Grande Prairie is a city in northwestern Alberta, Canada, within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country. It is located at the intersection of Highway 43 (part of the CANAMEX Corridor) and Highway 40 (the Bighorn Highway), approximately northwest of the provincial capital, Edmonton. The city is surrounded by the County of Grande Prairie No. 1.
Grande Prairie was the seventh-largest city in Alberta in 2021, with a population of 63,166, and was one of Canada's fastest growing cities between 2001 and 2006, and Canada's northernmost city with more than 50,000 people.
The city has adopted the trumpeter swan as its official symbol due to its proximity to the bird's migration route and its summer nesting grounds. For that reason, Grande Prairie is sometimes nicknamed the Swan City. The dinosaur has also emerged as an unofficial symbol of the city due to paleontological discoveries in the areas north and west of Grande Prairie.
History
The Grande Prairie area was historically known as Buffalo Plains, after the buffalo who would traverse the large prairie which lies to the north, east, and west of it. Émile Grouard, a Roman Catholic Priest, was the first to refer to the area as La Grande Prairie. In the 18th century, the prairie was occupied by bands of the Dane-zaa (Beaver) peoples, who began, in the early 19th century, trading with the North West Company at Dunvegan. The earliest recorded reference to the prairie was by Hudson Bay trader Samuel Black in 1824.
In 1880, as a result of the fur trade war between the Hudson Bay Company (which merged with the North West Company in 1821), and independent fur traders, centering around Dunvegan, a Hudson's Bay Company outpost called La Grande Prairie was established by George Kennedy. The post was established South of Dunvegan and north west of the present day city of Grande Prairie, south east of La Glace Lake, and west of what is now the Town of Sexsmith (the 1896 version of this building was moved and restored and now stands near the Grande Prairie Museum).
In the late 19th century, the prairie was settled by Cree and Iroquois from around Jasper and Lac Ste. Anne. When 17 townships were surveyed for homesteading in 1909, a land rush soon followed, with many settlers arriving over the Edson Trail. In 1910, the Grande Prairie Townsite was sub-divided. By 1912, it included a bank, hotel, post office, and land office, making it a district metropolis. In 1916, it became the terminus of the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway from Edmonton.
The Edson Trail from Edson to Grande Prairie was opened in 1911 as a means for settlers to reach the Grande Prairie area. It was basically nothing more than a tract of clear cut bush and forest, and was thus a very difficult route for many settlers, especially during wet weather. Because of this, large scale settlement came late compared to other major farming regions further south in Canada. Grande Prairie was incorporated as a village by the province of Alberta in 1914, but it was not until the arrival of the railway in 1916 that farmland quickly expanded as waves of settlers came into the Peace region.
The arrival of the railway and the increased settlement in the area drove up Grande Prairie's population past the 1,000 mark, allowing it to incorporate as a town on March 27, 1919. A local recession in the 1920s caused a temporary depopulation of Grande Prairie. But the population rebounded afterwards by the 1930s, by which time the population had reached 1,464. Settlement continued unabated even into the 1930s during the Dust Bowl era because the Peace Region was able to escape the severe drought conditions that plagued the Canadian Prairies further south at the time.David W. Leonard, Chronology of Grande Prairie to 1951
The Second World War saw the US and Canadian military establish Grande Prairie as a part of the Northwest Staging Route and for the construction of the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek to Alaska. Although Dawson Creek was chosen as the major starting point of the construction of the Alaska Highway, Grande Prairie was a major stopover point for military aircraft during the war, and benefited economically from this.
Although Grande Prairie was well located in the southern edge of the Peace Country, it was competing with the towns of Peace River and Dawson Creek for the title of the most important centre of commerce and agriculture in the region until the late 1950s, when its population growth began to outstrip these towns as oil and natural gas exploration was underway in the Peace Region, especially since the first major discovery of oil further south in Leduc near Edmonton in 1947 and the construction of a large pulp mill south of the city in the early 1970s.
The construction and paving of Highway 43 (originally sections of Highways 2, 34, and 43 from the BC border to the Yellowhead Highway just west of Edmonton) in 1956 cut down on the travel time by road significantly, further enhancing Grande Prairie's accessibility and economic status.
The town of Grande Prairie was incorporated as a city in 1958. At that time, its population was approximately 7,600.
The opening of the Procter & Gamble kraft pulp mill in 1972 and the discovery of the Elmworth deep basin gas field spurred an economic boom. Grande Prairie's population went from just over 12,000 in the early 1970s to over 24,000 by the time the oil boom went bust in 1981.
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. After 2006, and with another recession, the population decreased slightly, followed by a slow increase to just over 69,000 by 2018.
Geography
Grande Prairie is located just north of the 55th parallel north, and is northwest of Edmonton, lying at an elevation of above sea level. The city is surrounded by farmland to the north, east, and west. To the south lies a vast boreal forest with aspen, tamarack, lodgepole pine, jack pine, and black spruce extending well into the foothills of the Canadian Rockies south and southwest of the city. The city actually lies on the southern edge of aspen parkland, which is a transitional biome between boreal forest and prairie. The Peace River Country contains the northernmost area of aspen parkland in North America.
Bear Creek goes through the city from the northwest to the southeast and is a tributary of the Wapiti River to the south. The Bear Creek Reservoir is the small body of water by Northwestern Polytechnic in the northwest part of the city, and is ringed by marshy wetland. The terrain immediately surrounding Grande Prairie is largely flat to gently rolling, but rises gradually to hilly terrain closer to the foothills to the south and southwest. On clear days, some peaks in the Rockies are visible to the southwest from Grande Prairie.
Climate
Grande Prairie has a northern continental climate typical of northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia, classified as humid continental (Dfb), bordering closely on a subarctic climate (Dfc) with old data under the Köppen climate classification. Winters are generally very cold with some mild spells. Summers are often fairly cool to pleasantly warm in the daytime, but nights can be cool despite the long summer days typical for its latitude. Hot days over are rare, occurring on average only two to three days a year, which is not unexpected this far north. Winter conditions can vary tremendously from year to year. Winters have been known to be mild enough to produce brown Christmas conditions, where little or no snow may fall until after Christmas due to unusually mild early winter conditions. The average January temperature is , while the average July temperature is . However, temperatures as low as have been recorded; alongside as high as , which the latter occurred on June 29, 2021; the extreme humidex and wind chill readings are , respectively.
The city receives of precipitation annually, including of rain and of snow. Snowfall amounts, however, vary greatly from year to year. Being fairly close to the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, it can get quite windy in Grande Prairie, especially in the spring and fall. Chinooks may occur in and bring winter thaws to the Grande Prairie area.
Grande Prairie has 314 days with measureable sunshine per year on average, and just above 2,200 hours of bright sunshine or about 46.1% of possible sunshine, ranging from a low of 31.2% in November to a high of 59.1% in July.
Summers can bring thunderstorms, although they are not as frequent nor as severe as those further south in Central Alberta. Rainfall can vary from year to year, but the Peace Region is noted for never having experienced truly severe drought conditions more typical of Southern Alberta and neighbouring Saskatchewan. Tornadoes are rare but not unheard of in the Peace Region. A tornado struck the downtown area and east side of Grande Prairie on July 8, 2004. Although the tornado was considered a very weak one (F0-F1 on the Fujita scale) and the weather was not severe at the time, it was still strong enough to damage houses and flip vehicles. There were no casualties or deaths.
The record high daily minimum was recorded May 22, 1945. The record highest dew point was recorded July 31, 1971. The most humid month was August 1989 with an average dew point of . The warmest month was July 2024 with an average mean temperature of and the highest average monthly daily minimum of . August 1981 recorded the highest monthly average daily maximum of . July 1985 set a record of no maximum temperature below for the entire month; and July 2020 with no temperature below and no dew point below .
The lowest yearly maximum dew point is recorded in 1985. The lowest yearly maximum daily minimum temperature is recorded in 2011. The lowest yearly maximum temperature is recorded in 1976.
The average yearly maximum dew point is and the average yearly maximum daily minimum temperature is .
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the City of Grande Prairie had a population of 64,141 living in 24,816 of its 27,551 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 63,166. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
In the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the City of Grande Prairie had a population of 63,166 living in 23,676 of its 26,204 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2011 population of 55,655. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2016.
The population of the City of Grande Prairie according to its 2015 municipal census was 68,556, a change of from its 2007 municipal census population of 50,227.
In the 2021 census, 15.9% of residents were visible minorities, while 11.7% were Indigenous and the remaining 72.4% were white/European. The largest visible minority groups were Filipino (6.9%), South Asian (2.9%), Black (2.2%), Latin American (0.8%), Chinese (0.8%) and Arab (0.6%). + Panethnic groups in the City of Grande Prairie (2001−2021)Panethnic group20212016201120062001 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 Total responses 63,175 62,055 54,390 46,755 36,535 Total population 64,141 63,166 55,655 47,076 36,983
Language As of 2021, 83.8% of residents claimed English as their first language. Other common mother tongues were Tagalog (3.4%), French (2.1%), Punjabi (0.8%), Spanish (0.8%), and German (0.6%) . 2.0% listed both English and a non-official language as mother tongues, while 0.6% listed both English and French.
Religion