Little Saskatchewan River

The Little Saskatchewan River is a river in western Manitoba. It originates in Riding Mountain National Park at Lake Audy and flows about 65 mi south through the communities of Minnedosa and Rapid City. Its approximate length is 185 km. It joins the Assiniboine River about 6 mi west of Brandon. The watershed has an area of 1400 sqmi. The watershed includes numerous lakes and three man-made reservoirs (Minnedosa Lake, Rapid City Reservoir and Lake Wahtopanah.

In 1911 the Geographic Board of Canada adopted the name Minnedosa River but restored the original name in 1978. Some early settlers to the area arrived when the river was in flood and thought it was the Saskatchewan River.

The maximum mean daily discharge near Rivers, Manitoba was 9800 cuft per second on July 1, 2020, about 2.7 times the previous record from 1969. Average annual runoff is about 115,000 acre.ft, the equivalent of 1.4 in from the entire area or about 7% of the total annual precipitation.