The administrative headquarters of the Nekaneet Cree Nation is 37 km (23 mi) southeast of Maple Creek.[5]
History
Reddicks Farm, Maple Creek (1920s)
After the North-West Mounted Police had been established at Fort Walsh, settlers began to explore the Cypress Hills area, living along the creeks and doing small-scale ranching. The Department of the Interior was operating a First Nations farm on the Maple Creek, a few miles south from the present town site. In 1882-1883 the First Nations (mainly Cree, Saulteaux, and Assiniboine) were moved to Qu'Appelle, and the farm was then operated by Major Shurtleff, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and George Wood, his brother-in-law.
In the winter of 1882, a Canadian Pacific Railway construction crew of 12 decided to winter where the town of Maple Creek now stands. This marked the establishment of Maple Creek.[6]
In June 2010, a flood submerged some of the town when Maple Creek overflowed its banks. The same flood hit much of southwestern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta and even destroyed a portion of the Trans-Canada Highway.[7]
Heritage sites
There are two designated municipal heritage Properties in Maple Creek:
The W. R. Orr Heritage Building was constructed in 1910 and over its history it has housed the Union Bank of Canada; W.R. Orr Law Office; Royal Bank of Canada; Bank of Montreal; Burnett & Orr Law Office.[8]
The St. Mary's Anglican Church was constructed in 1909 in the Romanesque style. The church also contains a vestry, narthex, and octagonal belfry with steeple that was added in 1928.[9]
In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada, Maple Creek had a population of 2,176 living in 988 of its 1,083 total private dwellings, a change of 4.4% from its 2016 population of 2,084. With a land area of 4.35 km2 (1.68 sq mi), it had a population density of 500.2/km2 (1,295.6/sq mi) in 2021.[2]
Maple Creek experiences a semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classificationBSk). With the exception of southwestern Alberta, winters in Maple Creek are typically warmer than those in the adjacent plain region of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, being a convergence point for Chinook winds originating along the Rocky Mountain Front.
The highest temperature ever recorded in Maple Creek was 43.3 °C (109.9 °F) on August 5, 1961.[22] The coldest temperature ever recorded was −46.7 °C (−52.1 °F) on February 15 and 16, 1936.[23]
Robsart Art Works features Saskatchewan artists featuring photographers of old buildings and towns throughout Saskatchewan.[27]
T.rex Discovery Centre, a facility to house the fossil record of the Eastend area started many years before the discovery of "Scotty" the T.Rex in 1994.[28]
Education
The Sidney Street School[29] and the Maple Creek Composite School[30] serve the local community.
^The sum of the ancestries in this table is greater than the total population estimate because a person may report more than one ancestry (ethnic origin)
^Precipitation (including rain and snow) and days with precipitation are from the 1981–2010 normals
^Extreme high and low temperatures in the table below were recorded at Maple Creek from July 1921 to June 1967, at Maple Creek North from July 1967 to November 2007 and at Maple Creek from December 2007 to present.
^"Table 5: Population of urban centres, 1916-1946, with guide to locations". Census of the Prairie Provinces, 1946. Vol. I: Population. Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics. 1949. pp. 397–400.
^"Table 6: Population by sex, for census subdivisions, 1956 and 1951". Census of Canada, 1956. Vol. I: Population. Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics. 1958.
^"Table 9: Population by census subdivisions, 1966 by sex, and 1961". 1966 Census of Canada. Western Provinces. Vol. Population: Divisions and Subdivisions. Ottawa: Dominion Bureau of Statistics. 1967.
^"Table 3: Population for census divisions and subdivisions, 1971 and 1976". 1976 Census of Canada. Census Divisions and Subdivisions, Western Provinces and the Territories. Vol. Population: Geographic Distributions. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. 1977.
^"Table 2: Census Subdivisions in Alphabetical Order, Showing Population Rank, Canada, 1981". 1981 Census of Canada. Vol. Census subdivisions in decreasing population order. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. 1982. ISBN0-660-51563-6.
^"Table 2: Population and Dwelling Counts, for Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions, 1986 and 1991 – 100% Data". 91 Census. Vol. Population and Dwelling Counts – Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. 1992. pp. 100–108. ISBN0-660-57115-3.
