Meadow Lake area has a lot to offer

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While First Nations athletes, coaches, chaperones and supporters were too busy with the Saskatchewan First Nation Summer Games during their recent visit to Flying Dust First Nation to do much sightseeing, the area has a number of attractions for those visiting the area on a less hectic schedule.

Flying Dust is a member of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC), as are Birch Narrows Dene Nation, Waterhen Lake First Nation, Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation, Buffalo River First Nation, Island Lake First Nation, Canoe Lake Cree Nation, Clearwater River Dene Nation, and English River First Nation.

Flying Dust's nearest neighbor is the community of Meadow Lake, which has a population of around 5,500. The town is a rapidly growing service centre for all of northwestern Saskatchewan, including the northern areas stretching all the way up Highway 155 to La Loche, the furthest point north accessed by all- weather road.

While Meadow Lake was not incorporated as a town until 1936, the area has a history that stretches back many years before that date.

The area was first settled by First Nations people, and later fur traders and pioneers followed. As part of the Churchill River system fur trading network, Peter Fiddler, a surveyor and explorer for the Hudson Bay Company, travelled the area of the Beaver River in the 1700s.

In 1799, Bolsovar House was built on the Meadow River, a tributary that goes through from Meadow Lake to the Beaver River. A trading post existed in the Meadow Lake area for a short period of time after this.

Nearby lies the community of Loon Lake. It was just a few miles west where the final battle of the Northwest Rebellion, a skirmish between the Northwest Mounted Police and group of Cree Indians, took place.

Today, the Big Bear Trail Museum in Loon Lake houses some of the artifacts from that conflict, uncovered 40 years ago at the site by two Loon Lake residents, Art Stabler and Eugene Panion, using a land mine detector from the First World War.

Also nearby is Meadow Lake Provincial Park, one of the most popular vacation destinations in Saskatchewan. The park boasts 25 lakes strung across the park's 1,600 square kilometres of forest, numerous hiking trails and a variety of wildlife to spot along the way. The park also offers more than 900 campsites in public campgrounds, and interpretive and recreational programs for visitors during the summer months.

While tourism is one of the sectors contributing to the local economy, another larger contributor is the forest industry.

This month, Meadow Lake got one of its biggest economic boosts in several years when the much anticipated Meadow Lake OSB (Oriented Strand Board) plant opened. This facility will be the third wood processing facility in the community. Two others, NorSask Forest Products Inc., owned and operated by the MLTC, and Millar Western Pulp (Meadow Lake) Ltd., employ more than 500 people in both the mills and adjacent woodlots operations.

The OSB mill will employ 170 workers at full operation. And for the past year, as many as 600 workers from all over Western Canada were employed in the construction of the plant.

Tolko Industries is the main shareholder in this operation, along with Northwest Community Wood Products, MLTC and Saskatchewan's Crown Investments Corporation.