Riding Mountain National Park rises above the surrounding farmland on the great step of the Manitoba Escarpment. It spreads across roughly 3,000 square kilometres of forest, meadow, and wetland, a green island lifted well above the plains below. Long before it was granted that protected designation, however, this elevated country served as the seasonal hunting grounds of the Anishinaabe and other Indigenous peoples, and archaeological evidence suggests that Indigenous communities inhabited the uplands for several thousand years. Only in the nineteenth century did European fur traders and commercial loggers finally penetrate the region, trapping animals and harvesting timber for considerable economic gain. Recreational tourism continues to sustain the surrounding communities to this day.

By the opening decades of the twentieth century, naturalists and nearby residents had begun to recognize the value of protecting the escarpment. They wanted it preserved not only for the generations who would come after them, but also to safeguard its forests and wildlife from unchecked commercial logging. Persuading the federal government to intervene was no quick matter, since weightier national concerns commanded officials' attention for years, and the park was established only in 1933. Unlike the more remote parks of the north, it remains accessible by road, and a lakeside resort community, Wasagaming, sits within its boundaries on the shore of Clear Lake, attracting summer cottagers each year. The land is administered throughout by Parks Canada.