Eastend is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

in south-west part of 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 ...

, situated approximately north of the

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

border and east of the

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

border. The town is best known for the nearby discovery of a '' Tyrannosaurus rex'' skeleton nicknamed "Scotty" in 1994. The town has used the discovery of this fossil as the main centrepiece in the construction of a museum called the ''

T.rex Discovery Centre The T.rex Discovery Centre is a natural history museum located in Eastend, Saskatchewan, Canada, and housed in a building designed by Stantec. The T.rex Discovery Centre was opened to the public in 2001, and was intended house a number of fossils, ...

'', which opened on May 30, 2003. The centre is operated by the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, and contains the RSM Fossil Research Station. Eastend has been home to many famous residents, including the writer

Wallace Stegner Wallace Earle Stegner (February 18, 1909 – April 13, 1993) was an American novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and historian, often called "The Dean of Western Writers". He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book ...

, who lived in the town between 1917 and 1921 and featured it as the village Whitemud in his book ''Wolf Willow''. Today, the former home of Stegner is used as an artists retreat which can be rented out by artists to focus on their work.

History

The Eastend Area is rich in history and geology, and is rife with paleontological sites. A Métis settlement developed north of Eastend, and in the 1870s a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post was established in the region. In the mid 1880s as bison populations were being decimated on the eastern plains, the area became an important hunting ground that nearby First Nations tribes regularly fought over. The post only lasted one season, due to hostilities between the neighbouring tribes. Many years later, this site became known as Chimney Coulee – the name being derived from the remnants of stone chimneys that were once a part of Métis homes. In the late 1870s the

North-West Mounted Police The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian para-military police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert’s Land and North-Western Territory ...

established a satellite detachment of the Fort Walsh site in Chimney Coulee, and gave the area the name of "East End", due to its location on the East End of the Cypress Hills. When the Mounties moved to the nearby townsite years later, they condensed the name into one word, and the town was Christened "Eastend". The first ranch was established in the area in 1883, and a ranch house was built in the town in 1902, the community’s first residence, which remains occupied to this day. Surveyors came to the area in 1905, a precursor to the expansion of the railway. In 1913, construction of the railway in the area began. Lumber was freighted from Gull Lake, Saskatchewan to Eastend until the railroad reached town in May, 1914. Many young people began coming to the townsite, and tents were placed across the river to accommodate them. J.C. Strong, the original owner of the townsite, donated land to build the first church, cemetery, and a lot for the first baby born in Eastend. She was born in June, 1914 and was named Eastena. On her 21st birthday she donated the lot given to her to the United Church.

Flood of 1952

In the fall and winter of 1951 the town saw a record amount of snow. In the spring of 1952, unusually warm weather melted the snow quickly and caused a massive flood in Eastend. The town was evacuated and residents found refuge with friends and family that lived in nearby towns. The water receded after three days, leaving immense amounts of destruction in its wake. A few years later a dyke was constructed along the river to prevent history from repeating itself.

Discovery of "Scotty" the Tyrannosaurs Rex

On August 16, 1991, then high school teacher, Robert Gebhardt from Eastend joined local palaeontologists on a prospecting expedition to the exposed bedrock along the Frenchman River Valley to learn how fossils are found and identified in the field. Within a half a day, he discovered the base of a heavily worn tooth, and a vertebra from the tail, both suggesting that they belonged to a T. rex.

Geography

Eastend is located south-east of the Cypress Hills, east from Ravenscrag Butte and south from Anxiety Butte. It lies at an elevation of , in the valley of the

Frenchman River The Frenchman River, ( ats, níhʔɔɔtóóúníícááh, lit=white person river), also known locally as the Whitemud River, is a river in Saskatchewan, Canada and Montana, United States. It is a tributary of the Milk River, itself a tributary o ...

. The Eastend Reservoir was built upstream from the community. The

Eastend Formation The Eastend Formation is a stratigraphical unit of Maastrichtian age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. It takes its name from the town of Eastend, Saskatchewan, and was first described in outcrop around the settlement by L.S. Russell in ...

, a stratigraphical unit of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin was named for the town and was first defined in outcrops close to the settlement. The Eastend Formation was the final marine deposit on the plains, and was home to many marine animals.

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 ...

, Eastend 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.

Infrastructure

Saskatchewan Highway 13 and highway 614 intersect in Eastend. The

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

(formerly the Altawan subdivision of the Canadian Pacific Railway) tracks also pass through the town. The nearest major airports are

Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport is an international airport located north-west of downtown Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The airport is served by passenger, courier and air freight operators. It is named for John Diefenbaker, ...

Regina International Airport Regina International Airport is an international airport located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, located south-west and west-southwest of the city centre. It is run by the Regina Airport Authority. It was, in 2018, the 15th busiest airpor ...

and

Calgary International Airport Calgary International Airport , branded as YYC Calgary International Airport, is an international airport that serves the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is located approximately northeast of downtown and covers an area of 20.82 squa ...

Attractions

is a world class facility to house the fossil record of the Eastend area started many years before the discovery of "Scotty" the

T.Rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...

in 1994. * The Eastend Community Swimming Pool was built in 1971, and remodelled in 2016. It now features a 25m outdoor swimming pool, a splash park, and two waterslides. * Jones Peak is located six miles south-west of Eastend. It was named after H.S. "Corky" Jones for his tireless work as an amateur paleontologist and in preserving the history of Eastend. * Streambank Golf Course, a 9-hole

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

located in town.

Regional attractions

Big Muddy Badlands The Big Muddy Badlands are a series of badlands in southern Saskatchewan and northern Montana in the Big Muddy Valley and along Big Muddy Creek. Big Muddy Valley is a cleft of erosion and sandstone that is long, wide, and deep. Big Muddy V ...

is a series of

badlands Badlands are a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded."Badlands" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 47. They are characterized by steep slopes, m ...

in southern

and northern

along Big Muddy Creek. They are found in the Big Muddy Valley, a cleft of erosion and sandstone along Big Muddy Creek. The valley is long, wide and deep. The valley was formed when it was part of an ancient glacial meltwater channel that carried great quantities of water south-eastward during the last ice age. * Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park straddles the southern

border, located north-west of Robsart. It is Canada's first and only interprovincial park. * Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery is open by appointment only from Christmas until May 14. * Fort Walsh is part of the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. As a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment An environment minister (sometimes minister of the environment or secretary of t ...

the area possesses National Historical Significance. It was established as a

(NWMP) fort after and at the location of the

Cypress Hills Massacre The Cypress Hills MassacreThe Cypress Hills Massacre
at

Grasslands National Park Grasslands National Park (French: ') is a Canadian national park located near the village of Val Marie, Saskatchewan, and one of 44 national parks and park reserves in Canada's national park system (though one of only two in Saskatchewan its ...

represents the Prairie Grasslands natural region, protecting one of the nation's few remaining areas of undisturbed dry mixed-grass/ shortgrass prairie grassland. The park is located in the WWF-defined

Northern short grasslands The Northern short grasslands includes parts of the Canada, Canadian Provinces of Canada, provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the United States, American Great Plains states of Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska. One ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

, which spans across much of Southern Saskatchewan,

Southern Alberta Southern Alberta is a region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. In 2004, the region's population was approximately 272,017.Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

states in the United States. * The Great Sandhills is a sand dune rising above the ground and covering 1,900 square kilometres. Native prairie grass helps keep the sand together. * Pine Cree Regional Park

Notable residents

* Billy R. Bascom (1925-2010), rodeo cowboy, trick rider, rodeo clown, artist and designer, Hollywood actor, college teacher, manager of Roy Rogers Riding Stables, Hall of Fame inductee * Charles S. Bascom (1920-1944), cowboy, WW II Canadian Air Force serviceman, military honoree *

Earl W. Bascom Earl Wesley Bascom (June 19, 1906 – August 28, 1995) was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, cowboy, rodeo performer, inventor, and Hollywood actor. Raised in Canada, he portrayed in works of fine art his own experiences of cowboying ...

(1906-1995), rodeo pioneer, Father of Modern Rodeo, rodeoed in Eastend, rounded-up horses on the 76 Ranch and the Seven Crowfoot Ranch, rodeo producer, inventor, cowboy artist and sculptor, Hollywood actor, school teacher, Hall of Fame inductee * Grant L. Bascom (1924-2009), cowboy, poet, sculptor * John W. Bascom (1869–1948), frontier lawman, rancher, rodeo pioneer, rodeo stock contractor, Hall of Fame inductee * Melvin Bascom (1903–1987), rodeo pioneer and champion, rancher, rodeo stock contractor, Hall of Fame inductee * Raymond Bascom (1901–1943), rodeo pioneer, rancher, champion chariot racer and Roman standing racer, racehorse trainer, Hall of Fame inductee * Wesley L. Bascom (1929-2018), rodeo cowboy and trick rider, rancher, school teacher, photographer, artist, Hall of Fame inductee *

Sharon Butala Sharon Butala (born Sharon Annette LeBlanc, 1940 in Nipawin, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian writer and novelist. Life Butala was born in an outpost hospital in Nipawin, Saskatchewan. She was the second of five daughters born to Amy Graham and Achill ...

Canadian author This is a list of Canadian literary figures, including poets, novelists, children's writers, essayists, and scholars. __NOTOC__ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X ...

who resides on a ranch outside of Eastend * George Haddad (1918–2010), renowned pianist, born and raised in EastendHaddad
Encyclopedia of Music in Canada *

, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and environmentalist who lived in Eastend from 1917 and 1921

References

External links

* {{Authority control Towns in Saskatchewan White Valley No. 49, Saskatchewan Division No. 4, Saskatchewan