Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, is a small locality located on Trans-Canada Highway 1 and the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline, some thirty miles east of Regina, Saskatchewan.
Qu'Appelle had at one stage been designated as a major metropole by both the federal government — it was under serious consideration by the federal government for district headquarters of the District of Assiniboia and territorial headquarters of the North-West Territories — and the Church of England (now the Anglican Church of Canada), which for a time designated Qu'Appelle the cathedral city for the Diocese of Qu'Appelle, corresponding to the District of Assiniboia in the North-West Territories.
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[edit] History
Like many small Canadian prairie towns, Qu'Appelle has enjoyed a considerably more lively past than present; Qu'Appelle, however, has in particular been a near-miss throughout its unfortunate history.
Founded as Troy in 1882, for a time it appeared likely to be the administrative headquarters for the District of Assiniboia, corresponding to the southern portion of the later province of Saskatchewan. Indeed, the considerable beauty of the topography of the region — it is in an amply watered rolling parkland with lush aspen groves ("poplar bluffs" in local terminology) and densely treed coulees leading into the Qu'Appelle Valley — makes it especially unfortunate that this turned out not to be so, given the relative lack of amenity of Regina, the site actually chosen.
In anticipation of its presumed eventual urban importance the Anglican ecclesiastical province of Ruperts Land designated the village of Qu'Appelle as the cathedral city of the new diocese of Qu'Appelle (which retains that name though the association with the town of Qu'Appelle is long past); the diocese operated a training facility for Anglican clergy in the town and a model farm immediately to the west of town; and the parish church of St Peter's was the pro-cathedral for southern Saskatchewan until 1944.
(The original Bishop's Court was at Indian Head, some 8 miles to the east of Qu'Appelle, but early-on the bishop's residence was relocated to the diocesan property in Regina.)
Qu'Appelle attained national prominence in 1885 during the North-West Rebellion because the Canadian Pacific Railway had still only reached it and not the newly designated territorial headquarters of Regina some 30 miles to the west; Qu'Appelle therefore became the marshalling point to the northwest for troops arriving from eastern Canada by train.
Early residents of Qu'Appelle included numerous English remittance men whose deeply cultured backgrounds contributed significantly to the life of the town in the early days: amateur theatricals and musical evenings were a regular feature of winter social life; as in Fort Qu'Appelle, town life in many ways resembled that of an Indian hill station during the British Raj.
The substantial Presbyterian and Methodist congregations merged in 1925 to become a congregation of the United Church of Canada, maintaining the Presbyterian church building as its facility; a non-concurring minority of the Presbyterian congregation seceded and constituted themselves a continuing Presbyterian congregation, building a separate meeting house on Main Street.
There was at one point a fine yellow brick town hall and high school; with the steady erosion of Qu'Appelle's autonomy these were closed in the 1960s and ultimately demolished. The Roman Catholic parish continues to operate a beautiful church building constructed of the same yellow brick that formerly characterised the town's once not unimpressive style.
At one point the town contained a train station, some half-dozen grain elevators, a bank, post office, butcher, two general stores, barber shop, firehall, numerous service stations and several cafes. To a great extent these amenities have lapsed.
The local newspaper The Qu'Appelle Progress ceased production in the 1960s as rural hinterland churches and schools closed and farming communities ceased to be viable. St Peter's, the former Anglican pro-cathedral, no longer maintains a resident clergyman and subsists as a subsidiary congregation of the parish of Indian Head.
In recent years Qu'Appelle has enjoyed a very mild — but entirely artificial — resurgence as a result of commuters from Regina discovering it as a bedroom community: this is an ersatz vitality; it certainly has not resulted in any resurgence of local business or community activity and the once solidly built up main street is now lined with vacant lots.
Fort Qu'Appelle is a much larger town 30 km north of Qu'Appelle in the Qu'Appelle Valley.
[edit] Community profile
According to the Canada 2001 Census:
- Population in 2001 — 648
- Population in 1996 — 632
- 1996 to 2001 population change (%) — 2.5
- Total private dwellings — 290
- Population density per square kilometre — 153.4
- Land area (square km) — 4.22
