Qu'Appelle River

The Qu'Appelle River ( /kəˈpɛl/) is a Canadian river that flows 430 km east from Lake Diefenbaker in southwestern Saskatchewan to join the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, just south of Lake of the Prairies, near the village of St. Lazare.

With the construction of the Qu'Appelle River Dam and Gardiner Dam upstream water flow was significantly increased and regulated. Most of the Qu'Appelle's present flow is actually water diverted from the South Saskatchewan River. The river flows into several lakes in southeast Saskatchewan, including:

• Eyebrow Lake, Buffalo Pound Lake to the north of Moose Jaw, which supplies water to Moose Jaw, Regina, and the Mosaic Potash Mine at Belle Plaine;
• The Fishing Lakes (Pasqua, Echo Lake, Mission, and Katepwa Lakes) to the northeast of Regina; and,
• farther downstream, to the north of Grenfell and Broadview: Crooked Lake and Round Lake.

The river also passes 4 Provincial RV parks. These include Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, Echo Valley Provincial Park, Katepwa Point Provincial Park and Crooked Lake Provincial Park.

Fish species include: walleye, sauger, yellow perch, northern pike, lake whitefish, cisco, mooneye, white sucker, shorthead redhorse, bigmouth buffalo, common carp, channel catfish, black bullhead, brown bullhead, burbot and rock bass. Rock bass are Saskatchewan's only native bass.

In recent years, there has been some local civic-booster agitation to rename the Fishing Lakes as the Calling Lakes, so as further to emphasize E. Pauline Johnson's "legend of the Qu'Appelle Valley" (see below); as yet this has not taken any authentic hold.

Assorted tributary coulees drain into the Qu'Appelle Valley at various junctures along its course, notably Echo Creek immediately upriver from Fort Qu'Appelle, and Last Oak Creek, north of Grenfell and Broadview, in the past the locus of an extremely successful aboriginal-managed ski resort. The other tributaries include the Moose Jaw River, Wascana Creek, Loon Creek, Jumping Deer Creek, Pheasant Creek, Kaposvar Creek and Lanigan Creek.

Last Mountain Lake, also known as Long Lake, the largest natural lake in southern Saskatchewan (Lake Diefenbaker is larger but is a reservoir behind the Gardiner and Qu'Appelle River Dams), drains into the Qu'Appelle near the town of Craven, through Lanigan Creek.