Moose Jaw

Town in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, at the junction of Thunder Creek and the Moose Jaw River, about 80 km/50 mi west of Regina; population (1996 est) 14,200. Situated in the middle of the wheat-belt, on the Trans-Canadian Highway and a railway junction, it is a major agricultural and distribution centre, with grain elevators, flour mills, meat-processing plants, cooperative stockyards, and oil refineries. The settlement was founded in 1882 as a rail depot on the Canadian Pacific Railway.

During American Prohibition 1920–33, Moose Jaw was the starting point of the ‘Soo Line’, an illegal liquor run terminating in Chicago.

Various traditions surrounding the name of the town suggest that it derived from the local shape of the river; from the mending of a settler's cart with the jawbone of a moose; or from an Indian word meaning ‘warm breezes’.