming over its freshly caught seal.