Onion Lake Cree Nation
Plains Cree First Nations band government in Canada
The Onion Lake Cree Nation (Cree: ᐑᐦᒉᑲᐢᑯᓰᐏᓵᑲᐦᐃᑲᓂᕽ, wîhcêkaskosîwi-sâkahikanihk) is a Plains Cree First Nations band government in Canada, straddling the Alberta/Saskatchewan provincial border approximately 50 km (31 mi) north of the City of Lloydminster.
It is within Alberta's County of Vermilion River and Saskatchewan's Rural Municipality of Frenchman Butte No. 501 at the intersection of Highway 17 and Alberta Highway 641/Saskatchewan Highway 797.
The Makaoo 120 reserve is located within both provinces while the Seekaskootch 119 reserve is wholly within Saskatchewan. Both reserves once maintained separate band governments, combining to form Onion Lake in 1914. With all reserves combined, the Onion Lake Cree Nation has a total land area of 585.711 square kilometres (226.144 sq mi), and has 6,475 registered members (as of August 2019).
The Onion Lake Cree Nation has five schools within the community: Sakāskohc High School, Eagleview Middle School, Chief Taylor Elementary School, Pewasenakwan Primary School, and Kihēw Waciston Cree Immersion School. A widely seen First World War propaganda poster shows Moo-Che-We-In-Es of the Onion Lake Cree Nation making a $1.50 donation to the Canadian Patriotic Fund with a cover letter in Western Cree syllabics.
Etymology
Onion Lake is a translation of Wicekikaskosîwi-sâkahikan, "Wild Onion" smelly plant, a nearby body of water where the plant was abundant. When referring to the community today, though, Cree speakers typically use wîhcekaskosîwi-sâkahikanihk, "[domestic] onion lake".
The public source identifies “Onion Lake Cree Nation” as plains Cree First Nations band government in Canada. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Onion, Lake and Cree.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7093919. VIAF identifies the subject as 316390857. The Library of Congress control number is no2015062030. Authority coordinates are 53.717, -110.000. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Onion Lake Cree Nation” 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.