• Introduction
  

• Walking guides
  

• Sample walk
  

• Get walking
  

• References
  

Introduction:

Walking is an important activity in cities because it’s the most ecologically sound means of transportation, more people out walking on the streets or on trails increases safety and comfort for everyone, by increasing the “eyes on the street”, and because it gives people a way to connect more directly with their local environment (whether the natural or built environment, or both). 

In Winnipeg, where suburbs and therefore cars are omnipresent, it is important to provide people with an alternative.  Prairie Pathfinders, Inc. is a non-profit group which promotes walking and hiking in Winnipeg and in Manitoba.  It encourages people to get outside and explore different parts of the city and province on foot.

As the Prairie Pathfinders say in their Winnipeg Walks book, “learning about and appreciating a place, is best done on foot.  If you really want to see Winnipeg - its wonderful urban forest, its stately old residential areas, its impressive architecture, its beautiful park trails - you have to get out and walk around it - witness it firsthand” (2004 3).

Prairie Pathfinders, Inc., was started in the late 1990s by four women: Leone Banks, Wendy Wilson, Kathleen Leathers, and Sheila Spence.  The group was inspired by the lack of information available about walking in Winnipeg and Manitoba.  They decided to publish their own guide to walks in the Winnipeg area, and so Winnipeg Walks (1998, 2004) was the first of four books authored by the Prairie Pathfinders.  Manitoba Walks (2001) was published next, followed by Manitoba Picnic Perfect (2003), and in early 2007 Hiking the Heartland was published.

There is an off-shoot group, the Prairie Pathfinders Walking Club, which meets weekly on Mondays and Tuesdays to walk in different parts of the city or the province.  It also organises multi-day hiking festivals.  There are more than 600 active members of the Walking Club, and the weekly walks usually attract 30-60 people (Prairie Pathfinders website).