Rivers is an unincorporated urban community in the Riverdale Municipality within the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

. It is located northwest of Brandon, above sea level. It is within the

Westman Region The Westman Region (also known as Western Manitoba or simply Westman) is an informal geographic List of regions of Manitoba, region of the Canada, Canadian Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Manitoba located in the southwestern cor ...

(Southwestern Manitoba). Agriculture, health and related businesses provide income for the community and area. Rivers has a population of 1,257 people in the 2016 census.

History

Rivers was named in 1908 after Sir Charles Rivers Wilson, Chairman of the Board of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. During the Second World War, Rivers became one of the sites in Canada which helped to fix the positions of German

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

s using high-frequency direction finding. This site, along with

Portage la Prairie Portage la Prairie () is a small city in the Central Plains Region of Manitoba, Canada. In 2016, the population was 13,304 and the land area was . Portage la Prairie is approximately west of Winnipeg, along the Trans-Canada Highway (exactly ...

increased the "fix" accuracy on the U-boats. Rivers held town status prior to January 1, 2015. It was dissolved on that day as a result of its provincially mandated amalgamation with the Rural Municipality of Daly to form Riverdale Municipality.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Rivers had a population of 971 living in 401 of its 428 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 1,325. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Attractions

East of Rivers is Lake Wahtopanah, a long lake that is part of Rivers Provincial Park.

Infrastructure

CFB Rivers, a former military base, is located west of the community. It was decommissioned in 1971. Rivers is served by Provincial Trunk Highway 25 (PTH 25) and Provincial Road 250 (PR 250). PTH 25 terminates just southwest of Rivers at the unincorporated community of Wheatland, while PR 250 intersects and briefly overlaps with PTH 25. Rivers station is a station stop for

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...

's '' The Canadian''.

Education

The local schools fall under the Rolling River School Division, with a nursery school, the Rivers Elementary School (kindergarten to grade 6), and Rivers Collegiate Institute (grades 7 to 12). The high school is a "Pay It Forward" school and works on programs to do just that.

In media

In The Railrodder,

Buster Keaton Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent films during the 1920s, in which he performed physical comedy and inventive stunts. He frequently ...

passes through Rivers. The first chapter the 2022 Keaton biography "Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life." is titled "Rivers, Manitoba".

Notable people

* Earl Dawson (1925–1987), politician and president of the Manitoba and Canadian Amateur Hockey Associations

References

External links

Former Town of Rivers official websiteRivers Banner

''Manitoba community Profiles''Map of Rivers at Statcan
{{Authority control Former towns in Manitoba Populated places disestablished in 2015 2015 disestablishments in Manitoba