Maple Creek is a town in the Cypress Hills of southwest Saskatchewan, Canada. It is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Maple Creek No. 111. The population was 2,176 at the 2021 Census.

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Maple Creek
Town
Town of Maple Creek
The Jasper Hotel on Jasper Street
Motto:  "Where Past Is Present"
Maple Creek Show map of Saskatchewan Maple Creek Show map of Maple Creek No. 111
Coordinates: 49°54′21″N 109°28′46″W
Country	Canada
Province	Saskatchewan
Rural municipality	Maple Creek
Established	1882
Incorporated (village)	1896
Incorporated (town)	April 30, 1903
Government
• Mayor	Michelle McKenzie
• Town Manager	Barry Elliott, CAO
• Governing body	Maple Creek Town Council
• MP	Jeremy Patzer
• MLA	Doug Steele
Area
• Land	4.42 km2 (1.71 sq mi)
Population  (2016)[1]
• Total	2,084
• Density	471.3/km2 (1,221/sq mi)
Time zone	CST
Postal code	S0N 1N0
Area code	306
Highways	Highway 21 Highway 271 Highway 724
Railways	Canadian Pacific
Climate	Dfb
Website	maplecreek.ca
[2][3]

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The town is 103 kilometres (64 mi) southeast of Medicine Hat, Alberta, and 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park on Highway 21 and 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) south of the Trans-Canada Highway. Maple Creek runs along the west side of town.

The administrative headquarters of the Nekaneet Cree Nation is 37 km (23 mi) southeast of Maple Creek.^[4]

After the North-West Mounted Police had been established at Fort Walsh, settlers began to explore the Cypress Hills area, living along the creeks and doing small-scale ranching. The Department of the Interior was operating a First Nations farm on the Maple Creek, a few miles south from the present town site. In 1882-1883 the First Nations (mainly Cree, Saulteaux, and Assiniboine) were moved to Qu'Appelle, and the farm was then operated by Major Shurtleff, an ex-Mounted Policeman, and George Wood, his brother-in-law.

In the winter of 1882, a Canadian Pacific Railway construction crew of 12 decided to winter where the town of Maple Creek now stands. This marked the establishment of Maple Creek.^[5]

In June 2010, a flood submerged some of the town when Maple Creek overflowed its banks. The same flood hit much of southwestern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta and even destroyed a portion of the Trans-Canada Highway.^[6]

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Maple Creek had a population of 2,176 living in 988 of its 1,083 total private dwellings, a change of 4.4% from its 2016 population of 2,084. With a land area of 4.35 km² (1.68 sq mi), it had a population density of 500.2/km² (1,295.6/sq mi) in 2021.^[17]

Maple Creek experiences a semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSk). With the exception of southwestern Alberta, winters in Maple Creek are typically warmer than those in the adjacent plain region of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, being a convergence point for Chinook winds originating along the Rocky Mountain Front. The mean maximum temperature in January 2006 was 5.3 °C for the Maple Creek townsite, compared to 5.0 °C for Calgary and 4.7 °C for Medicine Hat.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Maple Creek was 41.0 °C (106 °F) on 29 June 1984.^[24] The coldest temperature ever recorded was −46.7 °C (−52 °F) on 15 & 16 February 1936.^[25]

• Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, an interprovincial park straddling the southern Alberta-Saskatchewan border, north-west of Robsart.
• Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery^[28]
• Fort Walsh, a reconstructed North-West Mounted Police fort and part of the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. As a National Historic Site of Canada the area possesses national historical significance. It was established as a NWMP fort after and near the Cypress Hills Massacre.
• Grasslands National Park, represents the Prairie Grasslands natural region, protecting one of the nation's few remaining areas of undisturbed dry mixed-grass/shortgrass prairie grassland. The park is in the WWF-defined Northern short grasslands ecoregion, which spans across much of Southern Saskatchewan, Southern Alberta, and the northern Great Plains states in the USA. The unique landscape and harsh, semi-arid climate provide niches for several specially adapted plants and animals. The park and surrounding area house the country's only black-tailed prairie dog colonies. Other rare and endangered fauna in the park include the pronghorn, sage grouse, burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk, prairie rattlesnake, black-footed ferret and eastern short-horned lizard. Flora includes blue grama grass, needlegrass, Plains Cottonwood and silver sagebrush.
• Robsart Art Works features Saskatchewan artists featuring photographers of old buildings and towns throughout Saskatchewan.^[29]
• T.rex Discovery Centre, a facility to house the fossil record of the Eastend area started many years before the discovery of "Scotty" the T.Rex in 1994.^[30]

The Sidney Street School^[31] and the Maple Creek Composite School^[32] serve the local community.

Great Plains College operates a satellite campus in Maple Creek.

• Stuart John Cameron, MLA for Regina South
• Barry Dean, NHL player for the Philadelphia Flyers
• Dickson Delorme, YouTuber (Quick Dick McDick), farmer, comedian
• Gordon Poirier, NHL player for Montreal Canadiens
• Zack Smith, NHL player for the Chicago Blackhawks

• Maple Creek Airport
• List of communities in Saskatchewan
• List of towns in Saskatchewan