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Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan

Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, is a small village (legally, for historical reasons, a town) with considerable historic significance located on Trans-Canada Highway and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) mainline, some east of the provincial capital of Regina.

Qu'Appelle was for a time the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the major distribution centre for what is now southern Saskatchewan. The town is situated in a lush rolling parkland, with intermittent coulees containing steady-flowing creeks flowing into the Qu'Appelle Valley and poplar bluffs surrounding sloughs. Qu'Appelle thrived in the early settlement period of the North-West Territories in the 1880s through early 2000s.

Qu'Appelle had at one stage been credibly anticipated to be the major metropole of the North-West Territories by both the federal government and the Church of England (now the Anglican Church of Canada. It was under serious consideration by the federal government as district headquarters of the District of Assiniboia and territorial headquarters of the North-West Territories. The Church of England had designated Qu'Appelle the cathedral city for the Diocese of Qu'Appelle, which geographically corresponded precisely to the District of Assiniboia in the North-West Territories.

Political events, however, passed Qu'Appelle entirely by when Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney selected the locale of his own landholdings at Pile-O-Bones as his Territorial capital: Qu'Appelle's significance other than in historical terms then largely lapsed.

Name

The post office was founded at what was originally called Troy on August 1, 1882. For a time Qu'Appelle appeared likely to be the administrative headquarters for the District of Assiniboia, which corresponded to the southern portion of the present day province of Saskatchewan. Two versions of the origin of the name "Troy" are proposed:

(1) that it was named after Troy, Ontario by Wellington Mulholland, a land surveyor and land agent and

(2) that the name was chosen by the brothers Stephen and James Caswell who were merchants in the area and managed the post office.

When the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1884 the new town was renamed Qu'Appelle Station. (The word "Qu'Appelle," a corruption of qui appelle, French for "Who calls?" refers to the Qu'Appelle Valley and the then popular legend versified by E. Pauline Johnson.) In 1902 the name was changed to South Qu'Appelle and in 1911 the longstanding confusion as to the name "Qu'Appelle," which also referred to the former Hudson's Bay Company fort town in the Qu'Appelle Valley, to the northeast of Qu'Appelle, was resolved when the two communities agreed to deem the then-CPR station site as Qu'Appelle and the town in the valley as Fort Qu'Appelle.

History

Like many small Canadian prairie towns, Qu'Appelle has enjoyed a considerably livelier past than present. Qu'Appelle, however, has in particular been a near-miss throughout its unfortunate history. A Hudson's Bay Company trading temporarily stood near the future site of the town from 1854 through 1864 when it was re-located back to its previous site, the modern Fort Qu'Appelle in the Qu'Appelle Valley.

Qu'Appelle was at one point among the likely choices as capital of the North-West Territories, as indicated by its original status as the historical see city of the Anglican Diocese of Qu'Appelle. The choice of Pile-of-Bones, as Regina was originally called, as the Territorial headquarters was a national scandal in the 1880s: there was an "obvious conflict of interest" in Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney's promoting of Pile-of-Bones as the territorial headquarters. A 1980 local town history reports that

In his January 5, 1892 edition of the Regina Leader, [Nicholas Flood Davin] explained what in his mind, and in the minds of most of the people in this area, was the real reason Qu'Appelle was not chosen, or rather why Pile of Bones was Dewdney's choice. According to Mr. Davin, Lieutenant-Governor Dewdney and fourteen other men formed a syndicate and bought Hudson Bay section along the C.P.R. Mainline....He chose the town site of Regina...about a mile west of the present station—that is, on their own section '26'." |Qu'Appelle : footprints to progress: a history of Qu'Appelle and district The Stage is Set pp.2, 11. }}

Until 1897, however, when responsible government was accomplished in the Territories, the lieutenant-governor and council governed by fiat and there was little legitimate means of challenging such decisions outside the federal capital of Ottawa, where the Territories were remote and of little concern.

North-West Rebellion

Qu'Appelle attained national prominence in 1885 during the North-West Rebellion. Until the construction of the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake, and Saskatchewan Railway in 1890 linked Regina with Saskatoon and Prince Albert, Qu'Appelle was the major debarkation and distribution centre. General Middleton, who billeted in the Queen's Hotel, made it the marshalling point to the locus of the Rebellion in the northwest for troops arriving from eastern Canada by train.

Many Qu'Appelle children of the late 19th and early 20th centuries recounted frightening encounters with angry Cree and Metis, who not unreasonably bore a considerable grudge against white settlers in the Qu'Appelle region. (Cf references, passim, in Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books.)

Early town life

Early residents of Qu'Appelle included numerous English remittance men whose cultured backgrounds contributed significantly to the life of the town. 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. Perhaps improbably in so small a community but indicative of the not always tolerant and inclusive social mores of early settlement in the Canadian west, discrete neighbourhoods of Qu'Appelle were generally called "Germantown" and "Breedville," the latter in racist early reference to the prairie Anglo-Métis, whom white settlers at the time called "half-breeds," a term now considered disparaging, and generally avoided.

The fine yellow brick town hall and "opera house" remains marginally in use, though its auditorium has long since been closed to public use because it falls short of modern standards of safety and the town cannot bring it up. Its companion building, Qu'Appelle High School, built in similar style in identical yellow brick, closed in 1973 and was demolished in 1975. The Queen's Hotel, built in 1884, survived, latterly largely as a town pub, until its destruction by fire in 2003. At one point the town contained a train station, some half-dozen grain elevators, a bank, post office, butcher, two general stores, a hardware store, pharmacy, the hotel (and "beverage room," in the terminology of the early 20th century Canadian West), barber shop, firehall, law office, numerous service stations, several cafés, cinema (later converted to a grocery store, now closed) and a covered rink. In the 1890s, there was "a flour mill, a creamery, a felt and boot factory."

The Qu'Appelle Anglican Diocese maintained the St John's College Farm immediately to the west of town. By 1910 the town's population had risen to nearly 1,000. Qu'Appelle was an important local business, shopping and distribution centre which, staged an annual summer fair.

But the farming hinterland was far more densely populated than today; travel to Regina was accomplished via a train journey and domestic transport mostly by horse drawn conveyances. With the vastly depleted rural population and improved transport these amenities have almost wholly lapsed. The rationalisation by the grain companies of their depots for buying grain from farmers and the resulting disappearance of Qu'Appelle's grain elevators hastened the process of decline as even the regular visits by farmers to town to deliver grain ceased.

Geography

Qu'Appelle is located in the Indian Head Plain of the Aspen Parkland ecoregion on the parkland of the Qu'Appelle flood plain. Qu'Appelle's elevation is above sea level. The area is characterised by lush rolling grasslands, interspersed with poplar bluffs and sloughs. Qu'Appelle is located in the transition zone between the Qu'Appelle River and the corresponding Qu'Appelle Valley and the Canadian Prairies. Echo Creek (occasionally known as Springbrook Creek) rises immediately to the north of Qu'Appelle and opens out into a broad coulee immediately to the south of the Qu'Appelle Valley.

Natural features of Egg Lake (20.6 km); Echo Creek (14.8 km); the Fishing Lakes (25.1 km) and Strawberry Lakes (27.7 km) are near Qu'Appelle. The Fishing Lakes—Katepwa, Mission, Echo and Pasqua Lakes—immediately to the north of the Qu'Appelle in the Qu'Appelle Valley, are all fed by the Qu'Appelle River.

The Indian Head Bird Sanctuary, maintained by the Canada Agriculture Experimental Farm Tree Nursery is located 14 km east of Qu'Appelle. The sanctuary is a mixed-grass prairie eco-region and wetlands created by the damming of the Indian Head Creek.

Demographics

The 2006 Statistics Canada data estimates the town's population at 624 residents, continuing a trend of population decline in the town since the 2001 Census. Of this population, 48.8 per cent were male and 51.2 per cent were female. Children under five accounted for approximately 4.8 per cent of the resident population of Qu'Appelle. The population of Qu'Appelle compares contributes .645 per cent of the Saskatchewan population total.

Between 2001 and 2006, Qu'Appelle's population decreased by 3.7 percent. During the same time period, the population of Saskatchewan decreased by 1.1 percent, while that of Canada grew by 5.4 percent. The population density of Qu'Appelle averaged , compared with an average of for the province. According to data from 2001 (although with so small a population percentages are not especially informative) more than 36.9% of the town's residents identify themselves as Roman Catholic; 38.46% of residents are Protestant, 2.3% are Christian, 5.38% are Buddhist, and 16.9% of residents do not practise a religion.

Qu'Appelle is a part of Census Division No. 6. Qu'Appelle and area do not belong to a Saskatchewan Regional Economic Development Authority, REDA.

According to the Canada 2001 Census the community profile was as follows:

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

N/A = Data Not Available

Economy

The catastrophe of Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney nominating Pile-of-Bones, later Regina, as his Territorial Capital was only the first of the disasters to befall Qu'Appelle. Bishop Burn's closing of the Qu'Appelle Model Farm and transfer of Bishop's Court from Qu'Appelle to Indian Head in 1895 accelerated the decline. Thereafter Qu'Appelle's pretensions as the would-be metropolis for the District of Assiniboia were comprehensively dispelled.

The Anglican metropole was first unofficially transferred from Qu'Appelle to Indian Head, when Bishop Burn decided to live there rather than in Qu'Appelle; he transferred Bishop's Court there, and it was subsequently transferred to Regina.

By the 1960s the CPR Railway station, the grain elevators, the Post Office, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Red and White grocery store, the Hamblin general store, the barber shop and three gas stations remained. These were not to last beyond 1970.

The long-disused movie theatre building on Main Street across the street from the Kraus BA garage briefly was turned into a general store in the 1960s when Hamblin's General Store and the Red & White Store closed but this soon ended. The bypassing of Qu'Appelle by Highway 10 to the Qu'Appelle Valley, the closing of the grain elevators and the gas stations, the high school and all the remaining grocery stores determinatively spelled the end of Qu'Appelle as a viable commercial centre.

Contemporary issues

Until the 1960s Qu'Appelle commerce was saved from moribundity by local farmers bringing their grain to sell in the several now-demolished grain elevators and by Regina cottagers passing through en route to the Qu'Appelle Valley when the Trans-Canada Highway to Qu'Appelle and then Highway 35 north to the Valley was the only convenient route. For a time In 1968 the Highway No. 10 cut across directly from Balgonie to the Valley. The route from Regina to the Valley was by Highway No. 1 to Qu'Appelle and then north on Highway 35. In recent years Qu'Appelle has enjoyed a mild resurgence as a result of commuters from Regina discovering it as a bedroom community. To encourage population growth, the town council for a time advertised lots for sale at one dollar as a means of attracting new residents, and several mobile homes in town are the result. According to the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan "about 80% to 90% of the town’s workforce drives to and from the city each day" However, the once solidly built up main street is now almost entirely lined with vacant lots and abandoned buildings.

As late as the 1960s there were still a hospital, post office, butcher, Red & White grocery store, general store, barbershop and several garages, including Royalite and BA stations on the trans-Canada highway and two garages in town operated by the Kuntz and Kraus families. The historic Queen's Hotel, built in 1884 and perhaps the last of the major commercial structures of Main Street, burned to the ground in 2003. Northern Bank, Qu'Appelle, built in 1906 and taken over by the Royal Bank of Canada in 1925 is located on the east side of Main Street looking north. The branch continued to operate until the 1960s when reduced commercial activity in Qu'Appelle and declining population in the hinterland made it no longer viable.

James Hamblin School, the town primary school built in the 1960s and named for the proprietor of the long-operating (but now long-defunct) Main Street general store, remains in operation with nine staff and an enrolment of 156 in 2007. The Saskatchewan library association maintains a travelling library in the Town Hall with internet access to the province-wide collection and provides facilities for ordering books from such collection. This is in contrast with the otherwise sadly depleted resources of today's Qu'Appelle by comparison with the burgeoning community of the past. This Library service is perhaps one improved facility.

During the Depression Lady Tweedsmuir, the Vicereine of Canada, established a library project by which used books were collected in Eastern Canada and distributed by the train carload throughout western Canada free of charge. This afforded Qu'Appelle's impoverished residents a modest library facility during the 1930s; Qu'Appelle today need no longer depend on such a provident society charitable facility as the provincial library service maintains a library in the town hall. The long-disused movie theatre on Main Street across the street from the Kraus Esso service station briefly enjoyed a second life as a general store during the 1960s when James Hamblin's general store closed on his death but it lasted only for a decade.

At present there remains a small business core including a print shop, tattoo parlour (!) and analytical laboratory. The Odd Fellows, long a local service club, dissolved. There still remains a Mason's lodge, a Lions Club, the Community Players and a Historical Society. No substantial retail establishments yet remain, however, and Qu'Appelle residents must repair to Indian Head, Fort Qu'Appelle or Regina to provision their households. The "Opera House" — the auditorium in the Town Hall — is long closed and remains unused, having failed to conform to contemporary safety regulations.

Media

The Qu'Appelle Progress, the town newspaper, began production at the very outset of Qu'Appelle's establishment and maintained publication till the mid-60s. It originally provided substantive news as to national and international events when access to wider news organs was not locally available. Latterly it devolved to a local community paper, largely subsisting on reports from farm wives as to the waning hinterland rural communities as civic events in Qu'Appelle became less newsworthy. Community reporters phoned in accounts of events in such now entirely historic rural communities as Inglewood and Springbrook.

The rural population which Qu'Appelle had served declined as family farms were consolidated. The Dominion Lands Act, 1872 provided for farms of or ¼ section The Depression of the 1930s made it clear that while this might have been enough land for a family farm in Ontario, it was not nearly enough in the dryland farming conditions of the prairies.

Rural churches and schools closed. Churches disappeared in the 1950s. All rural schools were closed in June, 1963 and farm children thereafter bused to town school. Little trace of either now remains. Rural community life lapsed.

By the time such rural communities had passed into their brief history, Heber Ellis, the editor and publisher of The Progress had reached the end of his life and The Progress died with him.

The Qu'Appelle Spirit Monthly newsletter provides local reporting from volunteers.

Governance

The town of Qu'Appelle was incorporated February 20, 1903. The municipal affairs are handled by the town mayor and council. The rural municipality of South Qu'appelle No. 157 office is located in Qu'Appelle and provides municipal rural affairs to the small localities of Avonhurst, Edgeley, Grassmere, Green Haven, Qu'Appelle Airport and St. Josephs Colony. South Qu'Appelle RM in 1885 was a large area comprising more than 18 townships with an area of 592 square miles. Due its size, the council divided into 27 road districts and appointed road overseers to maintain construction and maintenance of early roads.

Qu'Appelle is in the federal electoral district of Regina—Qu'Appelle (formerly Qu'Appelle).

Provincially, the area is within the Constituency of Indian Head-Milestone.

Climate

Qu'Appelle has a semi-arid, highland continental climate with dry winters and cool summers (Koppen climate classification BSk, Qu'Appelle's winters can be uncomfortably cold; but warm, dry Chinook winds routinely blow into the city from the Pacific Ocean during the winter months, providing the occasional break from the cold especially during the times of El Niño-Southern Oscillation. These winds have been known to raise the winter temperature by up to in just a few hours.

Qu'Appelle is a town of extremes, and temperatures have ranged anywhere from a record low of in 1983 to a record high of in 1988. According to Environment Canada, the average temperature in Qu'Appelle ranges from a January daily average of to a July daily average of .

As a consequence of Qu'Appelle's relative dryness, summer evenings can be very cool, the average summer minimum temperature drops to . Qu'Appelle has a semi-arid climate typical of other cities in the Western Great Plains and Canadian Prairies.

Qu'Appelle receives an average of of precipitation annually, with of that occurring in the form of rain, and the remaining as snow. Most of the precipitation occurs from May to August, with June and July averaging the most monthly rainfall. On July 13, 1981, Qu'Appelle received of precipitation, making it the wettest day in the town's recorded history. On May 12, 1983, Qu'Appelle received of snowfall, providing the snowiest day in the town's recorded history. Droughts are not uncommon and may occur at any time of the year, lasting sometimes for months or even several years.

Education

Bishop Adelbert Anson, the first Bishop of Qu'Appelle (1884-1892), established the St John's College Farm, a boys school, agricultural and theological college shortly after his arrival in the diocese in 1884. St. John's College dissolved shortly after his departure in 1893. December 5, 1884 saw the creation of the first two school districts in the North-West Territories; Moose Jaw School District #1 and Qu'Appelle School District #2. The wood frame two- or three-classroom school house gave way to a 2½- storey brick school with full basement in 1906. Despite the town's decline, Qu'Appelle School had a new, though temporary, lease on life in 1964 when the new consolidated school unit came in, rural schools closed and farm children began coming to school in Qu'Appelle by bus. Qu'Áppelle School was closed in 1973 and demolished in 1975. November 27, 1964 saw the opening of the nine-classroom brick James Hamblin School. Elementary school education from kindergarten to grade 9 is provided there; it is administered by the Qu'Appelle Valley School Division No. 139. Secondary school has not been available in Qu'Appelle since 1973 when Qu'Appelle High School closed and high school students from Qu'Appelle must travel to Bert Fox Community High School in Fort Qu'Appelle, part of the Prairie Valley School Division No 208. or to Indian Head High School.

Religion

Church of England

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 of the Church of England (since 1955 the Anglican Church of Canada). The diocese of Qu'Appelle still retains that name, though the historic association with the town of Qu'Appelle other than as a subsidiary congregation of the parish of Indian Head is long past. St Peter's, the pro-cathedral, was built in 1885. Its stone rectory next door is now in private hands, the church (as with the other three denominations) having long since withdrawn any full-time residential clergy from the town.

Bishop Adelbert Anson, the first Bishop of Qu'Appelle (1884), cultivated a relationship between Qu'Appelle and his home Diocese of Lichfield in England and with wealthy friends there. They briefly took on both Diocese of Qu'Appelle as a mission field and the parish of St Peter's Pro-Cathedral as a particular focus of interest. Much of the early development of the St John's College Farm and the furnishing of St Peter's Pro-Cathedral are attributable to that early connection.

The diocese briefly operated a training facility for Anglican clergy in the town and the St John's College Farm, a model farm immediately to the west of town. Bishop Burn, who lacked Bishop Anson's connections with patrons in the Diocese of Lichfield, closed both of these facilities in 1895. The parish church of St Peter's, however, continued as the pro-cathedral for southern Saskatchewan until 1944.

The original Bishop's Court, the official residence of the diocesan bishop, was also in Qu'Appelle. It was moved by John Burn, the second bishop of Qu'Appelle, to Indian Head, some to the east of Qu'Appelle, in 1896 when he closed the college. It had became apparent that

(a) diocesan debt was becoming disproportionate to anticipated resources in the largely non-Anglican District of Assiniboia and

(b) the sponsoring Diocese of Lichfield in England was unwilling to underwrite the expenses of such programs indefinitely.

(Nevertheless, despite Bishop Burn's having comprehensively retired Qu'Appelle as the de facto diocesan see city, when he died in 1996 he was buried in Qu'Appelle and his grave monument is the largest in Qu'Appelle Cemetery.)

Early on, the bishop's residence was further relocated to the diocesan property in Regina which has itself now been sold and is being redeveloped for commercial and residential use as the declining Anglican Church has been forced to rationalise its resources. Still, when Bishop Burn died he was buried in Qu'Appelle Cemetery, where his grave monument remains the largest. Ultimately, with the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the provincial metropolis long since having been removed to Regina, pro-cathedral status was removed from St Peter's, Qu'Appelle and conferred on St Paul's, Regina in 1944.

(However, even Regina's continuing status as an episcopal see city and that of St Paul's, Regina as a cathedral may now be in doubt as the further declining Anglican Church rationalises its increasingly top-heavy episcopal structure.)

Methodist, Presbyterian and United Churches

Qu'Appelle Methodist Church opened in 1883 as part of a circuit that included Edgeley Methodist Church. Knox Presbyterian Church was built in 1884. The Presbyterian and Methodist congregations merged in 1925 to become a congregation of the United Church of Canada. They maintained the Presbyterian church building as its facility and with the minister of Qu'Appelle Methodist Church continuing at the present day Knox United.

The Presbyterians of Qu'Appelle were so substantial a body that when a non-concurring minority of their congregation seceded and re-constituted themselves a separate continuing Presbyterian congregation, building a separate meeting house on Main Street for their St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, both congregations remained viable: those who went into the union still constituted a majority of the United Church congregation and both were able to maintain a vital presence in the town for many years.

For a generation the church union issue raised hackles in Qu'Appelle among uniting and non-concurring Presbyterians and many firm friendships were sundered. Nowadays as elsewhere in Canada, as the matter has passed into history and matters of denominational affiliation have largely become moot in Canada's increasingly secular society, the issue is largely forgotten.

Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholics, many of them of French Canadian and German antecedents, built the fine Immaculate Conception Church on Main Street in 1906 (consecrated in 1907). The building is in the same yellow brick as the town hall and school, the pro-cathedral and numerous houses and Main Street businesses, which once characterised the town's not-unimpressive yellow brick style.

Immaculate Conception parish began in 1886. Its original church building survives as a private residential dwelling. Whereas Presbyterian and Methodist, and later United, churches maintained rural congregations in which farm families locally worshipped and conducted community events, Roman Catholics as with Anglicans came to town for Sunday services and liturgical festivals and from the outset the Catholic church in Qu'Appelle had a substantial constituency.

It is the largest church building in the town of Qu'Appelle, seating up to 225. It has the most vital surviving congregation, albeit long since without a resident clergyman.

Annual cultural events

In Qu'Appelle's early days, churches constituted a major focus of community social as well as religious life through the year. Social events involving the whole community occurred when the town organised

*May Day celebrations on May 1,

*Victoria Day fireworks on May 24,

*a parade for Dominion Day on July 1,

*a summer agricultural fair in July,

*school plays and concerts at Christmas and in the spring,

*amateur community concerts and theatricals in the "opera house" in the Town Hall;

*cricket matches and

*hockey games in the indoor community rink.

The town's churches mounted parish, congregational, Sunday School and other events through the year which were a focus of social activity for members of the four religious denominations of the town: the Church of England, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists (later United Church, containing all the Methodists and the majority of the Presbyterians) and, after the 1925 church union, the continuing Presbyterian congregation.

Infrastructure

When the rail arrived in 1882, the Troy (Qu'Appelle)-Prince Albert trail served freight and stagecoach transport to the north-west and onwards to Edmonton. The CPR formerly provided passenger service east and west from Qu'Appelle. It was heavily used before the arrival of widespread private motor vehicle ownership and again during the Depression; it continues to run past Qu'Appelle but no longer maintains a station or passenger facilities; nor are there any longer grain elevators. Highway 35 runs south to Weyburn and north to Fort Qu'Appelle and while no longer heavily trafficked since the opening of Highway 10 from Balgonie to the Valley, is still paved on the northward sector.

Utilites

Qu'Appelle was home to a North-West Mounted Police barracks established by Major Walsh in 1882 and until the 1950s there was a resident RCMP constable. Early water was supplied by digging wells to deep, until the 1930s when a well was dug. 1962 saw the construction of a 500 gallon (2250 l) water tower as well as the first town fire hydrant. The town foreman co-ordinates and manages the Public Works & Utilities Department. Qu'Appelle and the surrounding rural municipality of South Qu'appelle No. 157 are served by the the Qu'Appelle Volunteer Fire Department, who are trained in health care and fire rescue practices. The Indian Head Royal Canadian Mounted Police RCMP detachment provides police protection for the community.

Healthcare

The town had a doctor living in the town from the early 1880s until the mid-1960s. Diptheria, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever and typhoid fever were early epidemics to hit the town. Midwives were employed in child birth deliveries. Qu'Appelle Memorial Hospital opened on March 3, 1946 and closed March 1, 1969.

The Regina Qu'Appelle Regional Health Authority assesses and provides health care within the Regina-Qu'Appelle region. Regina and Indian Head both have hospitals and special care homes in the Regina Qu'Appelle Regional Health Authority region which are near to Qu'Appelle. Fort Qu'Appelle is home to the Fort Qu'Appelle Community Health Services Centre, All Nations' Healing Hospital and the Echo Lodge Special Care Home. Regina has a number of health care facilities, some of which are the Pasqua Hospital, Regina General Hospital, Rehabilitation Services, Wascana Rehabilitation Centre, Community Health Centres, Al Ritchie Health Action Centre, Child Health Clinics, Four Directions Community Health Centre, Mental Health Services and the population and Public Health Services. Indian Head facilities consist of the Indian Head Hospital, and Golden Prairie Home long term care facility.

Sports and recreation

Within the town of Qu'Appelle, the Recreation & Culture Committee oversees the activities at the skating rink, Centennial and Capital Day Parks, Community Hall, tennis court and library. The McLean, Saskatchewan Recreation Site west of Qu'Appelle to the west has a picnic area; Katepwa Point Provincial Park , Valley Centre Recreation Site , Lebret Recreation Site and Echo Valley Provincial Park are in the Qu'Appelle Valley; Katepwa Point Provincial Park features a picnic area, beach, nine hole golf course, miniature golf course, fishing, boating and campground. This popular beach is located on Katepwa Road.

Notable people from Qu'Appelle

Neil Schell, actor was born 24 April 1957, in Qu'Appelle. He has starred in a variety of television series and movies such as most recently A Little Thing Called Murder, 2006 and Cabin Pressure / Hijack'd, 2006.
George H. V. Bulyea, Canadian politician moved to Qu'Appelle, District of Assiniboia, North-West Territories in 1893. Here he engaged in the furniture, flour, and feed businesses until 1907. He wrote an official handbook regarding the North-West Territories.
Vernon Barford, (10 September 1876 - 22 April 1963) organist, choirmaster, teacher homesteaded and organist in the Qu'Appelle district between 1895 and 1900.
Edward Rawlinson, (June 2, 1912–1992), born in Qu'Appelle showed leadership in broadcasting across several radio stations to Saskatchewan and was the youngest chartered accountant in Canada.

Area statistics

Lat (DMS) 50° 33' 00" N
Long (DMS) 103° 53' 00" W
Dominion Land Survey Section 21 - Township 18 - Range 14 West of the 2nd Meridian
Time zone (cst) UTC-6