La Ronge is a northern town in the boreal forest of central Saskatchewan, Canada. Its location is approximately north of Prince Albert where Highway 2 becomes Highway 102. La Ronge lies on the western shore of Lac la Ronge, is adjacent to Lac La Ronge Provincial Park, and is on the edge of the Canadian Shield. This town is also the namesake of the larger La Ronge population centre comprising the community, the Northern Village of Air Ronge and the Kitsakie 156B and Lac La Ronge 156 reserves of the Lac La Ronge First Nation. History The name of La Ronge comes from the lake. The origin of the name is uncertain; the most likely explanation is that early French fur traders named it la ronge (literally the chewed) because of the large amount of beaver activity along the shoreline—many of the trees would have been chewed down for beaver dam construction. In 1782, Swiss born fur trader Jean-Étienne Waddens had a fur trade post on Lac La Ronge. In March 1782, Waddens was fatally wounded in a quarrel with his associate Peter Pond. La Ronge began in 1904 as a fur trading post and meeting place, but with the decline of hunting and the fur market, La Ronge has diversified into other areas. Many of the Dene, Cree, and white trappers used La Ronge as their central service point. It incorporated as a northern village on 3 May 1905. With the extension of Highway 2 from Prince Albert in 1947, La Ronge became a major tourist fishing area. The highway between La Ronge and Prince Albert expanded the community further in the 1970s after it was paved. In the early 1950s and 1960s, the mineral resources in the La Ronge area began to be explored and developed. La Ronge's status changed from northern village to industrial town in 1965 and then to town on 1 November 1976 before finally becoming a northern town on 1 October 1983. Wildfire evacuations In May 1999, the community of La Ronge was evacuated after a fire burned through the far north of the town. The wildfire burned multiple houses before conditions pushed the fire away from the town and crews were able to extinguish it. Once again in July 2015, La Ronge was threatened by dangerous forest fires that combined forcing approximately 7,000 people to evacuate from their homes. Many cabins and homes