Moose Jaw Detail

Moose Jaw is a city in south-central Saskatchewan, Canada on the Moose Jaw river. It is situated on the Trans-Canada highway 77 kilometres (48 mi) west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javians. It is best known as a retirement and tourist city that serves as a hub to the hundreds of small towns and farms in the surrounding region of Saskatchewan.[citation needed] The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Moose Jaw No. 161. Marked on a map as Moose Jaw Bone Creek in an 1857 survey by surveyor John Palliser,[1] there are two theories as to how the city got its name. The first one is that it comes from the Plains Cree name moscâstani-sîpiy meaning "a warm place by the river", indicative of the protection from the weather that the Coteau range provides to the river valley containing the city[2] and also the Plains Cree word Moose Gaw meaning warm breezes. The other is that on the map of the city the Moose Jaw river is shaped like a moose's jaw. The Moose Jaw river as well as Thunder creek, which intersect inside the city contain a number of fish species. These include walleye, yellow perch, northern pike, white sucker, common carp and burbot. The intersection of the 2 rivers is the reason the founders chose the city's location, as it provided a steady source of water for steam engines after Canadian Pacific Railroad dammed the river in 1883. In the 1950s the Western Ice Company began harvasting ice from the river and in turn provided it to CPR for use in refrigerator cars. The railways played an important role in the early development of Moose Jaw, with the city having both a CPR Station and a CNR Station.