Shoal Lake is a

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivi ...

in the southwest of

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Win ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. Originally incorporated as a

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

, Shoal Lake amalgamated with the Rural Municipality of Shoal Lake on January 1, 2011 to form the Municipality of Shoal Lake, which became the

Rural Municipality of Yellowhead The Rural Municipality of Yellowhead is a rural municipality (RM) in the Canadian province of Manitoba. History The municipality was incorporated on January 1, 2015 via the amalgamation of the Municipality of Shoal Lake and the RM of St ...

on January 1, 2015.

History

Shoal Lake was first settled in 1875 when 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 barracks along the

Carlton Trail The Carlton Trail was the primary land transportation route in the Canadian Northwest for most of the 19th century, connecting Fort Carlton to Edmonton along a line of intermediate places. It was part of a trail network that stretched from the Red ...

at the south end of the lake. The community was established in 1884, and moved to its current location at the lake's north side in 1885 to coincide with the building of the Manitoba & Northwestern Railroad (now

CPR Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spont ...

). The community incorporated as a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

on January 12, 1909, and then changed to town status on October 10, 1997. It amalgamated with the Rural Municipality of Shoal Lake on January 1, 2011, which combined further with the

Rural Municipality of Strathclair The Rural Municipality of Strathclair is a former rural municipality (RM) in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It was originally incorporated as a rural municipality on December 22, 1883. It ceased on January 1, 2015, as a result of its provincial ...

on January 1, 2015 to form the

Geography

The community lies to the northeast of a lake of the same name. With a length of and a stock of

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

and

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish water, brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are kno ...

, the lake is a destination for boating and fishing. The lake appears on the Palliser map of 1865.

Climate

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, Shoal Lake had a population of 652 living in 307 of its 342 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 701. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Attractions

The community has a nine-hole golf course and hosts facilities for baseball, ice hockey, curling, and pickle-ball. It is home to the province's official museum to the

, which was built in 1984 to replicate barracks established at the south end of the lake in 1875.

Infrastructure

Shoal Lake is located at the junction of highways 16, 21, and 42. It is serviced by the Shoal Lake Airport and Shoal Lake Water Aerodrome and by the

Greyhound The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurgen ...

bus service (freight only). Search "R0J1Z0" or "Shoal Lake, Manitoba"

Notable residents

* Robert Beamish - Physician *

Bob Brown Robert James Brown (born 27 December 1944) is a former Australian politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasm ...

- Wrestler *

Glen Findlay Glen Marshall Findlay (born July 15, 1940) is a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1986 to 1999, and a cabinet minister in the government of Gary Filmon from 1988 to 1999. The son of Mar ...

- Politician * Greg Nesbitt - Politician * William J. Short - Politician

References

External links

Municipality of Shoal Lake
{{Manitoba, rural=yes, state=collapsed Designated places in Manitoba Former towns in Manitoba Localities in Manitoba Populated places disestablished in 2011