Foam Lake was founded in 1882 by Joshua Milligan, an English fur trader. The town takes its name from the lake about five kilometres to the north-west. Settlers followed, among them Icelanders, Ukrainians and people from various English-speaking backgrounds. Foam Lake was incorporated as a town in 1924, and the Foam Lake Museum, dating from around 1926, is now a Municipal Heritage Property on the Canadian Register of Historic Places.
In the summer of 2006, two major fires destroyed a large part of Main Street. The first took three businesses and one home, including the doctor's office and Dennis' Cafe, which was also the owner's home. The second began in one of the town's three grain elevators, burning the first to the ground and spreading to the second. The volunteer fire department put out the blaze with help from two water bombers and volunteer crews from surrounding communities.
Today Foam Lake sits in a mixed agricultural area on the Yellowhead Highway. Bird watchers come from around the world to the Quill Lakes International Bird Area to the north-west, and the town celebrates its Ukrainian roots each year with the Veselka Ukrainian Heritage Festival. The Foam Lake Flyers, a senior men's hockey team, have played since the 1940s, and the town counts NHL players such as Bernie Federko among its notable people.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Foam Lake” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.