PFRA Moose Jaw District Office

Assistance available:

District staff facilitate rural development and resource management within the district by providing services and programs to rural clients. Technical and financial assistance is available to individuals, groups and communities; and in addition several Canada/Saskatchewan Agreements are administered from the Moose Jaw Office.

The PFRA Rural Water Development Program (RWDP)supports the agricultural industry by assisting rural clients with planning and the development of water resources. Water supply projects such as: dugouts, wells, group pipelines, tank loading stations, ground water investigations, and other water-related works.

Soil and Water Conservation activities currently include shelterbelt and farmstead planning assistance, grassed waterway consultation, salinity investigations and promotion of effective soil and water management via workshops, conferences, field days, school visits, news articles, and newsletters.

District Description

The Moose Jaw District office is located primarily within the mixed grasslands ecoregion of South Central Saskatchewan. The Regina Plain covers about a third of the area and is bound by the Missouri Coteau Upland to the south west, the Eyebrow Hills Upland to the north and the Moose Mountain Upland to the east. Drainage of the uplands occurs via the Moose Jaw River and several creeks into the Qu'Appelle River system.

Like most of Saskatchewan, the weather in this region is extremely variable and unpredictable. Periodic droughts pose the greatest threat to agricultural production in this part of the prairies. However, Moose Jaw and district boast an assured water supply as it receives its water from Diefenbaker Lake via Qu'Appelle Valley/Buffalo Pound Reservoir. This in turn has enabled the development of approximately 20 regional pipelines for diversification of the rural economy and domestic water supplies.

Industry

The economy of the area is agriculturally based. Cereal grains and livestock predominate. Moose Jaw has three large grain terminals one of which has largest grain capacity in Western Canada. The agricultural land base is large and equipped to handle additional volume. Moose Jaw also has three major intensive feedlot facilities, a pork packing plant, a beef packing plant, and is a major center in handling livestock for domestic and foreign markets. Over the last decade many producers have diversified into specialty crops and enterprises. There are several game farms, fruit growers, market gardens and registered seed growers in the district and expansion of value added processing is becoming an important activity.

Graduates from our three post secondary institutions as well as the diverse skills required for farming provide an excellent source of labor for district industries. Industries within the district take advantage of the excellent network of highways and railways to ship their products to destinations in Canada and the United States. The City of Moose Jaw ( population 33,700) is located adjacent to the Trans. Canada Highway and the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Tourism is an active industry in the Moose Jaw district. Some of the local tourist attractions include, tours of the Tunnels of Little Chicago, Temple Gardens Mineral Spa, Qu'Appelle Valley Provincial Parks, Chaplin Lake Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve, the Claybank Brick Plant National Historic Site, numerous vacation farms, and the Western Development Museum. Moose Jaw is also home to Canadian Forces Base 15 Wing and Canada's precision flying team "The Snowbirds."