The Nelson River is a river of north-central North America, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The river drains Lake Winnipeg and runs 644 kilometres (400 mi) before it ends in Hudson Bay. Its full length is 2,575 kilometres (1,600 mi), it has mean discharge of 2,370 cubic metres per second (84,000 cu ft/s), and has a drainage basin of 1,072,300 square kilometres (414,000 sq mi), of which 180,000 square kilometres (69,000 sq mi) is in the United States.
Nelson River near Norway House
Playgreen Lake in Manitoba
Port facilities at Port Nelson would have required a long causeway to reach deep water.
First Nations people on the Nelson River, 1878
Manitoba is a province of Canada at the longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's fifth-most populous province, with a population of 1,342,153 as of 2021. Manitoba has a widely varied landscape, from arctic tundra and the Hudson Bay coastline in the north to dense boreal forest, large freshwater lakes, and prairie grassland in the central and southern regions.
Crowds gathering outside the old City Hall during the Winnipeg general strike, 21 June 1919
Aerial view of the Red River Floodway
Deep Lake at Riding Mountain National Park
Polar bears are common in northern Manitoba.