How River Cree came to be, and where it's going

Entry 01 · The Nation

Before the casino: maskêkosihk

Enoch Cree Nation No. 440, in Cree maskêkosihk, is a Plains Cree First Nation and a signatory of Treaty 6. Its main reserve, Enoch Cree Nation 135, covers about 5,306 hectares immediately west of Edmonton, with Parkland County on three sides and Highway 60 running through the middle. The band's earliest known leader was Chief Lapotac. The Crown recognised the band in 1842, and Chief Enoch Lapotac signed Treaty 6 in 1884. The reserve was originally 44 sections, with access to the North Saskatchewan River; surrenders on 20 January 1902 and 13 May 1908 took 22 sections, including the river frontage, and whether the band was ever fairly paid is still disputed (Wikipedia, Enoch Cree Nation). The resort's street is East Lapotac Boulevard.

Oil was found on the reserve in 1947 and paid for much of the band's budget; when oil prices fell in 1986, the Nation started looking for other income. The casino idea grew out of that search.

Entry 02 · 2004

The sod-turning, and the plan on paper

On 7 October 2004, under a blue sky, Chief Ron Morin turned the sod on the eastern edge of Enoch territory. Windspeaker's report described a $140-million construction project expected to bring in $75 million a year, and a plan to be finished in summer 2006: a 255-room four-star Marriott hotel, a sports complex with two NHL-sized rinks, restaurants and bars, meeting space, and a 60,000-square-foot casino with 600 slot machines, 40 table games and a high-limit lounge. The report also mentions years of "often-tense negotiation" with the province and with neighbouring communities that had complained a casino would bring crime (Windspeaker, 2004).

Entry 03 · 2006–2018

Opening, the bonds, and two buyouts

Entry 04 · Story one

The plan versus the building

Put the 2004 plan next to today's pages and you get a neat picture of how these projects drift. The hotel was drawn at 255 rooms and opened smaller, at 249. The casino was drawn with 600 slots and now has 1,665, almost three times as many. The rinks, two of them, NHL-sized, are the one line that came out exactly as written. And the Marriott name that appeared in every early report is gone: the Nation bought out the hotel's management in 2018. If the 2024 plan follows the same pattern, expect the tower to arrive bigger than announced. It already has: 230 rooms on 18 floors in 2024, 240 rooms and a 20th floor by 2026.

Entry 05 · Story two

Bonds sold on two sides of the border

The 2014 buyout was unusual enough to make the business pages. River Cree Enterprises, the Nation's company, refinanced its debt mostly through bonds sold to institutional investors, split roughly evenly between Canada and the United States, and used the money to buy out Paragon Gaming's minority share. The original partnership was set for 25 years, with a buyout expected after 12 to 15. It happened after about seven. Alberta Sweetgrass reported that River Cree Enterprises was the first solely First Nations-owned on-reserve business to issue cross-border bonds, and that the casino employed close to 900 people at the time (Alberta Sweetgrass, 2014).

Entry 06 · Story three

Fight nights, then and now

In its first full year the resort became a regular stop for Maximum Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts promotion: four cards in 2007, with names like High Stakes and High Rollers (Wikipedia). The habit stuck. The Venue now runs watch parties for boxing and UFC in round-table settings, and its calendar lists a Unified MMA card on 18 December 2026 (events list).

Entry 07 · Story four

The golf course and the bombing range

During the Second World War part of the reserve was used by the Department of Defence as a bombing range, and munitions were dropped there from 1942 to 1944. In 2014 the band's own golf course was closed for safety reasons. In 2020 Canada and the Nation settled the specific claim for $91 million, including the course's lost income (Wikipedia). That's why there's no golf course at the resort today.

Entry 08 · Legends

What we didn't find

We looked for documented legends attached to the site and found none in the sources we could check, so we haven't printed any. If you hear a story at the bar about the place, enjoy it as a story. The Nation's own words are on its website: maskêkosihk, "people of the land of the medicine".