WINNIPEG – Forest fires, killer mosquitoes, chilling winters and rivers that threaten to spill across the prairie each spring.

In Manitoba, man must fortify himself against the natural world – most notably against the Red River that snakes northward from the U.S. border.

It has been coaxed into relative submission since the '60s by some of the world's most innovative engineers and visionary politicians.

At least, that is the hope as the bloated river moves north from Fargo, N.D., where sweat and sandbags have comprised the bulk of that city's defences against a record-breaking flood that could crest again in the coming weeks. In Manitoba, the defences are extensive: there are multimillion-dollar ditches and dikes, a man-made dam and reservoir and two spiderlike ice-crushing machines. Sandbag dikes are only backup.

"I feel that we've done everything humanly possible to get ready," Premier Gary Doer said Friday, mud still fresh on his dress shoes from a visit to sandbagging operations north of Winnipeg.

"But ... there are fallibilities with human behaviour. We can take every preventative measure as human beings possible and we can still get Mother Nature proving again she is superior."

In living memory, the biggest display by the Red River of Mother Nature's superiority was in 1950, with a flood that devastated Manitoba, causing the largest mass exodus in Canadian history.

Ever since, the people of Manitoba have been fighting back, led first and foremost by former premier Duff Roblin, moulding the land around the river in order to keep it at bay.

The world has noticed. Experts from Poland and China have recently toured the Red River Floodway, a 48-kilometre ditch that directs flood waters around the city of Winnipeg. The tired but upbeat mayor of Fargo, N.D., said last week that politicians south of the border might finally be poised to work together toward long-term flood mitigation efforts like Manitoba's.

"We are all focused," said Dennis Walaker after a promising meeting with the governors of North Dakota and Minnesota and members of Congress on Friday. In the past there has been political opposition to the idea of a large-scale long-term project like a floodway, but this year's flood might have scared people into action.

Walaker is an admirer of Manitoba's flood defences. "Every town that you drive by from the Canadian line up to Winnipeg is either elevated or ring-diked," he said.

Duff Roblin, now 91 but sharp and dapper in a black suit with a crisp white handkerchief, seems to delight in the fact that he was right about the floodway he fought so hard for. His political opponents called the $63-million project too expensive, said it would not work and nicknamed it "Duff's Ditch" and, worse, "Roblin's Folly."

But since it was completed in 1968 it has been used more than 20 times, and is said to have saved the city from $10 billion in damages.

Roblin remembers the beginning of the 1950 flood, when he was an independent Progressive Conservative MLA touring the area south of Winnipeg in a canoe. "It was pandemonium," he said. "(Residents) were very upset. There was no sign of anyone taking an interest in them and they were concerned about their future."

Then his thoughts turned to Winnipeg. If this city is always flooding, he thought, what kind of a place will it be to live and do business in?

He made flood protection a 1958 election issue, and won a minority government.

As premier, the recommendations he supported were threefold: A channel was needed to divert floodwaters from the Assiniboine River near Portage la Prairie to Lake Manitoba, a dam and reservoir should be built near the Saskatchewan border and Winnipeg needed a massive ditch to ease the Red River's spring swell.

Duff's Ditch has saved the city time and time again.

Still, after the 1997 "flood of the century," which came within inches of spilling over the floodway, it was decided the risk of flooding the city was still too great.

A $665-million expansion of the floodway system was launched in 2005, doubling its capacity.

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Roblin has been watching from the sidelines. "The fact is that the weather's changing," he said, "and we have to be alert to the changes in the climate that we're experiencing to see that our policies that looked satisfactory 30 years ago are still worthwhile."

The flood protection system is likely to continue changing. This year Manitoba is struggling with extreme weather that has caused ice jams along the river. The Red River floodway cannot be operated safely until jammed-up ice has cleared, allowing water to pass freely, and if the floodway gates are not opened a crest of up to 6.3 metres could hit Winnipeg this week.

The floodway may be opened by Wednesday even if the ice has not fully melted, which could be dangerous. Doer says talks are already underway about what can be done to prevent or lessen ice jams in the future.

In Minnesota and North Dakota, the whopping price tags attached to large-scale diversion projects – and the need to expropriate land for their construction – have made them a hard sell.

Donald Schwert, a geology professor at North Dakota State University, says that in the U.S., money follows disasters and preventive measures like Manitoba's are rare.

Grand Forks, N.D., was left with nearly $2 billion (U.S.) in damages after the disastrous flood of 1997 caused thousands to flee before their homes were submerged. When the federal money came pouring in, the town was able to protect itself with a $400-million diking system.

In a sense, Schwert said, Fargo could have hurt its long-term prospects for receiving government money by being so good at fighting the flood. Thousands of volunteers have built more than 64 kilometres of sandbags, dikes and earthen walls, and have so far managed to keep most of the water out.

"Fargo through its ingenuity and its mobilization of its citizenry has bit the bullet ... (but) it doesn't capture the interest of state and federal politicians in terms of directing money to help the city out," Schwert said.

"There's not going to be a great interest in state and federal money in a place that's doing reasonable planning with lots of insight."

In other words, catastrophe can be lucrative.

Schwert will be among those watching how Winnipeg survives the coming flood threat, especially given the improvements to its flood system since 1997.

"I imagine that most of the populace of Winnipeg will be oblivious that there's even a flood going on thanks to innovative engineering (and) thanks to sound investments in innovative engineering," Schwert said.

And as the river rises, Winnipeg residents hope so, too.

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