Manitoba Underwater Council

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Projects

The Manitoba Underwater Council has a number of on going projects. Two of the most visible are the "Cat's Ass" and "Glen Beag" underwater parks. These parks have been organised to provide divers in the Province a place to train and practice their skills.

Cat's Ass (West Hawk Lake - Whiteshell Provincial Park)

The Cat's Ass dive site is most easily found by locating the "Engineering Structure" in the Main Campground (Site A).

Click the image above for one possible explanation of the site's name.

In reality, the name is probably an idiom meaning "Something excellent or outstanding" (like the Bee's Knees, or the Cat's Pajamas)

Establishment

In the early 1990's, the Cat's Ass dive site was already an actively used site. However, it was noted by the council and other concerned divers that there was a large amount of boat traffic in the area, much of which were unfamiliar with diving and the diver down flag. This put divers at risk, much like this unidentified jet-skier who cut through the dive area during the 2006 Monster Dive:

MUC negotiated with Manitoba Parks (now Manitoba Conservation) to create a buoyed off site, specifically for Manitoba divers. Manitoba Parks was unable to fund the deployment of the buoys; however, MUC determined that the project was important enough that MUC should fund and install the buoys ourselves.
These buoys were finally installed at the Cat's Ass site in 1995, with the permission of Manitoba Parks. Manitoba Parks managed to locate a discarded ski-hill tow-rope to help encourage boaters to keep clear of the dive site, and even agreed to store the floats for us over the winter months in their maintenance compound.

These buoys are maintained by the council on a yearly basis. This maintenance includes:

Installation in the spring
Removal in the fall
Repairs and enhancements in the winter

Emergency Vehicle Parking

As the underwater park progressed, MUC and Manitoba Parks discovered that a number of divers (especially those instructing classes) were parking their vehicles at the entrance to the site for various reasons, some of them legitimate. This became a safety issue as well as a traffic nightmare.

Rather than have Manitoba Parks continue to ticket these vehicles in an ad hoc manner, MUC negotiated with them to allow emergency vehicles to be parked at the site, and developed a set of rules about which vehicles could be designated as such.

Diver Parking

Parking continued to be a problem at the Cat's Ass site. Divers were generally obeying the rules about the entrance to the site; however, they were still parking their vehicles along the road side leading up to the site entrance. At this point Manitoba Parks approached the MUC looking for our insights into the parking problem.

MUC recommended setting aside a small portion of the site around the cook shack as parking for divers using the Cat's Ass site. The following year Conservation Manitoba created the recommended parking spots.

Threats

The Cat's Ass site has been regularly under threat. In the late 1980s/early 1990s there was a movement within Manitoba Parks to turn the Site A region of the campground (including Cat's Ass) in to a commercial zone. MUC and other groups successfully lobbied to prevent that from happening.

In recent history, we have been denied permission to reinstall the rope that links the buoys. Additionally, there are rumours of a group of boaters who are lobbying to have the buoys removed from the Cat's Ass dive site. MUC will continue to work with Manitoba Conservation to keep this area for divers.

Millers Beach
From time to time, MUC has been asked about support of the Millers Beach site.
Currently there is only one parking space available for emergency vehicles, and generally no parking for other divers in the group. This leaves divers only with the option of dropping their gear off at the dive site and then parking their vehicles outside of the campground (unless they have obtained a campsite near the dive site).
Manitoba Conservation has decided that they would prefer all diver-training to take place at the Cat's Ass site. The single parking spot at Miller's Beach has been provided only for safety reasons, and not to encourage further use of the site for diver training. Manitoba Conservation has been steadfast on with this decision.
MUC has chosen to focus its West Hawk resources to continue improving the existing underwater park.

Entrance to Millers Beach

Millers Beach

Glen Beag (Clear Lake - Riding Mountain Nation Park)

The western portion of the Province also needed to develop a safe training site. This site was located in the Glen Beag region of Clear Lake (near the "Wishing Well"), and has also been buoyed off. This site was primarily set up by MUC sanctioned dive clubs in the region (Brandon, Minnedosa, and Dauphin). These clubs continue to maintain the site and perform similar maintenance on the Glen Beag buoys, as MUC performs on the West Hawk buoys.

MUC has assisted with maintenance and enhancement of this site by providing the funds necessary to repair the existing buoys and purchase new buoys to expand the site.

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