Whoop-up | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Whoop-up

Article by John Robert Colombo

Published Online February 7, 2006

Last Edited July 17, 2015

Whoop-up, a shortened form of "whoop it up" which means to celebrate boisterously.

Whoop-up, a shortened form of "whoop it up" which means to celebrate boisterously. It recalls Fort Whoop-Up, the fort built in 1869 by American fur traders in what is now southern Alberta. The fort, which was the centre of the illegal exchange with Aboriginal peoples of whisky for buffalo hides, was abandoned when the North-West Mounted Police came West in 1874.

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