Long before settlers arrived, the Frenchman River valley was well used by Indigenous people, mainly the Plains Cree and Assiniboine, who hunted bison here. In 1877 Sitting Bull crossed into Canada along the river after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Palliser Expedition of 1857 to 1859 had judged the area too dry and drought-prone to live in, and that verdict slowed settlement for decades.
Val Marie was founded in 1910 by Father Claude Passaplan, Louis Denniel, and brothers François and Léon Pinel. Most early settlers were ranchers and farmers from Quebec and France. Father Louis-Pierre Gravel, who promoted French Catholic immigration to the region, first called the place Rivière des Français and later suggested Libreval, but Father Passaplan's name, Val Marie, or "Valley of Mary," was the one that stuck. The village was incorporated on September 13, 1926, and by 1939 two irrigation reservoirs built nearby by the PFRA and Ducks Unlimited helped steady the farms through droughts.
The village stayed largely French and had about 450 people by the 1950s, with a hospital, convent, bakery, bank, cafes and stores. Low grain prices and droughts in the 1980s brought a steep decline, and the last unilingual French speaker died in 1981. Today Val Marie calls itself the gateway to Grasslands National Park, whose staff and some retirees have settled here. The 1927 school, now a museum, and the 1927 elevator are both heritage buildings.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Val Marie” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.