Massive ice ridges pile up on Lake Winnipeg

An ice ridge is seen on Lake Winnipeg on May 4, 2026. (Source: Jackie Saurette)

Powerful winds sweeping through Manitoba have left behind an awe-inspiring ice formation on Lake Winnipeg.

Pelican Beach resident Jackie Saurette woke up Monday morning to mountainous ridges of ice piled up off the shore of her property north of Gimli.

“It looks awesome from sitting in my sunroom,” Saurette told CTV News Tuesday afternoon. “But when you go outside and walk along the beach, you see how massive it is and how far it goes down the lake. It’s pretty awesome.”

Saurette said her husband estimates the tallest peak is about three stories high and the mass of ice stretches four or five cottages wide.

“Thankfully it’s out on the water and not on the shores,” she said. “A few years back, a lot of ice ridges took out cottages in Lake Manitoba, so you always have that in the back of your mind. It was a good thing the lake is very shallow this year. There are a lot of sandbars where it happened, so it came to a standstill.”

Matt Loney, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), said conditions must be “just right” for these types of ice formations to take shape and gusting winds felt across the Prairies Sunday likely played a part.

“My sense of the scenario would be that the ice is breaking up, and the winds are kind of scoop up that ice along the water and piling it preferentially downstream into a certain spot,” Loney explained.

Saurette said ice ridges aren’t uncommon for Pelican Beach but the sheer size of this one sets it apart.

“We see them fairly regularly in the spring, but we’ve never seen one as large as these are,” Saurette said. “It was kind of stunning.”