BRYAN SCOTT

Stuck in the Middle 2: Defining Views of Manitoba. Coming November 2017.

Somewhere between North Dakota and Nunavut sits a curious land with a coastline patrolled by polar bears, highways lined with monuments to household produce and dinner plates drenched in a gluey condiment known as honey dill sauce. This is Manitoba, a province that has captured the imagination of … well, maybe dozens of people around the world for more than a century. To many Canadians, Manitoba is nothing but canola, snow and mosquitoes. To people in Winnipeg, its capital and largest city, it’s that place where the flood happens three out of every five years. So what exactly is Manitoba? It’s one of the newest places on Earth, carved by glaciers and shaped by meltwater. It’s one of the most Indigenous places on Earth, as all of its residents are beginning to comprehend and respect. But it’s also a vast and largely empty land that lacks a singular identity, partly because of its vastness and emptiness – but also because most of its population barricades itself within Winnipeg’s city limits.