Kamsack sits in the Assiniboine River Valley, where the Whitesand River meets the Assiniboine. A handful of farm settlers arrived on the surrounding lands in the 1880s, and by 1905 the farming district was well settled by Independent Doukhobors, Ukrainians, Americans and Eastern Canadians, whose communities are still present today. The town's name comes from an early post office of the same name, kept in one settler's home, and is derived from the Cree kamesak kîkway, meaning "something large."
The town itself was born of the railway. In 1904, land was surrendered from the Cote First Nation for the Canadian Northern Railway station and the town site. Further land was allocated in the following years, but much of it was later returned to reserve status, in part because the Cote people had lost too much of their best farmland. The first buildings went up in 1904 along the north side of the tracks: a general store, drug store, pool room, hotel and post office. The first school opened in 1905.
Growth was quick. By 1911 Kamsack had over 500 people and was declared a town, and by 1921 it had more than 2,000. Waterworks, sewers and an electric light plant were started in 1914. In the summer of 1944 a tornado, remembered as the "Kamsack Cyclone," damaged 400 homes and 100 businesses. Returning war veterans helped rebuild, and the years that followed became the biggest building boom in the town's history. In the 1970s the Royal Bank arrived, the Kamplex hockey and curling rink was built, and work began on a new hospital.
Today visitors can see the Kamsack Powerhouse Museum, and the National Doukhobor Heritage Village lies 10 km west at Veregin. Duck Mountain Provincial Park is also nearby.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Kamsack” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.