The Gull Lake Wetlands, 50 25’ North, 96 31’ West, is near the southeast corner of Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba.  It is immediately north of the Brokenhead First Nations Reserve. It is a very unusual area that was formerly known as the Scanterbury Bog. Scanterbury was a tiny railroad siding between East Selkirk and Beaconia (where the railroad turns east to Stead and then north to Pine Falls).  The southern portion of the wetland is bisected by Highway 59, while the remaining wetlands are just west of Highway 59 and north of its junction with  highway 219 to Stead.

The Gull Lake Wetlands is a topographically confined raised bog, with some central ponds and marginal wet troughs and fens.  A fen is a kind of peat land characterized by a high water table, but with slow internal drainage by seepage down very gradual slopes. The slow moving ground water is enriched by nutrients from upslope materials.  Thus fens are richer in minerals and less acidic than bogs. The pH of the groundwater in the fen is approximately 7.0 to 7.5.  This is very conducive to a variety of plant life, including orchids.
 

The specific area of Section 34, Township 26, Range 7, comprises the biggest part of the fen and is the most interesting from a botanical perspective.  The vegetation has a high proportion of sedges along with many other rare and interesting plants.

Since the long ago construction of Highway 59 through the area, only about 15% of the original ponds have water in them. Some of the feeding streams have been cut off.  Ten feeding streams are however still active; two of them still keep some of the ponds supplied with water.  Also, use of a well in the nearby gravel pit may have damaged some of these streams by drawing down the water table. There are two locations with indications that streams were once present, with one of them actually having water coming out of it at present. A more thorough investigation still needs to be done of the mechanisms that keep this fen supplied with water.