Saskatchewan

Administrative division of Canada
Also known as Administrative division Province de Saskatchewan
Maximum elevation: 1,468 metres (4,817 feet)

Saskatchewan, one of the three Prairie provinces of Canada, bounded on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, on the south by the American states of North Dakota and Montana, and on the west by Alberta.

Saskatchewan entered the Canadian Confederation on September 1, 1905, along with Alberta as the eighth and ninth provinces. Called Canada's Breadbasket, Saskatchewan contains one of the major wheat-producing areas in the world. The name of the province is taken from the Saskatchewan River, which was named by the Cree people and means "fast flowing".
 

Land and Resources

Saskatchewan, with an area of 652,330 sq km (251,865 sq mi), is the fifth-largest province of Canada; approximately 1.4 per cent of the land area is owned by the federal government. The province is nearly rectangular in shape, and its extreme dimensions are about 1,220 km (758 mi) from north to south and about 630 km (391 mi) from east to west. Elevations range from 213 m (700 ft) in the Athabasca Lake lowland of the north-west to 1,468 m (4,816 ft) in the Cypress Hills of the south-west. Most of the province lies about 365 to 610 m (1,200 to 2,000 ft) above sea level.
 

Physical Geography

The Canadian Shield, which covers most of the northern third of Saskatchewan, is a rolling land with abundant lakes and rivers. Bedrock, consisting of ancient volcanic and metamorphic rocks, lies at or close to the ground surface. Soils are thin and rocky and provide no potential for agriculture. The southern two-thirds of the province is a plains region with a flat to gently rolling terrain. This region is covered in most places by glacial deposits that vary greatly, from sandy or stony soils to those of silt and clay. The north-eastern portion, the Manitoba Plain, is an area of marshes and lakes and has rocky soils. It is separated on the west and south from the Saskatchewan Plain by a broken, hilly band known as the Manitoba Escarpment. Forests are found in the northern part of the Saskatchewan Plain, and in the south are the province's richest soils. The Missouri Coteau separates this region from the hillier Alberta Plain, to the south-west.
In the south-west are the Cypress Hills, forested bedrock uplands rising to more than 1,400 m (4,600 ft).

The Canadian Shield area has vast water resources; its largest lakes-such as Athabasca, Wollaston, and Reindeer-cover many thousands of square kilometres. Drainage here, by numerous short rivers, is to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean. The south has fewer lakes, and the only large river is the Saskatchewan, fed mainly by streams flowing from the Rocky Mountains and the foothills of southern Alberta. Much of the area drains east to Hudson Bay, although the extreme south-west drains into the Mississippi Basin. Gardiner Dam (which holds Lake Diefenbaker), is a large water-storage facility on the South Saskatchewan River.
 

Climate

Saskatchewan has a cold continental climate. In the south, however, summers are warm enough for grain farming. The average annual temperature ranges from about -8.3° C (17° F) in the north-east to about 3.3° C (38° F) in the south-west. The average annual precipitation is only about 381 mm (15 in), most of it falling in spring and summer.
 

Plants and Animals

The natural grasslands of southern Saskatchewan have mostly been ploughed for farming. The northern half, however, is largely covered by boreal forest, or taiga. Its dominant species are spruce and pine. The central region has a mixed forest of conifers, aspen, and poplar grading southward into the aspen parkland-mixed deciduous trees and grassland-at the northern edge of the grasslands proper. About two-fifths of the province's land area is forest-covered.

Among Saskatchewan's large mammals are moose, caribou, black bear, and grey wolf in the forests; white-tailed deer, which are especially numerous in the agricultural south; and pronghorn, which range the south-west. Squirrel, gopher, and rabbit are abundant. Waterfowl are especially plentiful, especially for ducks, geese, and loons. Various species of frogs and toads occur; reptiles include the prairie rattlesnake, which is restricted to the south-west. Fish include whitefish, lake trout, walleye, pike, and grayling.
 

Products and Industries

The southern part of the province is one of the world's most important grain-growing regions, and agriculture is the major sector of the ecomony. Mineral production is also very valuable, contributed to by the exploitation of vast potash reserves. The principal mineral resources of Saskatchewan are petroleum, natural gas, potash, and coal, and uranium, copper, zinc, gold, silver, and other metallic minerals. The province is Canada's second-largest producer of crude oil, after Alberta, and has abundant coal.

Farming accounts for about 12 per cent of the annual gross domestic product in Saskatchewan, with grain production by far the most important agricultural activity. Wheat is the most important field crop, totalling nearly 58 per cent of Canadian output. Barley is an important secondary grain. Other crops include oats, rye, rapeseed, canola (a related brassica valued for its oil), and flaxseed. After wheat, beef cattle is Saskatchewan's most important agricultural product. The forestry industry is of minor importance to the economy. Principal commercial fishing is relatively small. Petroleum, potash, uranium, natural gas, and coal are the main mining industry products, and more than 80 per cent of the total Canadian production of uranium is mined in the province. Saskatchewan also produces small quantities of antimony, copper, and gold.

Saskatchewan's principal manufactures include foods and beverages, chemicals, fabricated metal goods, electrical and electronic items, printed materials, machinery, and wood products.
 

Population

According to the 1991 census, Saskatchewan had 988,928 inhabitants, a decrease of 2 per cent since 1986. The overall population density in 1991 was about 3 people for every 2 sq km (4 per sq mi). English was the first language of 83 per cent of the people; about 2 per cent had French as their only native language. Some 75,400 Native Americans lived in Saskatchewan.
 

Education and Cultural Institutions

In 1884 the Canadian government initiated a system of public education in Saskatchewan. In the early 1990s the province had 957 public and separate (tax-supported but operated by religious groups) elementary and secondary schools with a total enrolment of some 207,500 students. In the same period Saskatchewan had four institutions of higher education, with a total enrolment of approximately 26,600 students. Prominent among these institutions are the University of Saskatchewan (1907) in Saskatoon, the oldest and largest institution of higher education in the province, and the University of Regina (1974) in Regina.

Regina is the home of the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts, including the Jubilee Theatre and Hanbidge Hall; the Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Centennial Museum; and the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery. The Mendel Art Gallery and the Ukrainian Museum of Canada are in Saskatoon. Saskatoon has an opera company, and Regina and Saskatoon have symphony orchestras.
 

Places of Interest

For the most part, the historical points of interest in Saskatchewan commemorate the early pioneers who came to trade or settle in the province. Among these are Fort Walsh National Historic Site, an early North West Mounted Police post, in Maple Creek; Battleford National Historic Site containing restored structures from the mid-19th century, in Battleford; Batoche National Historic Site in Rosthern; and Fort Espérance National Historic Site near Regina. Also of interest are Wanuskewin Heritage Park, celebrating the culture of the northern Plains peoples, in Saskatoon.
 

Sports and Recreation

Saskatchewan's Prince Albert National Park, provincial parks, forests, lakes, and rivers offer ideal conditions for fishing, hunting, boating, swimming, camping, golfing, ice hockey, skiing, and curling.
 

Government and Politics

Saskatchewan has a parliamentary form of government. The chief executive of Saskatchewan is a lieutenant-governor, who is appointed to a five-year term by the Canadian governor-general in council. The lieutenant-governor, holds a position that is largely honorary. The premier, a member of the Legislative Assembly and most often the leader of the majority party, is the actual head of the provincial government and presides over the executive council (cabinet). In addition to the premier, the executive council includes the attorney-general, minister of finance, minister of labour, minister of energy and mines, minister of agriculture and food, minister of education, and about ten other officials. The unicameral Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly contains 66 seats, including those of the premier and the executive councillors. Members of the legislature are popularly elected to terms of up to five years. Saskatchewan is represented in the Canadian Parliament by six senators appointed by the governor-general in council and by 14 members of the House of Commons, who are popularly elected to terms of up to five years.
 

History

The prehistory of the region comprising present-day Saskatchewan is largely unknown, but archaeological research indicates the presence of nomadic plains dwellers as early as 1400 BC. Like the Native Americans of historic times, the plains dwellers were hunters, not agriculturalists.

The first European known to have entered the area was the English explorer Henry Kelsey, who in 1690 visited parts of the region on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company. Kelsey, as well as later French and English traders and explorers of the 18th century, encountered a number of Native American tribes, including the Ojibwa, a caribou-hunting people of the far north; the Wood Cree, moose, caribou, and deer hunters living in the mixed-wood belt; and the Assiniboine and Plains Cree, buffalo-hunting tribes of the south. The Native American tribes provided furs and food supplies for the widely scattered trading posts located in the forest and park belts. These posts were built by the French, beginning in the 1750s, and by the British, operating through the Hudson's Bay Company, in the 1770s. Following the Treaty of Paris of 1763, all trading was controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1870, when the company sold its territories to Canada, the area became part of the Northwest Territories.

During the years from 1870 to 1905, the so-called territorial period, the southern part of the prairie region was the scene of much activity, notably the negotiation of treaties with the Native Americans, the extension of land surveys, the building of Northwest Mounted Police posts, the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), the arrival of farmers from eastern Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and continental Europe, and the founding of many urban centres. Almost all the agricultural land was planted with wheat. In 1885 the federal militia crushed a brief uprising of Native Americans and Métis. The uprising, which was led by a Métis, Louis David Riel, grew out of the rebels' long-standing fear (dating from the sale of the Saskatchewan region to Canada in 1870) that the national government intended to appropriate and distribute to white farm settlers land that the Métis and Native Americans considered theirs by squatters' rights.
Following the completion of the CPR in 1885, large numbers of farmers and other settlers poured into Saskatchewan, and the Canadian Parliament separated Saskatchewan from the Northwest Territories and made the former a province in 1905. The period from 1905 to 1914 was marked by the influx of thousands of immigrants of varied origins, the expansion of transport facilities, a great increase in agricultural production, and the establishment of educational and other governmental institutions. One of the chief phenomena of the period was the growth of producer and consumer cooperatives.

The 1920s were years of adjustment to the newly discovered limitations inherent in a one-crop economy. The difficulties encountered by farmers trying to market their wheat crops led to the organization in 1923 of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, one of the largest grain-marketing cooperatives in the world. The economic crisis also posed a continuing threat to the dominance of the Liberal party, which had controlled the government since 1905.

During the 1930s the provincial economy collapsed, owing largely to the ravages of drought; the resultant sharp decline in farm income brought hardship, disillusionment, and political unrest. The efforts of local cooperatives and an extensive system of agricultural relief provided by the federal government only partly alleviated the problems of these depression years. Neither the Progressive Conservative party, which held office from 1929 to 1934, nor the Liberal party, which regained power in 1934, proved able to satisfy the farmers' demands for a more secure economic and social future. In the elections of 1944 the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF, now the New Democratic party, or NDP), which promised a social democracy, won sufficient seats to form the first socialist government in North America. The CCF, led first by T. C. Douglas and then by Woodrow Lloyd, remained the dominant political party until the 1960s.
The World War II period was marked by agricultural prosperity and increased farm mechanization; at the same time, however, a large exodus took place to the industrial centres of eastern Canada and the Pacific coast. Agricultural income rose in Saskatchewan during the post-war era, but the province experienced difficulties in the marketing of wheat, which was the main crop, and in the decline in the rural population. In 1962 the provincial government instituted Canada's first compulsory medical-care plan, which caused doctors, fearing state control, to go on strike.

In the June 1964 provincial elections, the Liberal party came to power with a promise to free Saskatchewan of the economic stagnation that the socialist CCF had apparently engendered. The Liberals' failure to relieve this stagnation contributed much to the victory of the resurgent NDP, under Allan E. Blakeney, in 1971. By the mid-1970s the worldwide demand for wheat invigorated the whole economy. As a result, the tide of emigration from the province was reduced. The Blakeney government embarked on a programme of agricultural support and economic control designed to husband the land and resources of the province. In 1982, and again in 1986, the NDP was defeated by the Progressive Conservatives (PC), led by Grant Devine. His commitment to a programme of reduced government and privatization threatened the province's social democratic legacy and provoked considerable political controversy. The NDP returned to power in 1991, as Roy Romanow became premier.