Pinawa Suspension Bridge

Located slightly over an hour from Winnipeg, the Pinawa Suspension Bridge is a nice secluded spot to check out, especially if you are into photography.  If you are an early bird, you'll want to take in sunrise at the bridge, there is almost a guarantee that no one will be around and the entrance to the bridge comes from the West facing East, so you'll have a nice view of the sunrise (pictured above).

Driving Directions:

To get to the bridge, head North from Winnipeg on Highway 59 and exit East onto Highway 44.  Follow Highway 44 about 15 minutes beyond the town of Beausejour.  The exit North (you can only exit North) onto Highway 11, follow Highway 11 for about another 15-20 minutes and exit East onto Highway 211.  Follow 211 for less than 10km and turn right on Dorchester Rd, the name of the road won't actually be marked but there will be a sign for the Pinawa Cemetery at the end of the road connected to 211, exit North onto Dorchester and drive to the lot at the end and the bridge is literally about a one minute walk from the lot.

Warnings:

If you are going in the winter, beware of ice conditions, there is a steep (albeit small) cliff next to the entrance of the bridge and it gets very icy in the winter, if you try to go down to get a better view of the bridge itself, make sure you bring rope and are with others or you will be spending a very long time trying to get back up.  Finally, just because you can see animal tracks on the ice below the bridge DOES NOT mean that the ice is safe to walk on, some animals are very light or are able to distribute their weight which makes crossing the ice less dangerous, humans have most of their weight concentrated into a small surface area when walking, making new and thin ice very dangerous to walk on.