Neepawa Riverbend Campground

Neepawa Lion’s Riverbend Campground

June 23, 2015
Neepawa, Manitoba
by: Timothy W. Shire
images by: Judy Shire

Highway #16, the Yellowhead, that snakes from near Portage la Prairie to Yorktown, Saskatoon, on to Edmonton is one of western Canada’s busiest routes. From Saskatoon to the Alberta border it is a four lane highway, but most of it is a desperate sometimes bumper to oversized trailer drudge of solid high speed traffic. From Tisdale to Winnipeg taking 16 shortens the trip by about an hour but on most occasions we divert to the TransCanada and its four lanes, especially in the winter. But this trip on a sunny Thursday we were pleased with the lower traffic levels and huffed and puffed the motorhome along at about 90 kph. After passing Minnedosa we were ready to call it a day and on the eastern edge of Neepawa there is a well developed RV campground nestled in a valley along the Whitemud river.

The Lion’s Campground has been a busy stop for campers for decades but it has been recently upgraded to handle RVs of most lengths and provides full serve with 30 and 50 amp electricity, water and sewer, plus free firewood. With well maintained level sites it was a breeze to drive into one of the many pull through sites and within minutes we were connected and at home.

This being Manitoba it was no surprise to encounter significant mosquito populations but in this case there is a natural cure. Spotted throughout the campgrounds are outstanding purple martin condominiums and just sit back for a minute and watch them whistle by in seemingly endless numbers.

The campground involves the drive through RV area and the older but excellent smaller trailer and tenting sites. Most of the sites have electricity.

Being alongside such a highly travelled highway there is a constant flow of campers staying for the night or for several days. In our site the one neighbour was from Manitoba and the other side was from Ontario, like us both were on the road Friday.

Saskatchewan has its extensive regional park system but Manitoba depends on both private and community campgrounds so there are lots of places to park but they vary considerably from one place to another.

No matter what type of campground most now include WIFI as part of the campground’s facilities. The Neepawa Lion’s Riverbend campground has WIFI provided by a local company and it is free. However, a good connection is a rarity. In this campground we did have enough bandwidth to send and receive email but using web sites to read news proved to be a waste of time and I turned off WIFI and resorted to my telephone connection.

There are two factors to be considered campground WIFI is limited by the number of users and can vary throughout the day but the providers deliberately set their systems to underperform so that visitors will not use streaming video services. The second factor is the state of WIFI is not robust at this time. In time better technology is sure to come but until it does most services will be like this one to slow to even engage the speed testing app.

In this picture we are fully hooked up and did not have to disconnect the tow as it was a well planned drive through facility. Though the individual sites were not paved all the roadways were and the sites themselves were neatly groomed and level.

While Judy was out walking, I remained in the unit a bit tired from the day’s driving. However, I spent most of the time caught up in the wonder of the purple martins. Individually and in groups they were constantly flying by and often landing in large groups on the lawn. The population of these birds in the area must be staggering.

I have shared with you only a sample of the pictures Judy took and hope that they convey the over all beauty and serenity of the campground. Despite being only about a football field distance from the busy Yellowhead highway the road and traffic noise was definitely muted, possibly because of the tight valley where the campground is located.

The following morning we were on our way and hustled into Winnipeg. Almost all of highway #16 from Yorkton to Winnipeg is under some form of construction.

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