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Create AccountGrande Prairie, AB, incorporated as a city in 1958, population 63,166 (2016 census), 55,655 (2011 census). The city of Grande Prairie is located 456 km northwest of Edmonton and takes its name from the large prairie that lies to the east, north and west of it. The city is the business and transportation centre of Alberta’s Peace River region.
Moosomin, Saskatchewan, incorporated as a town in 1887, population 2,743 (2016 census), 2,485 (2011 census). The town of Moosomin is located in southeastern Saskatchewan 15 km west of the Manitoba border.
The Canadian Prairies were peopled in six great waves of migration, spanning from prehistory to the present. The migration from Asia, about 13,300 years ago, produced an Indigenous population of 20,000 to 50,000 by about 1640. Between 1640 and 1840, several thousand European and Canadian fur traders arrived, followed by several hundred British immigrants. They created dozens of small outposts and a settlement in the Red River Colony, where the Métis became the largest part of the population. The third wave, from the 1840s to the 1890s, consisted mainly but not solely of Canadians of British heritage. The fourth and by far the largest wave was drawn from many nations, mostly European. It occurred from 1897 to 1929, with a pause (1914–22) during and after the First World War. The fifth wave, drawn from other Canadian provinces and from Europe and elsewhere, commenced in the late 1940s. It lasted through the 1960s. The sixth wave, beginning in the 1970s, drew especially upon peoples of the southern hemisphere. It has continued, with fluctuations, to the present. Throughout the last century, the region has also steadily lost residents, as a result of migration to other parts of Canada, to the United States, and elsewhere.
