Dafoe & Area

About Dafoe

Dafoe is a very little town of less than 50 people, located at the junction of highways #16 and #6, southwest of Big Quill Lake.

There is a very popular restaurant/gas station/convenience store here and a grain company which ships peas and lentils all over the world.  There are several agricultural businesses on neighboring farms and a community pasture north of the town.

Tourists and hunters can find two guest house businesses nearby.

Aviation historians may be interested in visiting the former site of RCAF Bomber Training Base #5 which was located north of the town in WW2. We have an article about the base and some pictures here.

Dafoe History

Dafoe RCAF Airbase History click here

From the local history book
Reflections By The Quills

Dafoe, Then and Now
by Gisli Reykdal

The Village of Dafoe had its origins with the coming of the northern mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which was to connect the already-established major communities between Winnipeg and Edmonton. Its position along the line was probably determined, as with so many other stations, by the policy of the railway to set down a station approximately every seven miles along the right-of-way. It is also speculated that its name was determined in a similar fashion, by picking the name of the next man down the list on the railroad construction payroll; another report is that it was named in honor of John Wesley Dafoe, (a prominent journalist.)

Whatever the reasons, the choice of townsite was somewhat unfortunate because that seventh-mile spot occurred just inside the eastern edge of what is known today as the Quill Lake Prairie  a wide expanse of flat, treeless, alkaline terrain extending southwest from the southwest corner of Big Quill Lake. Many homesteads were taken up in the area, but it soon became obvious that the soil was not suitable for the growing of cultivated crops, and most of the homesteads were abandoned, traded, or reverted back to the crown. A few of those hardy pioneers, however, decided to "tough it out" on their claims and acquisitions, and managed to come up with very viable livestock operations. One thing that area could do was grow grass that livestock could thrive on, so well in fact that one of those operations showed the Grand Champion Shorthorn Bull at the Toronto Royal Winter Fair!

The existing terrain and soil condition was not the only point in disfavor of this dubiously-selected townsite. Water was a problem, particularly of the kind that was suitable for human consumption and general household use. It was a strange phenomenon, possibly explainable only by geologists, that although many wells developed throughout the surrounding "Dafoe Prairie" area were of the flowing type and produced excellent water, attempts to develop wells of that type within the townsite were almost completely thwarted. There was one well developed that was of the flowing type and ideally located about half-way down the southside of the "main drag", and it produced a continuous trickle of water for many years. But its quality was such that only a very thirsty horse would condescend to bring his nose even close to the trough! But the intrepid residents of Dafoe did not let that situation daunt them. There was a well only two miles to the east, on the site of what has become known as the Edison Farm, that produced excellent water in considerable quantity, or at least enough to supply the household needs of the residents. At this writing (1980), modern well-drilling techniques have produced more than one well of good quality and supply within the townsite, but they are many years late in coming, for now there is a dearth of residents and businesses to take advantage of the new-found boon.

From the foregoing it might be surmised that Dafoe would have had a somewhat reduced or stunted development as compared to other stations along the line. But, to the contrary, it grew into as good a service and trading centre as any, providing all the services essential to a mixed-farming community. It had four grain elevators (at one time five), and as many as twenty other businesses and services which ran the gamut from bank to shoe repair, not to mention a well-attended school. It also had a twice daily (east and west) passenger express and mail service of excellent quality provided by the C.P.R., and in the late twenties and early thirties Dafoe found itself at the junction of two major highways, No. l4 (now No. 16 and designated the "Yellowhead Route") which ran east and west, and No. 6, the main north-south artery from the United States border, through Regina, to northern points including Melfort. Thus, although slightly disadvantaged by the "seven mile rule" of the railroads, Dafoe became "advantaged" because of its location as a half-way point between four major cities of the province. With the advent of bus service in the mid-thirties, Arrow Coach Lines, (predecessor to Greyhound), Dafoe became a major bus stop and transfer point. Bus depot services were provided by an established local enterprise and it was not uncommon to see as many as four busses parked there at one time. Dafoe got its name on the map with the establishment of the Air Force Bombing and Gunnery Training School during World War II, and as a weather observation and reporting station for a short period after.

Dafoe was born in the 'teens of this century, grew and flourished in the twenties, survived the Depression of the thirties and the war of the forties, and held its own in the post-war fifties. But with the advent of the sixties it began to go the way of many of the smaller towns across the land, as one by one, the long-time businesses and services closed down or moved to larger centres. It still has its post office, and its four elevators still attest to Dafoe's importance as a grain-handling point and boldly mark its position on an otherwise bleak and barren landscape. At the present time (l980), there is a building and carpentry enterprise headquartered there and also a service station-garage operation under development. And who knows, maybe "Little Dafoe" could rise again, the potential is still there.

However, the purpose of this book is not to speculate on the future, but to record the past and honour those hardy pioneers who played their parts in it. Most of those people are gone now, but their surviving family members have attempted to set down the facts as they remember them. These are their stories!