Cupar

Town, pop 602, located 21 km E of Southey on Hwy 22; Fort Qu’Appelle lies approximately 45 km to the southeast. Settlers began arriving in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Prior to the turn of the century, these were of largely Scottish, English, and Irish descent; afterwards, many came from Eastern Europe, particularly the historic polyglot province of Bukovina (now split between Romania and Ukraine). A significant number were Hungarian, but there was also a small quotient of Romanian Jews who settled in the district around 1906. Named after Cupar, Fife, Scotland, the community developed into a significant service and trading centre for the surrounding agricultural district, growing steadily from the time of its inception until about the mid-1970s, at which point the population stabilized around its current level. Cupar has curbed paved streets, tree-lined boulevards and a museum, as well as a range of businesses and services, many of which cater to the area’s agricultural industry. Cupar was the home of Eddie Shore, famous defenseman with the Boston Bruins, Stanley Cup champion, and an inductee into the NHL Hall of Fame. His father, T.J. Shore, financed the first enclosed rink in Cupar in 1911. The town’s main annual event is the “Cupar Gopher Drop,” devised as a community fund-raising event in 1993. Residents purchase tickets on stuffed facsimiles of the rodent. The numbered gophers are dropped from a hot air balloon, and prizes are awarded according to their landing in proximity to target gopher holes.

David McLennan