Grande Prairie

**Grande Prairie** is a city in Alberta, Canada. It is at the crossing of Highway 43 and Highway 40 (the Bighorn Highway).

Grande Prairie was the seventh-largest city in Alberta in 2021, with 64,141 people living there, and was one of Canada's fastest growing cities between 2001 and 2006, and Canada's most northern city with more than 50,000 people.

The city has the swan as its official symbol because it is close to the birds moving route.  Grande Prairie is also sometimes named the "Swan City".

## History

The Grande Prairie area was, before, known as Buffalo Plains, It was named after the buffalo, which was in the area. Émile Grouard, a Priest, was the first to call the city Grande Prairie. In the 18th century, there were Dane-zaa (Beaver) people living there, they traded with the North West Company at Dunvegan.

In 1880, because of the fur trade war between the Hudson Bay Company, and fur traders, in Dunvegan, a Hudson's Bay Company outpost called La Grande Prairie was established by George Kennedy.  The post was made South of Dunvegan and northwest of the present-day city of Grande Prairie.

The Edson Trail from Edson to Grande Prairie was opened in 1911 so that travelers can go to the Grande Prairie area. Grande Prairie was made into a village by the Province of Alberta in 1914. A railway was built to help travelers go there.

The railway made lots of people to go there turning it into a town on March 27, 1919.

Grande Prairie was a part of a military stopover point, helping the town.

In 1947, There was oil and a pulp mill in the town, helping the town and making the town grow bigger.

Highway 43 was created to connect Grande Prairie to other cities, making more people live there.

The town of Grande Prairie was made into a city in 1958. At that time, there were 7,600 people living there.

The opening of the Procter & Gamble kraft pulp mill in 1972 made the town grow bigger. making the town have 12,000 population to 24,00 in just 10 years.

In the five years from 2001 to 2006, Grande Prairie was one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada, growing from 37,000 to 47,000 people living there. After 2006, the population fell, followed by a slow increase to just over 69,000 by 2018.

|rowspan="2"|Group|colspan="2"|2021|colspan="2"|2016|colspan="2"|2011|colspan="2"|2006|colspan="2"|2001|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|European|45,770||48,145||45,685||40,090||32,325|||
|Indigenous|7,370||6,550||5,290||4,365||2,610|||
|Southeast Asian|4,620||3,210||1,275||600||265|||
|South Asian|1,820||1,165||590||460||475|||
|African|1,415||1,325||410||325||195|||
|East Asian|790||665||685||490||315|||
|Latin American|530||390||250||195||200|||
|Middle Eastern|490||365||115||75||90|||
|Other/multiracial|360||250||90||160||60|||
|colspan="11"||||||||||||

### Language

As of 2021, 83.8% of residents said that English was their first language. Other common languages were Tagalog (3.4%), French (2.1%), Punjabi (0.8%), Spanish (0.8%), and German (0.6%).

### Religion

45.8% of residents were Christian in 2021. 20.4% were Catholic,  11.3% were Christian n.o.s, 10.0% were Protestant, and 4.1% belonged to other Christian groups. The rest had other religions.

## Notable people

- Theodore deWit "Willie deWit", former Olympic boxer
- Tanner Fritz, professional ice hockey player
- Leslie Greentree, poet
- Carolyn Dawn Johnson, country music singer-songwriter
- Kelly Sutherland (chuckwagon) retired professional chuckwagon driver
- Viktor (Eric Thompson), professional wrestler
- Tenille Townes, country music singer
- Chris Warkentin, Canadian politician
- William Paul Young, novelist
- Alex Zahara, actor