Qualla: Red River Floodway

Red River Floodway: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0. They called it "Duff's Folly." Critics compared it to the pyramids of Egypt -- in terms of usefulness. When Premier Duff Roblin proposed digging a massive channel to divert Red River floodwaters around Winnipeg in the late 1950s, opponents said the province could not afford it, that it was a monumental waste of money for a city of 900,000 people whose entire annual provincial revenue barely exceeded the project's cost. Construction began on November 27, 1962, and by the time it finished in March 1968, workers had excavated more earth than was moved for the Suez Canal. The total price tag: $63 million, delivered on time and under budget. The derisive nickname "Duff's Ditch" stuck, but over the decades, as flood after flood threatened Winnipeg and the floodway held, the name transformed from insult to tribute.

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Image: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Red River Floodway: Digging a River That Wasn't There

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NESR, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Red River Floodway is an artificial channel that runs east of Winnipeg, diverting floodwater from the Red River around the city and discharging it back into the river below the dam at Lockport. At the time of construction, it was the second largest earth-moving project in the...

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Image: NESR | CC BY-SA 2.0

Red River Floodway: How the Gates Actually Work

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tblore (talk) (Uploads), Public domain. The floodway's control structure is commonly misunderstood. The term "floodway gates" suggests barriers across the diversion channel, but the gates are actually on the Red River itself, at the point where it enters the city. When river flows exceed what Winnipeg's channel can saf...

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Image: Tblore (talk) (Uploads) | Public domain

Red River Floodway: The Night They Broke the Rules

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NESR, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 1997 Red River flood was a hundred-year event that nearly overwhelmed Winnipeg. The floodway had been designed to handle a certain flow capacity, and the 1997 flood exceeded it. On the night of April 30, provincial authorities broke the floodway's legislated operational rules...

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Image: NESR | CC BY-SA 2.0

Red River Floodway: Wider, Not Deeper

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JPark99 (talk), Public domain. In 2003, Manitoba announced plans to expand the floodway. Engineers chose to widen the channel rather than deepen it because of the underground aquifers beneath the floodway that supply drinking water to rural communities. Digging deeper risked contaminating those aquifers or cau...

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Image: JPark99 (talk) | Public domain