Nipawin gets its name from a Cree word meaning "stand up." It referred to a low-lying spot along the river, now flooded by Codette Lake, where First Nations women and children would camp and wait for the men to arrive.
The area saw fur trade activity long before the town existed. In 1751 a group of New France soldiers under Joseph Boucher de Niverville may have built a short-lived fort, Fort La Jonquière, nearby. Several trading posts may have come and gone over the years, though they are poorly documented. James Finlay of Montreal built a post in 1768, François le Blanc, known as "Saswe," had one by the same year, and in 1795 two posts were operating, one for the North West Company under A. N. McLeod and another run by James Porter for David Grant.
The first permanent settlement came in 1910 with a trading post. In 1924 a Canadian Pacific Railway branch line passed nearby, crossing the river on the Crooked Bridge, and the settlement was moved, building by building, to its present spot beside the tracks.
The dams reshaped the town in later years. The E.B. Campbell Dam (1963) created Tobin Lake, and the Francois-Finlay Dam (1986) created Codette Lake, earning Nipawin the nickname "Town of Two Lakes." Today it is a resort community known for fishing, camping, golf and snowmobiling, and it is home to the Nipawin Hawks junior hockey team. Agriculture, forestry, tourism and canola oil processing are among its industries, and nearby Fort à la Corne Provincial Forest has seen diamond exploration.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Nipawin” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.