Oak Hammock Marsh

St. Andrews Bog covered around forty-seven thousand hectares before it was drained for agriculture in the early twentieth century; Oak Hammock is a restoration of a small part of it, begun in the 1970s, and it now draws enormous numbers of migrating waterfowl, with autumn peaks of several hundred thousand ducks and geese. Around three hundred bird species have been recorded. The interpretive centre is built into an earth berm with a green roof so it barely breaks the horizon, and about thirty kilometres of trails and floating boardwalks run into the marsh. It is a joint Ducks Unlimited and provincial project.

What you actually see

• The autumn concentration - hundreds of thousands of waterfowl in October.
• The floating boardwalks - paths running out over open marsh.
• The buried centre - an interpretive building set into a berm with a green roof.
• The restoration story - a fragment of a vast drained bog brought back.

When to go

April and May for spring migration, September and October for the autumn peak, which is the bigger spectacle. Summer has breeding birds in smaller numbers. Winter is quiet.

Honest expectations

Numbers depend entirely on migration timing and weather. The trails are exposed with no shade and wind off the marsh is constant. Mosquitoes in summer are severe.

Nearby

Narcisse snake dens lie north; Winnipeg is south.