Glacial Effects In St. Walburg Area

       When I think of glaciers, the first image that comes to mind is of massive slabs of ice hanging on the sides of mountains. I imagine the scoured and cut rock, the giant boulders that lay strewn at the base of a mountain, the pristine trickles of water that emerge through cracks in the rocks as is melts off the ice packs above. Until this year I had not realized that glaciers had shaped the area that I live in, an area that is relatively flat and certainly has no mountains near it! I did not know that there were alpine glaciers and continental glaciers. I studied a unit in science (Saskatchewan, the Land) that outlined the effects of glaciers, specifically the Wisconsin Glacier, of the Quaternary Period as it crossed the province of Saskatchewan. Little did I know that the passing of massive slabs of ice shaped many of the land formations and soil deposits that I see on a daily basis.

    As many as five glaciers occurred in North America, beginning several million years ago. The last glacier to cross Saskatchewan was called the Wisconsin Glacier, which started about 85 000 years ago and ended approximately  7 000 years ago. It covered the entire province except the Cypress Hills area and definitely shaped the land surface in a permanent way.

    St. Walburg is situated in the northwest part of Saskatchewan (although we are not very north when you examine a map of Saskatchewan). St. Walburg and surrounding area lie in the boreal forest vegetative region and the gray-wooded soil zone. Many factors determine what industry and farming practices take place in this area such as geological formations and climate, but the glaciers also had a huge effect in determining this.

    As the glaciers advanced and retreated soil and rock were carried and deposited in different areas and in different formations. The landscape around St. Walburg is not flat like the land in the south of the province but is certainly not hilly like the Cypress Hills area. Gentle, rolling swells would better describe the profile of this part of the province. Sloughs, marshes, and mixed stands of poplar, willow, spruce and berry bushes paint the landscape and hide many of the remnants of the glaciers. As I learned terminology associated with glacial action I realized that many of the things that I was learning about were quite literally at my doorstep.

A typical St. Walburg area landscape