Steep Rock

Lake Manitoba has cut into a shelf of Ordovician limestone on its eastern shore, leaving pale cliffs, ledges, arches and shallow caves along the water at Steep Rock, with beaches of broken limestone and clear green shallows. The effect is coastal, which surprises people who know they are in the middle of the continent. The rock is full of marine fossils, corals and cephalopods, laid down when a warm sea covered the region. Ice shove in spring pushes sheets of lake ice up onto the shore, sometimes metres deep. The hamlet was a limestone quarrying centre and the beach is a community campground.

What you actually see

• The limestone cliffs - pale ledges, arches and shallow caves on the shore.
• The fossils - corals and cephalopods in the exposed rock.
• The green shallows - clear water over limestone shelf.
• The ice shove - lake ice pushed onto the shore in spring.

When to go

June to September for swimming and the shore; spring for ice shove, which is unpredictable and brief. The lake is shallow and warms well in summer.

Honest expectations

Facilities are minimal, a community campground and little else. Cliff edges are unfenced and the rock is slippery when wet. Lake Manitoba levels have varied greatly, changing the shoreline.

Nearby

Ashern lies east; the Narcisse dens are southeast.