Tucked into the northeastern corner of Saskatchewan, Nipawin sits along the Saskatchewan River between two reservoirs: Codette Lake to the west, formed by the Francois-Finlay Dam in 1986, and Tobin Lake to the east, created by the E.B. Campbell Dam in 1963. That position between two bodies of water earned the town its informal nickname, the “Town of Two Lakes.” The surrounding area includes the Rural Municipality of Nipawin No. 487 on one side and the Rural Municipality of Torch River No. 488 across the river. Highway 35 and Highway 55 intersect within the town, and the community is served by both the Nipawin Airport and the Nipawin Water Aerodrome.
History and Origins
The name Nipawin comes from a Cree word meaning “stand up,” a reference to a low-lying area along the river, now submerged beneath Codette Lake, where First Nations women and children would wait for the men to return. The area has a long history of outside contact: in 1751, New France soldiers under Joseph Boucher de Niverville may have constructed a short-lived fort called Fort La Jonquière nearby. A series of fur trading posts followed over the next several decades, with traders including James Finlay, François le Blanc, and William Thorburn operating in the region through the late 1700s. The first permanent settlement appeared in 1910 with a trading post, but it was the arrival of a Canadian Pacific Railway branch line in 1924 that reshaped the community. Buildings were relocated, one by one, to a new site closer to the rail line, which crossed the North Saskatchewan River via the Crooked Bridge. A notable and tragic event in recent memory occurred on April 18, 2008, when a downtown meat shop exploded after a backhoe sheared a natural gas riser. The blast destroyed three buildings, damaged several others, and killed two people while injuring five, prompting the mayor to declare a state of emergency.
Population and Size
According to the 2021 Census conducted by Statistics Canada, Nipawin had a population of 4,570 residents living across 1,921 occupied private dwellings out of a total of 2,091. That figure reflects a 3.8% increase from the 2016 population count of 4,401. The town covers a land area of 8.93 square kilometres, giving it a population density of approximately 511.8 people per square kilometre. The Nipawin Historical Society’s 1988 publication, Bridging the Years: Nipawin, Saskatchewan, remains a key resource for anyone interested in the settlement’s early development.