La Ronge is a

northern town Saskatchewan is the sixth-most populous province in Canada with 1,132,505 residents as of 2021 and is the fifth-largest in land area at . In 2021, Saskatchewan's 774 municipalities covered of the province's land mass and were home to of i ...

in the

boreal forest Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces ...

of central

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in 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 the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North ...

, Canada. Its location is approximately north of

Prince Albert Prince Albert most commonly refers to: *Albert, Prince Consort (1819–1861), consort of Queen Victoria *Albert II, Prince of Monaco (born 1958), present head of state of Monaco Prince Albert may also refer to: Royalty * Albert I of Belgium ...

where

Highway 2 The following highways are numbered 2. For roads numbered A2, see list of A2 roads. For roads numbered B2, see list of B2 roads. For roads numbered M2, see list of M2 roads. For roads numbered N2, see list of N2 roads. International * AH2, As ...

becomes Highway 102. La Ronge lies on the western shore of Lac la Ronge, is adjacent to Lac La Ronge Provincial Park, and is on the edge of the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...

. This town is also the namesake of the larger La Ronge population centre comprising the community, the Northern Village of Air Ronge and the Kitsakie 156B and Lac La Ronge 156 reserves of the Lac La Ronge First Nation.

History

The name of La Ronge comes from the lake. The origin of the name is uncertain; the most likely explanation is that early French fur traders named it ''la ronge'' (literally ''the chewed'') because of the large amount of beaver activity along the shoreline—many of the trees would have been chewed down for beaver dam construction. In 1782, Swiss born fur trader Jean-Étienne Waddens had a fur trade post on Lac La Ronge. In March 1782, Waddens was fatally wounded in a quarrel with his associate Peter Pond. La Ronge began in 1904 as a fur

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...

and meeting place, but with the decline of hunting and the fur market, La Ronge has diversified into other areas. Many of the

Dene The Dene people () are an indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages. ''Dene'' is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term "Dene" h ...

, Cree, and white trappers used La Ronge as their central service point. It incorporated as a northern village on 3 May 1905. TigerTrout2

With the extension of

from Prince Albert in 1947, La Ronge became a major tourist

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques ...

area. The

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

between La Ronge and Prince Albert expanded the community further in the 1970s after it was paved. In the early 1950s and 1960s, the

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ...

resources in the La Ronge area began to be explored and developed. La Ronge's status changed from northern village to industrial town in 1965 and then to town on 1 November 1976 before finally becoming a northern town on 1 October 1983.

Wildfire evacuations

In May 1999, the community of La Ronge was evacuated after a fire burned through the far north of the town. The

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...

burned multiple houses before conditions pushed the fire away from the town and crews were able to extinguish it. Once again in July 2015, La Ronge was threatened by dangerous forest fires that combined forcing approximately 7,000 people to evacuate from their homes. Many cabins and homes were burnt. The fire came within 2 km of La Ronge and burned completely around the La Ronge Airport making it difficult to fight the fire from air with smokey conditions and unreliable weather making the fight against the fires very difficult. In total there were over a hundred fires burning in Northern Saskatchewan at once which forced over 13,000 residents to flee their homes, resulting in the province's largest evacuation ever. The fires were caused by low precipitation in the winter and summer months and also high temperatures.

Geography

La Ronge is surrounded by several

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: ** First Nat ...

reserves, with the Northern Village of Air Ronge located just south of the community on Highway 2. With access to all other points north, east and west, and transportation linkage to the south, La Ronge is also the northern hub for the Saskatchewan provincial government.

Climate

La Ronge experiences a borderline subarctic climate ( Köppen ''Dfc''), slightly below the threshold of a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freez ...

. Winters are long, dry and very cold while summer is short, warm and wetter. Precipitation is low, with an annual average of 486.2 mm. The highest temperature ever recorded in La Ronge was on 23 August 1929. The coldest temperature ever recorded was on 15 February 1936.

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, La Ronge 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.

Population centre

The La Ronge population centre, the thirteenth largest population centre in the province, comprises four adjoining

census subdivision The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of st ...

s including the Northern Town of La Ronge, the Northern Village of Air Ronge and the Kitsakie 156B and Lac La Ronge 156 Indian reserves of the Lac La Ronge First Nation. In the 2016 Census, Statistics Canada reported that the La Ronge population centre had a population of 5,671 living in 1,704 of its 1,927 total dwellings, a +6.6% change from its 2011 population of 5,318. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2016. The following is a population breakdown of the La Ronge population centre by census subdivision.

Economy

Several mining companies, government agencies, and airlines now keep offices in La Ronge, and the local Chamber of Commerce has many other retail and service businesses amongst its members. La Ronge Wild Rice Corporation processes freshly harvested wild rice (in August to October) from Northern Saskatchewan farmers. Tourism also brings in many of people to the La Ronge area. In the summer time, many people visit the Lac La Ronge Provincial Park which is Saskatchewan's largest Provincial Park.

Sports

The community is also home to the La Ronge Ice Wolves

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...

team of the

Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League is a Junior 'A' ice hockey league operating in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and one of nine member leagues of the Canadian Junior Hockey League. Open to North American-born players 20 years ...

, La Ronge minor hockey association and the La Ronge Crushers men's hockey league and the La Ronge women's hockey league. La Ronge also has a minor baseball program with many teams and age groups. La Ronge is home to an 8 team Ladies Slopitch League - JRMCC Ladies Slopitch ( slow-pitch softball). The Churchill Community High School and the Senator Myles Venne High School both have many sports programs and partake in the Saskatchewan High School Athletic Association. There are many other sports available in the community including

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, broomball,

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 ...

and a women's hockey program.

Government

In 2009, La Ronge elected 21-year-old councillor Thomas Sierzycki as its mayor. This established La Ronge as having one of the youngest mayors in Canada. Sierzycki stayed in office for two terms up until October 2016 when he decided not to run for a third term after a failed bid to land himself a seat as a Saskatchewan MLA with the Saskatchewan Party in the April 2016 election.

Education

There are two high schools and three elementary schools in La Ronge and Air Ronge. High schools includ
Churchill Community High School
an
/ Senator Myles Venne High School
Elementary schools in La Ronge and Air Ronge include Pre-cam Community School, Gordon Denny Community School, and Bells Point Elementary School.

Northlands College Northlands College is a public post-secondary educational institution in Northern, Saskatchewan, Canada. Northlands College is a dynamic and growing Public Regional College located in northern Saskatchewan that provides a diverse mix of educa ...

maintains its main campus in La Ronge and took over the Nortep / Norpac program after the Saskatchewan provincial government cut funding to the program in March 2017.

Transportation

La Ronge is connected to southern Saskatchewan by Highway 2, which continues north as Highway 102. La Ronge is served by the La Ronge (Barber Field) Airport and the La Ronge Water Aerodrome.

Notable people

* Danis Goulet, Cree-Métis film director and screenwriterCam Fuller, "'Wapawekka' in festival". ''

Regina Leader-Post The ''Regina Leader-Post'' is the daily newspaper of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and a member of the Postmedia Network. Founding The newspaper was first published as ''The Leader'' in 1883 by Nicholas Flood Davin, soon after Edgar Dewdney, ...

'', December 18, 2010.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Division No. 18, Saskatchewan Northern towns in Saskatchewan