Culture and sports at Fort Qu'Appelle

Sunday, 11 October 2009 05:00

October 11, 1888. Formation of the Fort Qu'Appelle Boating, Shooting and Fishing Club, followed two years later by a public library, planted seeds of recreational and cultural progress for a Saskatchewan farming and playground centre.

Founded in 1864 by the Hudson's Bay Company as a fur trading post, Fort Qu'Appelle is now a town of some 2,000 in the Qu'Appelle Valley. A short drive northeast of Regina, the 400-kilometre valley is graced by a river and a chain of four lakes with sandy beaches, making it one of the premier playgrounds of the prairies.

The name comes from an Indian legend, enshrined in a poem by Pauline Johnson. A youth heard a voice and called out, what is there? It was a cry from his dying maiden lover, whom he was to marry the next day.

"As the world knows, we have as fine sheets of water here for the purposes of boating and fishing as are to be found in North America, and it has been thought by a number of our citizens that we had remained inactive long enough in the mater of organizing an association for the purpose of making a systematic use of our privileges," the Qu' Apelle Vidette reported. "A code of rules and bylaws" were approved and the Boating, Shooting and Fishing Club formed with 23 members.

Two years later, October 30, 1890, the Qu' Appelle Vidette reported that "A very successful meeting" was held to organize "a public library and literary institute for this district." Concerned citizens had already subscribed for "a very respectable sum… considered sufficient to warrant the commencement of operations for the establishment" of the library.