Grenfell (Canada 2016 Census population 1,098.5)
European settlement from Ontario and the British Isles began in 1882 before the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the site of the town, and "the town's name honours Pasco du Pre Grenfell, a railway company official." The post office was established in 1883.
History
The settlement was the result of the westward expansion of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the town is named after Pasco du P. Grenfell, an early shareholder of the railway company and a prominent railwayman. Initial settlement was from eastern Canada and the British Isles, followed shortly thereafter by Germans.
As in many other prairie towns, Chinese railworkers from the building of the CPR in the 1880s settled down and established local businesses: as late as the 1960s there were two Chinese cafés on Main Street.
The town has long been known for cultural vitality; in 1974 the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus choir gave a concert in the Community Hall with the audience filling the hall, students accommodated by town and farm families. Eminent provincial academics, lawyers, medical doctors, lieutenant-governors, musicians and artists either came from or spent time working in Grenfell.
Geography
Grenfell is in the Indian Head Plain of the Aspen Parkland ecoregion on the parkland of the Qu'Appelle flood plain. Grenfell is within the topographical area of Weed Hills. The bedrock geology belongs to that of the Mannville Group, a stratigraphical unit of Cretaceous age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin formed during the lower Cretaceous period. The area is characterised by lush rolling grasslands, interspersed with poplar bluffs (in prairie Canadian terminology poplar groves surrounding sloughs) and open sloughs.
Climate
Grenfell has a humid continental climate. It has warm summers and cold winters. Snow cover generally lasts from November to March.