Mistatim takes its name from the Cree word for "big dog," a reference to horses. A siding on the Canadian National Railway was already located here by April 1905, on the line running through Bannock and Peesane, and the first post office opened in 1907. It closed in 1914 and reopened in 1917. A Mistatim Station post office was set up in 1930, and it became simply Mistatim in 1938.
Settling the area was hard going. The land was heavily forested with no roads, and several muskeg areas could not be crossed until the winter freeze-up. The early community was made up of Germans, Hungarians, French and Scots. A log schoolhouse went up in 1929, Bachelor School District was established in 1932, and a two-room school followed in 1939. The Shaw railway, a private line about 30 miles long, carried logs from the surrounding forest. Mistatim became a village on July 1, 1952.
Passenger rail service ended in 1977. The Mistatim Arena, with its ice rink and curling rink, was built as a centennial project in 1967. The old school, which taught kindergarten to grade 12, closed in 2001 and is now a community centre. Today mixed farming and forestry support the local economy, and the nearby lakes, forests and the protected Mistatim bog draw hunters and anglers, with Greenwater Lake Provincial Park about 48 kilometres to the south.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Mistatim” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.