East St. Paul, Manitoba

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East St. Paul is a rural municipality in Manitoba, Canada. It is located north east and adjacent to the city of Winnipeg, and is part of Winnipeg's Metropolitan Area. The municipality encompasses 16 square miles (41 square kilometres) and is bounded by the Red River to the west, the municipality of St. Clements to the north; the Rural Municipality of Springfield to the east; and Winnipeg to the south.

East St. Paul is one of the fastest growing municipalities in Manitoba. On average for the last five years, the Municipality has had over 100 new housing starts per year. The 2001 census indicated this growth with a population of 7,677 people, an increase of 19.2% from the 1996 census figure of 6,437. The municipality attracts people from Winnipeg and elsewhere due to its close proximitiy to city amenities, the availability of larger lots, lower rates of property tax, and ability to provide a semi-rural lifestyle.

It includes Bird's Hill, River East Estates, and Pritchard Farm Estates, which is one of Manitoba's wealthiest communities. East St. Paul also contains numerous small farms, primarily of the market gardening variety.

Silver Springs Park viewed from Birds Hill, East St. Paul.
Silver Springs Park viewed from Birds Hill, East St. Paul.


The municipality offers a wide range of community programs and recreation services. A habitat rehabilitation project transformed an East St. Paul depleted gravel pit into Silver Springs Park, complete with trails, a lake, and homes built along part of its perimeter. The park has become a habitat showpiece for people and wildlife. The depleted quarry was graded and landscaped with native grasses and more than 1,200 trees and shrubs. Geese, ducks, terns, gulls, pelicans, songbirds, foxes, rabbits, turtles, muskrats and deer now frequent the park. The pit dates to the late 1800s, when the Canadian Pacific Railway needed gravel ballast for its rail lines. The deposit was later worked to serve Winnipeg's needs for aggregate. Over the years, more than 20 million tonnes of gravel were removed from the site. A non-profit group called the Silver Springs Fish & Wildlife Heritage Park Inc. began the first phase of development of the park in 1990, which is now maintained by the municipality of East St. Paul.

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