| Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan | |
|---|---|
| — Town — | |
| 1897 Hudson's Bay Company Store in Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan | |
|
|
|
| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Saskatchewan |
| Region | Saskatchewan |
| Rural Municipality | No. 187 |
| Post office Founded | 1880 |
| Incorporated (town) | 1951 |
| Government | |
| • Governing body | Fort Qu'Appelle Town Council |
| • Mayor | Ron Osika |
| • Administrator | Anna Mae Stainbrook |
| Area | |
| • Total | 5.28 km2 (2 sq mi) |
| Population (2006) | |
| • Total | 1,919 |
| • Density | 363.2/km2 (940.7/sq mi) |
| Time zone | CST |
| Postal code | S0G 1S0 |
| Area code(s) | 306 |
| Waterways | Qu'Appelle River |
| Website | Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan |
Fort Qu'Appelle is a town located in the Qu'Appelle Valley in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, originally established as a Hudson's Bay Company trading post in 1852. Fort Qu'Appelle, with its 1,919 residents in 2006 is located between Echo Lake and Mission Lake in the Qu'Appelle Valley, at the junction of Sk Hwy 35, Sk Hwy 10, Sk Hwy 22, Sk Hwy 22, Sk Hwy 35, Sk Hwy 56, and Sk Hwy 215.[1] The 1897 Hudson’s Bay Company store, 1911 Grand Trunk Pacific Railway station, Fort Qu’Appelle Sanatorium (Fort San), and the Treaty 4 Governance Centre are all landmarks of this community.[2] The Praying Indian and Teepee are two large roadside attractions commemorating the history of the area where Treaty 4 was signed.[3]
Contents |
The town of Fort Qu'Appelle (not to be confused with the nearby town of Qu'Appelle) is approximately 65 kilometres north-east of Regina, the provincial capital, between Echo and Mission Lakes, the second and third of the four Fishing Lakes. The name "Qu'Appelle" comes from "is French for 'who calls' and is derived from its Cree name, kah-tep-was ('river that calls'). There are several versions of the origin of this name, but the most popular suggests it refers to a Cree legend of two ill-fated lovers."[4] The town is immediately adjacent to the site of the original Fort Qu'Appelle Hudson's Bay Company trading post, whose "factory" is maintained as a historical site and museum. The Hudson's Bay trading post was built in 1864[5] when the Company's activity was still largely confined to the fur trade with indigenous residents, but after ethnic European settlement by farmers had become established in the 1880s the original Hudson's Bay Company activity was replaced by its department store on Broadway Street in 1897. By this time the fur trade had lapsed but the town community and farmers travelling into town for shopping had substantially increased in number. The store building remains though long disused by the Bay.
The surrounding area both north and south but also to minor extent within the valley is site of grain and cattle farms, nowadays larger in size and smaller in number and population than in past years, small rural communities and sixteen Indian reserves.
|
||||||||||||||
These figures do not include the substantial population living along the shores of the Fishing Lakes.
The current site is the third Fort Qu'Appelle. The first was a North West Company trading post (1801–05), also in the valley but near what is now the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border. The Hudson's Bay Company itself (after the unification of the HBC and the North West Company) first used the name for a post north of present-day Whitewood (some 100 miles east of Regina on Number 1 Highway) from 1813 to 1819.
The current site was a Hudson's Bay Company post from 1852 to 1854 (when an Anglican mission was established)[7] and again from 1864 to 1911. With the signing of Treaty 4 by Cree and Salteaux aboriginal peoples at Fort Qu'Appelle the North-West Mounted Police, now the RCMP, arrived[8] and have maintained a continuous presence in the town ever since.
The town's substantial growth beyond its status as a Hudson's Bay Company "factory" first occurred in the 1880s and 1890s when European settlement began in the region as the Canadian Pacific Railway moved westwards: a post office opened in 1880.[9] This coincided with the first development of British India after the seizing of control of India from the East India Company by the Crown after the 1857 Indian Mutiny, and the town of Fort Qu'Appelle's striking similarity to the Indian hill stations of the early Raj has been widely commented upon by anyone who has seen both. Older residences and commercial premises together with the town's Anglican and United (formerly Presbyterian) churches are quintessentially of the 19th century hinterland British Empire, a matter which local civic boosters and cultivators of tourism appear not yet to have capitalised upon.
Despite the accelerating decline of rural Saskatchewan in the post-World War II years, the town grew through most of the 1950s and 1960s as a cottage community serving the Qu'Appelle Lakes summer-cottage country in the valley up- and down-river from the town. Cottagers from Regina and other southern Saskatchewan communities used Fort Qu'Appelle as a base from which to explore the scenic and historic river valley, purchase hardware and groceries and contract services; the town also benefited urban drift as farms and other towns steadily depopulated.
This process was precipitately accelerated in 1963 when the rural school districts were abolished and farm primary and high school children were thereafter bused to town schools. Rural churches having largely closed in the 1950s, the collapse of rural farming communities was now assured, to the benefit of minor metropoles such as Fort Qu'Appelle though arguably to the impoverishment of the community as a whole.
A tuberculosis sanatorium operated by the provincial department of public health under the direction of Dr. R.G. Ferguson opened in 1917 at nearby Fort San;[8] when tuberculosis ceased to be a public health problem the facility was turned into a fine arts complex where a substantial summer program was operated until the early 1990s when the provincial government terminated its funding.
The former Fort Qu'Appelle Indian Hospital was replaced in 2004 by the All Nations Healing Hospital. The hospital is one of the first health care facilities in Canada owned and operated by First Nation governments. There are sixteen in total, five from Touchwood Agency Tribal Council and eleven from File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council.
Fort Qu'Appelle is a notable tourist destination both in summer and winter. The lakes afford swimming, boating and other water related activities in summer and cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and ice fishing in winter. There is also Echo Valley Provincial Park located between Echo Lake and Pasqua Lake. The park provides an RV park, camping, swimming, boating and fishing.
The long-closed railway station was originally of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, "incorporated in 1903 as a subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway" and "[b]y 1923, [with] the Grand Trunk Railway, and the National Transcontinental merged with the Canadian Northern Railway to form the new Canadian National Railway."[10] "[M]any prairie branch lines closed after 1945; the passenger service was terminated in 1978."[11]
The most notable tourist event is Treaty 4 Gathering, is a week long event celebrating the signing of Treaty #4. The event is held in September, during the week of the 15th. Pow-wows are held daily during the week.
The Mission Ridge Ski Hill, located just south of the town near the Treaty 4 Grounds, is open during the winter and is patronised by ski-enthusiasts from the valley and environs and from Regina and elsewhere in the region. On the July long weekend Mission Ridge plays host to Rockin' the Ridge, a one day country/rock music festival.
Recently, Fort Qu'Appelle and area were host to the 2007 Keystone Cup during April 12–15. The Keystone Cup is the Junior "B" ice hockey championship and trophy for Western Canada. The home town host, Fort Knox hockey club, placed 2nd and won the silver medal in the event. The town accommodated players, coaches, parents, and fans during the event.
The town has one high school, Bert Fox Community High School, and one elementary school, Fort Qu'Appelle Elementary Community School. Parklands College is located at the Treaty 4 Governance Centre. Schooling in Fort Qu'Appelle radically expanded immediately after the end of academic year 1962-63 when close-by rural schools, which had pupils from kindergarten to grade 12, universally closed and their attendees were thereafter universally bussed for school to the Fort.
| Fort San | ||||
| Edgeley | Lebret | |||
| Fort Qu'Appelle | ||||
| Indian Head |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||