It was a bewildering result for North Battleford in the 2013 MoneySense rankings of the best places in Canada to live.
The personal finance magazine's eighth annual rankings came out March 20 and perhaps surprising to some, Calgary was named Canada's best place to live, with Ottawa second and Edmonton third.
Saskatoon ranked the highest of all Saskatchewan cities in the overall rankings, at number 12; it also finished fifth in the country among mid-sized cities. Regina finished not far back of Saskatoon at number 17 overall.
But it was a long way down the list before you could find North Battleford, which lurched to 150th overall - in between Langley, B.C. and Welland, Ont.
Last year, North Battleford snuck into the top 50 in the survey, in 45th place across Canada. That was viewed as a good showing by civic officials, including Mayor Ian Hamilton.
This year's tumble in the rankings is a head-scratcher. Calgary finished number one in the country despite the Alberta city's notorious reputation for traffic gridlock and high parking costs downtown - two issues meter-free North Battleford still does not face.
Despite its natural beauty and other advantages, Vancouver mustered only a 52nd place finish in the survey, with MoneySense citing whopping costs of living and a high number of rainy days for its ranking.
Despite a far lower cost of living and sunnier weather, North Battleford still finished 98 places behind Vancouver in the 2013 MoneySense ranking.
Also making little sense was that North Battleford's ranking went down despite completion of the Credit Union CUPlex, with grand openings of its new theatre, aquatic centre, curling centre and field house.
The only real tangible measure of the CUPlex impact in the MoneySense survey was its ranking of the percentage of people employed in arts and recreation in the city. That came in at 1.16 per cent.
Other numbers cited for North Battleford showed average house prices of $194,918 and average household income of $68,039. It also ranked percentage of property tax at 1.81 per cent - lower than most other cities on the list.
Still a problem for the city's image is crime, though even in this category North Battleford has shown improvement - sort of.
On the one hand, the city's crime severity index rating of 360.99 was a number that once again earned North Battleford a "bottom of the list" notation from MoneySense for the "highest crime rate."
"This town measures 360.99 on the Crime Severity Index due to a number of factors including high unemployment and a lack of resources," MoneySense said.
But MoneySense gave mixed messages about where the Crime Capital of Canada actually is in 2013. In a separate section entitled "Room for Improvement," MoneySense gave a dishonourable mention to Thompson, Man., noting its level of crime was even worse than North Battleford.
According to MoneySense, Thompson "has overtaken North Battleford, Sask. as the most crime-ridden city in the country with a crime rate of 46,753 per 100,000 and violent crime rate of 6709 per 100,000."
