RM of Last Mountain Valley’s story
The Rural Municipality of Last Mountain Valley No. 250 incorporated on December 13, 1909. It surrounds the town of Govan and the village of Duval, and includes the hamlet of Arlington Beach and the locality of Cymric. The RM office is in Govan.
One of its best-known early landmarks was the Arlington Beach House, built in 1910 at Arlington Beach by the William Pearson Land Company as its centre of operations in Saskatchewan. It was one of the first hotels built in the province and one of the first buildings along Last Mountain Lake. Once a luxury hotel, it became a popular vacation destination for people from across central Saskatchewan.
The area's name is tied to a Plains Indians legend, first published around 1911 by the William Pearson Publishing Company of Winnipeg in a pamphlet promoting the lake as a summer resort. In the story, the Great Chief used the last of his leftover earth to build Last Mountain, and his daughter Cheewana named the hill and the lake, the last land he made and the last lake he filled.
Today Last Mountain Regional Park, founded in 1963, is one of Saskatchewan's oldest regional parks. It sits on the eastern shore of the lake, within the Last Mountain Lake Bird Sanctuary, about 15 kilometres west of Govan. It is home to the province's only bird observatory, and offers beach access, camping and a golf course.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Rural Municipality of Last Mountain Valley No. 250” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.
