Moose Jaw (Assiniboine: tácehubana ) is a city in south-central Saskatchewan, Canada on the Moose Jaw River. It is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, 77 km (48 mi) west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javians. Best known as a retirement and tourist city, it serves as a hub to the hundreds of small towns and farms in the surrounding region of Saskatchewan. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Moose Jaw No. 161.
Marked on a map as Moose Jaw Bone Creek in an 1857 survey by surveyor John Palliser, two theories exist as to how the city got its name. The first is it comes from the Plains Cree name moscâstani-sîpiy meaning "a warm place by the river", indicative of the protection from the weather the Coteau range provides to the river valley containing the city and also the Plains Cree word moose gaw, meaning warm breezes. The other is on the map of the city, the Moose Jaw River is shaped like a moose's jaw.
Moose Jaw is an industrial centre and an important railway junction for the area's agricultural produce. It is known for its giant historical murals on the exterior walls of buildings in its business district, and its tunnels were used for rum-running during Prohibition. CFB Moose Jaw is a NATO flight training school, and is home to the Snowbirds, Canada's military aerobatic air show flight demonstration team. Moose Jaw also has a casino and geothermal spa.
Read more about Moose Jaw: History, Economy, CFB Moose Jaw, Climate, Royal Presence, Sports Teams, Media, Notable Residents, Attractions, Demographics, Education, Use in Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words moose and/or jaw:
“As I sat before the fire on my fir-twig seat, without walls above or around me, I remembered how far on every hand that wilderness stretched, before you came to cleared or cultivated fields, and wondered if any bear or moose was watching the light of my fire; for Nature looked sternly upon me on account of the murder of the moose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is an old saying in the town that “most any fellow with a chaw in his jaw can sit on his front porch and spit down the chimney of a neighbor’s house.””
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)