German POW Work Camp - Whitewater Lake, MB

[David Dunlop]

Since it was 70 years ago, at the end of October, 1943 that this facility opened, I thought it would be interesting to post a bit of history about it.

The camp was designed as a wood cutting camp, which took priority in value, over pulp cutting camps in the overall importance of POW camps operating in Canada during the war. This was the largest camp of it's type built in Canada during the war and was established to take up the overflow of prisoners from a number of other camps across the country. It was built close to the Northeast shore of Whitewater Lake, in the south-central region of Riding Mountain National Park. A road was built from Clear Lake to the camp. The lower portion of this road is now paved and known as Audy Lake Road. It ends at a parking lot in the northern end of the Bison Enclosure of the park and continues as a hiking trail only, to the original camp site, which is now an overnight campground. Prisoners came by train to either Dauphin, or Minnedosa, and were trucked from there to the camp. The attached air photo, is a bit faded, but shows the camp layout with the shadows of the row of H-huts still along the lakeside of the main grounds, and the large white camp dump off to the Northwest.

This was an open camp. No fences or guard towers. On November 1, 1943, just a couple of days after opening, 19 prisoners 'escaped' from the camp. A blizzard started a few hours after they walked away and they all returned within 24 hours. Searchers later traced their route, which essentially was a large circle around the camp area until they found the road and walked back to the camp.

The Camp made the local news and created quite a stir in Ottawa in 1944 when a number of residents in Dauphin complained of seeing German Officers walking about the streets of the town quite freely on more than one occasion, with only one guard as escort. The Opposition in Ottawa tried to get some milage out of the story until Col Ralston advised the House the officers in question were in fact, the German Medical Officers, and in accordance with the Geneva Convention, they were permitted access to local medical facilities in support of the prisoners in their care. Apparently, during the active life of the Camp (which officially closed in the summer of 1945 and was dismantled), three POW's died of various illnesses at the camp and are interred in a local cemetery in Dauphin.

When the Camp closed, the prisoners were moved to a large Tent Camp near Ste. Adolphe, Manitoba, just south of Winnipeg, where they worked on local farms until repatriated. The last were able to return home in late 1946, early 1947.

David