Eastend, Saskatchewan

Town of Eastend
—  Town  —
Storefronts on main steet Eastend
Nickname(s): Dinocountry
Location of Eastend in Saskatchewan
Coordinates: 49.31°N 108.49°W / 49.31; -108.49
Country	Canada
Province	Saskatchewan
Region	Saskatchewan
Census division	4
Rural Municipality	White Valley
Post Office Founded	1914-01-01
Village Incorporated	N/A
Town Incorporated	N/A
Government
• Mayor
Area
• Total	2.71 km2 (1.05 sq mi)
Population (2006)
• Total	471
• Density	174.0/km2 (451/sq mi)
Time zone	CST
Postal code	S0N 0T0
Area code(s)	306
Highways	Highway 13 Highway 18
Waterways	*Frenchman River
Website	Eastend, Saskatchewan

Eastend is a town in southwest Saskatchewan, Canada. It is situated approximately 80 kilometres from the Montana border and 100 kilometres from the Alberta 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, which opened on May 30, 2000. The centre is closely affiliated with the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, and contains the RSM Fossil Research Station. A former resident of Eastend is the writer Wallace Stegner, who lived in the town between 1917 and 1921 and featured it as the village Whitemud in his book Wolf Willow.

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 915 meters (3,002 ft), in the valley of the Frenchman River. The Eastend Reservoir was built upstream from the community.

Saskatchewan Highway 13 and highway 614 intersect in Eastend. The Canadian Pacific Railway tracks also pass through the town.

The Eastend Formation, a stratigraphical unit of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin was named for the town and was first defined in outcrops close to the settlement.

Infrastructure

The Saskatchewan Transportation Company provides intercity passenger and parcel express service to Eastend.

Attractions

Local Attractions:

• T.rex Discovery Centre, a world class facility to house the fossil record of the Eastend area started many years before the discovery of "Scotty" the T.Rex in 1994.

Regional Attractions:

Great Sandhills Museum in Sceptre

• Big Muddy Badlands, a series of badlands in southern Saskatchewan and northern Montana 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 55 kilometers (34 mi) long, 3.2 kilometers (2.0 mi) wide and 160 meters (520 ft) deep. The valley was formed when it was part of an ancient glacial meltwater channel that carried great quantities of water southeastward during the last ice age.

• Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, an interprovincial park straddling the southern Alberta-Saskatchewan border, located north-west of Robsart. It is Canada's first and only interprovincial park.

• Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery, 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 the area possesses National Historical Significance. It was established as a North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) fort after and at the location of the Cypress Hills Massacre.

• Grasslands National Park, 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 ecoregion, which spans across much of Southern Saskatchewan, Southern Alberta, and the northern Great Plains states in the USA. The unique landscape and harsh, semi-arid climate provide niches for several specially adapted plants and animals. The park and surrounding area house the country's only black-tailed prairie dog colonies. Other rare and endangered fauna that can be found in the park include the pronghorn antelope, sage grouse, burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk, prairie rattlesnake, black-footed ferret and eastern short-horned lizard. Flora includes blue grama grass, needlegrass, Plains Cottonwood and silver sagebrush.

• The Great Sandhills, is a sand dune rising 50 feet (15 m) above the ground and covering 1,900 square kilometers. Native prairie grass helps keep the sand together. The sand dunes are fringed by small groves of aspen, birch, and willow trees, and by rose bushes, chokecherry and sagebrush. Subjected to strong winds, the dunes are always moving, creating an ever-changing landscape for photographers.

• Robsart Art Works, opens July 1 to August 28, 2010 from 1 to 4 p.m. and by appointment and features Saskatchewan artists featuring photographers of old buildings and towns throughout Saskatchewan.

Notable residents

• George Haddad (1918-2010) - world renown pianist, who was born and raised in Eastend.
• Wallace Stegner- Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and environmentalist who lived in Eastend from 1917 and 1921
• Sharon Butala - Canadian author who resides on a ranch outside of Eastend.
• Séan Virgo - Poet and novelist who was born in Malta and has lived in South Africa, Malaya, Ireland, and the UK. His work has won various national and international awards.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• T.rex Discovery Centre
• Fictional and non-fictional accounts of the Eastend area of SW Saskatchewan - photographs and text
• Eastend and Area business and tourism site
• Eastend and Area cultural and tourist site
• [1] Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan