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Leaf Rapids Trivia
Did you know?
- Leaf Rapids' Town Centre won the coveted
Vincent Massey Award for Excellence in
Urban Environment in 1975. It is interesting to note that
university urban planning courses across Canada feature Leaf Rapids in
their studies.
- The Town Centre Complex
was originally supposed to be blue in colour. The building was
painted with a rust-coloured solution that was supposed to turn a
brilliant shade of blue when affected by pollutants – however, because
Leaf Rapids has no pollutants the rust colour has never changed.
- Leaf Rapids has a
sister city in the town of Jabiru,
Australia which grew largely out of common interest. Their
main industry is mining (uranium).
- Leaf Rapids is built on an
esker. An esker is a glacial deposit in the form
of a continuous, winding ridge, formed from the deposits of a stream
flowing beneath the ice. Eskers are a favourite source of sand.
- Ravens inhabit our community. Locally known as
Thompson Turkeys due to
their size, our local heavy-billed dark birds can reach a length of as
much as 66 cm (26") and a wingspan of more than 1.3 m (4 ft). It
is among the hardiest of birds, inhabiting the northern tundra and
coniferous forests as well as barren mountains and desert. If
captured while a nestling, a raven may make an interesting pet capable
of learning to mimic a few words. One captive bird on record lived 69
years.
- Leaf Rapids' culture and history are well mixed with
the Cree nation. The
Cree are one of the major Algonkian-speaking Indian peoples of Canada,
formerly occupying an immense area from east of the Hudson and James
bays west as far as Alberta and the Great Slave Lake. Originally
inhabiting a smaller nucleus of this area, they expanded rapidly in the
17th and 18th century due to the fur trade with the Europeans. One
example of the Cree’s influence on Leaf Rapids is the naming of our
roads that are named in Cree after the native culture in our area. For
your interest we have included a list of our roads’ Cree names and their
translations:
| Keyask / gull |
Mukasew / fox |
Pipoon / winter |
Wapoos / rabbit |
| Kinapik / snake |
Mukekun / wolf |
Sekwun / spring |
Wooswu / moose |
| Mikinak / turtle |
Nepin / summer |
Umisk / beaver |
Wuchusk / muskrat |
| Mistik / woodstick |
Nisku / goose |
Utik / deer |
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Leaf Rapids has tried to ensure that economic
development in this area provided the northern Manitoban Cree with a
fair chance at the jobs created. A pilot project, the Ta-wow project,
initially began just for this purpose when the mine and the town's
existence first started. Some natives in the area still trap, hunt,
fish, and harvest berries and traditional forest products for medicinal
purposes. Others have integrated into other jobs.
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