Eastend, Saskatchewan is a charming town nestled in the south-west part of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Approximately 55 kilometres north of the Montana border and 85 kilometres east of the Alberta border, Eastend is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered.
The Eastend area is steeped in history and geology, boasting numerous paleontological sites. A Métis settlement developed north of Eastend in the 1870s, and a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post was established in the region. As bison populations dwindled on the eastern plains in the mid-1880s, the area became a crucial hunting ground, leading to frequent conflicts among nearby First Nations tribes.
The North-West Mounted Police established a satellite detachment of the Fort Walsh site in the late 1870s, naming the area "East End" due to its location on the east end of the Cypress Hills. When the Mounties moved to the nearby townsite years later, they condensed the name into one word, christening the town "Eastend".
The first ranch was established in the area in 1883, and the community’s first residence, a ranch house, was built in 1902. This house remains occupied to this day. The arrival of surveyors in 1905 marked the beginning of the railway expansion, with construction beginning in 1913 and reaching Eastend in May 1914.
In the fall and winter of 1951, Eastend experienced a record amount of snow. The following spring, unusually warm weather caused a rapid melt and a massive flood. The town was evacuated, and residents sought refuge in nearby towns. The water receded after three days, leaving immense destruction in its wake. A few years later, a dyke was constructed along the river to prevent a similar disaster.
On August 16, 1991, high school teacher Robert Gebhardt from Eastend joined local palaeontologists on a prospecting expedition to the exposed bedrock along the Frenchman River Valley. Within half a day, he discovered a heavily worn tooth and a tail vertebra, both suggesting they belonged to a T. rex. This discovery led to the construction of the T.rex Discovery Centre, which opened on May 30, 2003, and is operated by the Royal Saskatchewan Museum.
Eastend is located southeast of the Cypress Hills, east from Ravenscrag Butte, and south from Anxiety Butte. It lies at an elevation of 915 metres in the valley of the Frenchman River. The Eastend Reservoir was built upstream from the community. The Eastend Formation, a stratigraphical unit of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, was named for the town and was first defined in outcrops close to the settlement.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Eastend had a population of 607 living in 267 of its 335 total private dwellings, a change of 20.7% from its 2016 population of 503. With a land area of 2.61 km2, it had a population density of 232.6/km2 in 2021.
Saskatchewan Highway 13 and highway 614 intersect in Eastend. The Great Western Railway (formerly the Altawan subdivision of the Canadian Pacific Railway) tracks also pass through the town. The nearest major airports are Saskatoon John G. Diefenbaker International Airport, Regina International Airport, and Calgary International Airport.
The T.rex Discovery Centre is a world-class facility housing the fossil record of the Eastend area. The Eastend Community Swimming Pool, built in 1971 and remodelled in 2016, features a 25m outdoor swimming pool, a splash park, and two waterslides. Jones Peak, named after H.S. "Corky" Jones for his work as an amateur paleontologist, is located six miles southwest of Eastend. The town also boasts the Streambank Golf Course and the Pine Cree Regional Park.
