Oxbow is a town in the southeast of the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is located on the Canadian Pacific Railway and on Provincial Highway 18. It is approximately 58 kilometers west of Saskatchewan's border with Manitoba and approximately north of the Canada–US border with North Dakota. The town's official motto is "Progress with Pride", but the town's weekly paper, the Oxbow Herald, has long included two other unofficial town mottoes on its masthead: "Queen of the Scenic Souris" (a reference to the Souris River, near which Oxbow is situated) and "Where Oil and Agriculture Meet" (a reference to the town's two major industries). History The first settlers in the area around Oxbow - mainly of English, Irish, and Scottish descent - began homesteading the area under the Dominion Lands Act in 1882. The town's weekly newspaper, the Oxbow Herald, was founded in 1903. The town was incorporated in 1904. The town was named after the "oxbow" in the Souris River near which the town is situated. Etymologically, the word "oxbow", as applied to a river, is a metaphor for the oxbow worn by an ox. The town grew rapidly in the years following incorporation, reaching a population of 678 in 1916. The town's population then hovered around 600-700 for the next several decades. In the mid-1950s, oil companies began developing the oilfields around Oxbow. This set off a boom time, as personnel moved to Oxbow to work on drilling rigs and provide other services to the oil industry. As of 2010 there has been roughly 38,000 oil and gas wells around the surrounding area. Agriculture and oil remain the two major industries of the town. On October 16, 1982, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Officer Cst. Butler was killed while on duty in Oxbow. A high speed pursuit had begun earlier west of Oxbow with the pursuit heading towards Oxbow. Cst. Butler had set up a road block with his RCMP cruiser across the roadway. A high speed collision occurred with Cst. Butler still in the vehicle. He later died of his injuries. Two occupants of the evading vehicle were also killed. Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Oxbow had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. Government