Last Mountain Lake
lake in Saskatchewan, Canada
Last Mountain Lake, also known as Long Lake, is a prairie lake formed from glaciation about 11,000 years ago. The lake is located in south-central Saskatchewan, Canada, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-west of the city of Regina. It is a large lake, approximately 93 kilometres (58 mi) long and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) wide, in the Qu'Appelle River drainage basin. The lake is a popular resort area for residents of south-eastern Saskatchewan.
Last Mountain Lake is named after a Plains Cree legend about the Great Spirit shovelling dirt from the valley that the lake now occupies to form the Last Mountain Hills. The hills lie east of the lake and east of the communities of Duval and Strasbourg.
History
In the late 1800s, access to the area for farming and settlement was opened up by the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railroad and Steamboat Company which also operated steamships on the lake.
Last Mountain House
Last Mountain House was a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trading post on Last Mountain Lake from 1869 to 1871. It was a branch of Fort Qu'Appelle 75 kilometres (47 mi) east and was about 85 kilometres (53 mi) south-west of Touchwood Hills Post. It was founded in part to compete with the increasing number of independent traders in the area and because the buffalo had moved south from Touchwood Hills.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Last Mountain Lake” is lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Last, Mountain and Lake, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “lake in Saskatchewan, Canada” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1381569. The Library of Congress control number is sh85074829. Authority coordinates are 51.167, -105.250. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1869 and 1871.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Last Mountain Lake”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Last Mountain Lake primary sources, Last Mountain Lake archive and Last research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Last Mountain Lake”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Last Mountain Lake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.