Waskasoo

Waskasoo is a Cree name associated with the Red Deer River in central Alberta. It means elk, an animal whose name European traders rendered as “red deer.” The river rises in the Rocky Mountains and flows east through forested foothills, parkland and prairie. At a shallow crossing near the later site of Red Deer, Indigenous routes joined the country to the north and south of the river, long before a colonial settlement grew there.