The Whitemud River is a small highly meandering river in southwest Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

. It begins at the junction of Stony Creek and Boggy Creek in Neepawa

Neepawa, Manitoba

Neepawa is a town in Manitoba, Canada located on the Yellowhead Highway at the intersection with Highway 5. its population was 3,298. Neepawa was incorporated as a town in 1883. It is located in the Rural Municipality of Langford and bordered to the north by the Rural Municipality of Rosedale....

 and flows east to Arden, Gladstone

Gladstone, Manitoba

Gladstone is a town in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is located on the Yellowhead Highway at the intersection with Highway 34 within the boundaries of the Rural Municipality of Westbourne...

, Westbourne

Westbourne, Manitoba

Westbourne is a rural municipality in the province of Manitoba in Western Canada. The separately administered town of Gladstone lies within its borders.-External links:*...

 and discharges into Lake Manitoba

Lake Manitoba

Lake Manitoba is Canada's thirteenth largest lake and the world's 33rd largest freshwater lake. It is in central North America, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, which is named after the lake...

 at Lynchs Point. Its total drainage area is about 2500 square miles (6,475 km²).
Other major streams feeding the river include the Big Grass River, Pine Creek, Squirrel Creek, Westbourne Drain and Rat Creek.

The precise origin of the name is not known. Alexander Henry (1799) referred to it as Rivier Terre Blanche meaning White Earth or Mud River. Geographic Board of Canada correspondence from a Mr. Garrioch of Portage la Prairie in 1905 indicates that White Mud River got its name from the colour of the clay and soil along its banks.

The river's depth ranges from a few centimeters in the summer to several meters in flood events. Fish species known to inhabit the river include northern pike, white suckers, flathead minnows, emerald shiners as well as others.

Flows vary dramatically from year to year. The peak flow measured at Westbourne in April, 1979 was 11,100 cubic feet per second and zero flow has been measured on several occasions. Annual runoff volume has varied from 29000 acre.ft in 1989 to 495000 acre.ft in 2001. The mean volume recorded at Westbourne is 161000 acre.ft. This is equivalent to about 30.7 mm of runoff from the entire watershed or about 6% of the total annual precipitation.
Whitemud River in Westbourne