Cumberland House, Saskatchewan

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For other uses, see Cumberland (disambiguation).

Cumberland House is an isolated community in north-eastern Saskatchewan on the Saskatchewan River. It is perhaps best known as being the oldest community in Saskatchewan. It's also a community of about 2000 people who went without transportation to and from the outside world during Spring thaw and Fall freezing of the river. There was no bridge to Cumberland House until construction on the first began in 1995, so the ferry service was disrupted by ice, and the ice road was disrupted by melting.

On June 24 2005, Cumberland House residents were evacuated to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and housed in a shelter set up by the Red Cross on the SIAST campus there, due to impending flooding from the Saskatchewan River. The influx of water was from record breaking rainfall in Alberta where the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers collected the runoff from that rainfall.

[edit] Cumberland House First Nation reservation

The population of Cumberland House consists of mostly First Nations people, including Cree and Metis.

[edit] History of the community

It is situated on Pine Island in the Saskatchewan River delta, on the southern edge of the Canadian Shield. It was established in 1774 by Samuel Hearne, in the interest of the Hudsons Bay Company. Cumberland House was and is a Cree "n" dialect community, known in Cree as "Waskahikanihk".

The key factor in the establishment of Cumberland House was its location. It is located on the Saskatchewan River, which was a key route in the fur trade. From Cumberland House, you can travel east to Hudson Bay, via Lake Winnipeg and the Nelson River. You can also travel west as far as the Rocky Mountains. Its location as an island was also important to its establishment. The island was a meeting place even before the trading post was established here, which provided the settlement with some initial status, along with the fact that as an island, it would have been easier for travellers to locate.

The settlement of Cumberland House provided the Hudson's Bay Company with its first inland trading post. Its establishment was considered by many to be overdue, because of the growing competition between the HBC and independent fur traders, and the different policies between the two.