Cupar ( ) is a town 75 kilometres northeast of Regina in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

. Cupar is settled on the flat plains 45 kilometres north of the scenic

Qu'Appelle Valley The Qu'Appelle River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba that flows east from Lake Diefenbaker in south-western Saskatchewan to join the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, just south of Lake of the Prairies, near t ...

. it is significant for its remarkable hockey history. It is often called the Home of

Eddie Shore Edward William Shore (November 23, 1902 – March 16, 1985) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman, principally for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League, and the longtime owner of the Springfield Indians of the American Hocke ...

, as the legendary

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

defenceman was raised here. Cupar is the home of artist Jacqueline Berting. The Berting Glass studio is located north of town. One of her best known works is ''The Glass Wheatfield'', encompassing 1,400 waist-high glass wheat stalks, each piece individually hand cut and lamp worked. Berting calls her work "a salute to the Canadian farmer". The town hosts the Cupar Gopher Drop, a unique

lottery A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...

held every summer. Stuffed toy

gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...

s (

Richardson's ground squirrel Richardson's ground squirrel (''Urocitellus richardsonii''), also known as the dakrat or flickertail, is a North American ground squirrel in the genus ''Urocitellus''. Like a number of other ground squirrels, they are sometimes called prairie do ...

s) labelled with numbers are dropped from a

hot-air balloon A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries p ...

along with numbered gopher holes. The "owner" of the gopher that lands nearest Hole 1 wins first prize, and so on.

History

Cupar became a village in 1905. It was named by a

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

official after the town of

Cupar Cupar ( ; gd, Cùbar) is a town, former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland. It lies between Dundee and Glenrothes. According to a 2011 population estimate, Cupar had a population around 9,000, making it the ninth-largest settlement in Fif ...

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. The town celebrated its centennial in 2005.

Sports

Cupar has a swimming pool,

ice rink An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or an artificial sheet of ice created using hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The ...

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

, rink, ball diamonds, and golf. The Cupar Canucks of the senior men's

Highway Hockey League The Highway Hockey League is a men's senior ice hockey league sanctioned by Hockey Saskatchewan and Hockey Canada. History The league was formed in 1965 with five teams in Bulyea, Drake, Govan, Lumsden, and Strasbourg. Many teams have come and ...

play here.http://www.highwayhockey.ca/

Rivalry with Southey

Cupar has a fierce rivalry with the nearby town of

Southey, Saskatchewan Southey is a town in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It is on Highway 6, approximately 55 km north of Regina, the capital city of the province of Saskatchewan. Southey is named after a famous English poet, Robert Southey. Additional ...

, especially in the field of sports. Without exception, there is a certain amount of animosity between individuals of the towns. However, the towns are close-knit, and inter-town sports teams are made often combining players from both towns.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Cupar had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Climate

References

External links

* Towns in Saskatchewan Cupar No. 218, Saskatchewan Division No. 6, Saskatchewan {{SKDivision6-geo-stub