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Saskatchewan is a province in Western Canada. It is bordered to the west by Alberta, to the north by the Northwest Territories, to the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the United States (Montana and North Dakota). Saskatchewan and neighbouring Alberta are the only landlocked provinces in Canada. In 2025, Saskatchewan's population was estimated at 1,266,234. Nearly 10% of Saskatchewan's total area of is fresh water, mostly rivers, reservoirs, and lakes.
Saskatchewanians live primarily in the southern prairie half of the province, while the northern half is mostly forested and sparsely populated. Roughly half live in the two largest cities, Regina (the provincial capital) and Saskatoon (the largest city). Other notable cities include Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Yorkton, Swift Current, North Battleford, Estevan, Weyburn, Melfort, and the border city of Lloydminster. English language is the primary language of the province, with 82.4% of Saskatchewanians speaking English as their first language.
Saskatchewan has been inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples. Europeans first explored any part of the province in 1690 and first settled in the area in 1774. It became a province in 1905, carved out from the vast North-West Territories, which had until then included most of the Canadian Prairies. In the early 20th century, the province became known as a stronghold for Canadian social democracy, with the 1944 provincial election electing North America's first socialist government to office.
Saskatchewan's economy is based on agriculture, mining, and Energy industry. In 1992, the federal and provincial governments signed a historic land claim agreement with First Nations in Saskatchewan, granting these nations compensation which they could use to buy land on the open market for the bands. "Treaty Land Entitlement – The English River Story, Saskatchewan" , Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, accessed November 25, 2011 Presently, Saskatchewan is governed by the Saskatchewan Party, led by Premier Scott Moe, which has been in power since 2007.
Saskatchewan is bounded on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the north-east by Nunavut, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota. Saskatchewan has the distinction of being the only Canadian province for which no borders correspond to physical geographic features (i.e., they are all parallels and meridians). Along with Alberta, Saskatchewan is one of only two land-locked provinces.
The overwhelming majority of Saskatchewan's population is in the southern third of the province, south of the 53rd parallel.
Saskatchewan contains two major natural regions: the boreal forest in the north and the in the south. They are separated by an aspen parkland transition zone near the North Saskatchewan River on the western side of the province, and near to south of the Saskatchewan River on the eastern side. Northern Saskatchewan is mostly covered by forest except for the Lake Athabasca Sand Dunes, the largest active sand dunes in the world north of 58°, and adjacent to the southern shore of Lake Athabasca. Southern Saskatchewan contains another area with sand dunes known as the "Great Sand Hills", covering over . The Cypress Hills, in the southwestern corner of Saskatchewan and Killdeer Badlands (Grasslands National Park), are areas of the province that were unglaciated during the last glaciation period, the Wisconsin glaciation.
The province's highest point, at , is in the Cypress Hills less than from the provincial boundary with Alberta. The lowest point is the shore of Lake Athabasca, at . The province has 14 major made up of various rivers and watersheds draining into the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico. Hydrology from The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is one of the most tornado-active parts of Canada, averaging roughly 12 to 18 tornadoes per year, some violent. In 2012, 33 tornadoes were reported in the province. The Regina Cyclone took place in June 1912 when 28 people died in an F4 Fujita scale tornado. Severe and non-severe thunderstorm events occur in Saskatchewan, usually from early spring to late summer. Hail, strong winds and isolated tornadoes are a common occurrence.
The hottest temperature ever recorded in Saskatchewan was in July 1937 when the temperature rose to in Midale and Yellow Grass. The coldest ever recorded in the province was in Prince Albert, north of Saskatoon, in February 1893.
| +Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures for selected cities in Saskatchewan |
The first known European to enter Saskatchewan was Henry Kelsey from England in 1690, who travelled up the Saskatchewan River in hopes of trading fur with the region's indigenous peoples. Fort La Jonquière and Fort de la Corne were first established in 1751 and 1753 by early French explorers and traders. The first permanent European settlement was a Hudson's Bay Company post at Cumberland House, founded in 1774 by Samuel Hearne. The southern part of the province was part of Spanish Louisiana from 1762 until 1802.
In the late 1850s and early 1860s, scientific expeditions led by John Palliser and Henry Youle Hind explored the prairie region of the province.
In 1870, Canada acquired the Hudson's Bay Company's territories and formed the North-West Territories to administer the vast territory between British Columbia and Manitoba. The Crown also entered into a series of numbered treaties with the indigenous peoples of the area, which serve as the basis of the relationship between First Nations, as they are called today, and the Crown. Since the late twentieth century, land losses and inequities as a result of those treaties have been subject to negotiation for settlement between the First Nations in Saskatchewan and the federal government, in collaboration with provincial governments.
In 1876, following their defeat of United States Army forces at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory in the United States, the Lakota people Chief Sitting Bull led several thousand of his people to Wood Mountain. Survivors and descendants founded Wood Mountain Reserve in 1914.
The North-West Mounted Police set up several posts and forts across Saskatchewan, including Fort Walsh in the Cypress Hills, and Wood Mountain Post in south-central Saskatchewan near the United States border. Many Métis people, who had not been signatories to a treaty, had moved to the Southbranch Settlement and Prince Albert district north of present-day Saskatoon following the Red River Rebellion in Manitoba in 1870. In the early 1880s, the Canadian government refused to hear the Métis' grievances, which stemmed from land-use issues. Finally, in 1885, the Métis, led by Louis Riel, staged the North-West Rebellion and declared a provisional government. They were defeated by a Canadian militia brought to the Canadian prairies by the new Canadian Pacific Railway. Riel, who surrendered and was convicted of treason in a packed Regina courtroom, was hanged on November 16, 1885. Since then, the government has recognized the Métis as an aboriginal people with status rights and provided them with various benefits.
Highly optimistic advertising campaigns promoted the benefits of prairie living. Potential immigrants read leaflets that described Canada as a favourable place to live and downplayed the need for agricultural expertise. Ads in The Nor'-West Farmer by the Commissioner of Immigration implied that western land held water, wood, gold, silver, iron, copper, and cheap coal for fuel, all of which were readily at hand. The reality was far harsher, especially for the first arrivals who lived in . However eastern money poured in and by 1913, long term mortgage loans to Saskatchewan farmers had reached $65 million.Sandra Rollings-Magnusson, "Canada's Most Wanted: Pioneer Women on the Western Prairies." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 2000 37(2): 223–238; W. T. Easterbrook, Farm Credit in Canada 1938.
The dominant groups comprised British settlers from eastern Canada and Britain, who comprised about half of the population during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They played the leading role in establishing the basic institutions of plains society, economy and government.Peter Bush, Western Challenge: The Presbyterian Church in Canada's Mission on the Prairies and North, 1885–1925. (2000); Marjory Harper, "Probing the Pioneer Questionnaires: British Settlement in Saskatchewan, 1887–1914." Saskatchewan History 2000 52(2): 28–46. ISSN 0036-4908
In the 1905 provincial elections, Liberals won 16 of 25 seats in Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan government bought out Bell Telephone Company in 1909, with the government owning the long-distance lines and left local service to small companies organized at the municipal level. Premier Walter Scott preferred government assistance to outright ownership because he thought enterprises worked better if citizens had a stake in running them; he set up the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Company in 1911. Despite pressure from farm groups for direct government involvement in the grain handling business, the Scott government opted to loan money to a farmer-owned elevator company. Saskatchewan in 1909 provided bond guarantees to railway companies for the construction of branch lines, alleviating the concerns of farmers who had trouble getting their wheat to market by waggon.Kevin H. Burley, The Development of Canada's Staples 1867–1939: A Documentary Collection (1970) pp 139–43. The Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association, was the dominant political force in the province until the 1920s; it had close ties with the governing Liberal party. In 1913, the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association was established with three goals: to watch over legislation; to forward the interests of the stock growers in every honourable and legitimate way; and to suggest to parliament legislation to meet changing conditions and requirements. "Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association" , Official Website Immigration peaked in 1910, and in spite of the initial difficulties of frontier life – distance from towns, sod homes, and backbreaking labour – new settlers established a European-Canadian style of prosperous agrarian society. The long-term prosperity of the province depended on the world price of grain, which headed steadily upward from the 1880s to 1920, then plunged down. Wheat output was increased by new strains, such as the "Marquis wheat" strain which matured 8 days sooner and yielded 7 more bushels per acre (0.72 m3/ha) than the previous standard, "Red Fife". The national output of wheat soared from in 1896, to in 1901, reaching by 1921.
Urban reform movements in Regina were based on support from business and professional groups. City planning, reform of local government, and municipal ownership of utilities were more widely supported by these two groups, often through such organizations as the Board of Trade. Church-related and other altruistic organizations generally supported social welfare and housing reforms; these groups were generally less successful in getting their own reforms enacted.
The province responded to the First World War in 1914 with patriotic enthusiasm and enjoyed the resultant economic boom for farms and cities alike. Emotional and intellectual support for the war emerged from the politics of Canadian national identity, the rural myth, and social gospel progressivism The Church of England was especially supportive. However, there was strong hostility toward German-Canadian farmers.James M. Pitsula, For All We Have and Are: Regina and the Experience of the Great War (U of Manitoba Press, 2008), p 280. online review Recent Ukrainian immigrants were enemy aliens because of their citizenship in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A small fraction were taken to internment camps. Most of the internees were unskilled unemployed labourers who were imprisoned "because they were destitute, not because they were disloyal".Pitsula, For All We Have and Are p 41.Lubomyr Luciuk, In Fear of the Barbed Wire Fence: Canada's First National Internment Operations and the Ukrainian Canadians, 1914–1920 (Kingston: Kashtan Press, 2001). The price of wheat tripled and acreage seeded doubled. The wartime spirit of sacrifice intensified social reform movements that had predated the war and now came to fruition. Saskatchewan gave women the right to vote in 1916 and at the end of 1916 passed a referendum to prohibit the sale of alcohol.
In the late 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan, imported from the United States and Ontario, gained brief popularity in nativist circles in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The Klan, briefly allied with the provincial Conservative party because of their mutual dislike for Premier James G. "Jimmy" Gardiner and his Liberals (who ferociously fought the Klan), enjoyed about two years of prominence. It declined and disappeared, subject to widespread political and media opposition, plus internal scandals involving the use of the organization's funds.
Since the late 20th century, First Nations have become more politically active in seeking justice for past inequities, especially related to the taking of indigenous lands by various governments. The federal and provincial governments have negotiated on numerous land claims, and developed a program of "Treaty Land Entitlement", enabling First Nations to buy land to be taken into reserves with money from settlements of claims.
"In 1992, the federal and provincial governments signed an historic land claim agreement with Saskatchewan First Nations. Under the Agreement, the First Nations received money to buy land on the open market. As a result, about 761,000 acres have been turned into reserve land and many First Nations continue to invest their settlement dollars in urban areas", including Saskatoon. The money from such settlements has enabled First Nations to invest in businesses and other economic infrastructure.
| 8.9 | agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting |
| 14.2 | finance, insurance, real estate, leasing |
| 2.5 | Professional, scientific and food services |
| 8.14 | construction |
| 11.51 | education, health, social services |
| 1.74 | Accommodation and food services |
| 1.46 | Information and cultural industries |
| 5.96 | government services |
| 6.43 | manufacturing |
| 17.05 | mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction |
| 3.87 | other |
| 8.05 | transportation, communications, utilities |
| 10.19 | wholesale and retail trade |
Major companies based in Saskatchewan include Nutrien, Federated Cooperatives Ltd. and Cameco.
Major Saskatchewan-based Crown corporations are Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI), SaskTel, SaskEnergy (the province's main supplier of natural gas), SaskPower, and Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation (SCIC). Bombardier runs the NATO Flying Training Centre at 15 Wing, near Moose Jaw. Bombardier was awarded a long-term contract in the late 1990s for $2.8 billion from the federal government for the purchase of military aircraft and the running of the training facility. SaskPower since 1929 has been the principal supplier of electricity in Saskatchewan, serving more than 451,000 customers and managing $4.5 billion in assets. SaskPower is a major employer in the province with almost 2,500 permanent full-time staff in 71 communities.
The first education on the prairies took place within the family groups of the First Nations and early fur trade settlers. There were only a few missionary or trading post schools established in Rupert's Land – later known as the North West Territories. The first 76 North-West Territories school districts and the first Board of Education meeting formed in 1886. The pioneering boom formed Block Settlement. Communities were seeking education for their children similar to the schools of their homeland. , and dwellings were constructed for the assembly of the community, school, church, dances and meetings.
The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties and the success of farmers in proving up on their homesteads helped provide funding to standardize education. Textbooks, normal schools for educating teachers, formal school curricula and state of the art One-room school architectural plans provided continuity throughout the province. English as the school language helped to provide economic stability because one community could communicate with another and goods could be traded and sold in a common language. The number of one-room schoolhouse districts across Saskatchewan totalled approximately 5,000 at the height of this system of education in the late 1940s.
Following World War II, the transition from many one-room schoolhouses to fewer and larger consolidated modern technological town and city schools occurred as a means of ensuring technical education. School buses, highways, and family vehicles create ease and accessibility of a population shift to larger towns and cities. Combines and tractors mean the farmer could manage more than a quarter section of land, so there was a shift from and subsistence crops to cash crops grown on many sections of land. School vouchers have been newly proposed as a means of allowing competition between rural schools and making the operation of cooperative schools practicable in rural areas.
In 1944, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a left-wing agrarian and labour party, won the provincial election in Saskatchewan and formed the first socialist government in North American history. Repeatedly re-elected, the CCF campaigned in the early 1960s on the theme of universal health coverage and, after winning the election again, implemented it, the first in Canada. However, it was fiercely opposed by the province's doctors' union, which went on a massive strike the day the new system came into effect. Supported by the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, most newspapers and the right-wing Keep Our Doctors movement, the doctors' union ran an effective communications campaign portraying the universal health care system as a communist scheme that would spread disease. The strike, which had become very unpopular because of the outrageous rhetoric of some of its leaders (one of them had called for bloodshed), finally ended after a few weeks, and universal health coverage was adopted by the whole country five years later.
During the 20th century, Saskatchewan was one of Canada's more left-wing provinces, reflecting the slant of its many rural citizens which distrusted the distant capital government and which favoured a strong local government to attend to their issues. In 1944 Tommy Douglas became premier of the first avowedly socialism regional government in North America. Most of his Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) represented rural and small-town ridings. Under his Cooperative Commonwealth Federation government, Saskatchewan became the first province to have Medicare. In 1961, Douglas left provincial politics to become the first leader of the federal New Democratic Party. In the 21st century, Saskatchewan began to drift to the right-wing, generally attributed to the province's economy shifting toward oil and gas production. In the 2015 federal election, the Conservative Party of Canada won ten of the province's fourteen seats, followed by the New Democratic Party with three and the Liberal Party of Canada with one; in the 2019 election, the Conservatives won in all of Saskatchewan's 14 seats, sweeping their competition, and retained them all in the 2021 election; in the 2025 Canadian federal election, the Liberal Party won a single seat in northern Saskatchewan .
Provincial politics in Saskatchewan is dominated by the social democracy Saskatchewan New Democratic Party and the centre-right Saskatchewan Party, with the latter holding the majority in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan since 2007. The current Premier of Saskatchewan is Scott Moe, who took over the leadership of the Saskatchewan Party in 2018 following the resignation of Brad Wall. Numerous smaller political parties also run candidates in provincial elections, including the Green Party of Saskatchewan, Buffalo Party of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Progress Party, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan, but none is currently represented in the Legislative Assembly.
No Prime Minister of Canada has been born in Saskatchewan, but two (William Lyon Mackenzie King and John Diefenbaker) represented the province in the House of Commons of Canada during their tenures as head of government.
In 2016, Saskatchewan's 774 municipality covered of the province's land mass and were home to of its population.
These 774 municipalities are local government "creatures of provincial jurisdiction" with legal person. One of the key purposes of Saskatchewan's municipalities are "to provide services, facilities and other things that, in the opinion of council, are necessary or desirable for all or a part of the municipality". Other purposes are to: "provide good government"; "develop and maintain a safe and viable community"; "foster economic, social and environmental well-being" and "provide wise stewardship of public assets."
Saskatchewan has over of roads and highways, the highest length of road surface of any Canadian province. The major highways in Saskatchewan are the Trans-Canada Highway, Yellowhead Highway northern Trans Canada route, Louis Riel Trail, CanAm Highway, Red Coat Trail, Northern Woods and Water route, and Saskota travel route.
The first Canadian transcontinental railway was constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) between 1881 and 1885. After the great east–west transcontinental railway was built, north–south connector branch lines were established. The 1920s saw the largest rise in rail line track as the CPR and Canadian National Railway (CNR) fell into competition to provide rail service within ten kilometres. In the 1960s there were applications for abandonment of branch lines. Today the only two passenger rail services in the province are The Canadian and Winnipeg–Churchill train, both operated by Via Rail. The Canadian is a transcontinental service linking Toronto with Vancouver.
The main Saskatchewan waterways are the North Saskatchewan River or South Saskatchewan River routes. In total, there are 3,050 bridges maintained by the Department of Highways in Saskatchewan. There are currently twelve ferry services operating in the province, all under the jurisdiction of the Department of Highways.
The Saskatoon Airport was initially established as part of the Royal Canadian Air Force training program during World War II. It was renamed the John G. Diefenbaker Airport in 1993. Roland J. Groome Airfield is the official designation for the Regina International Airport as of 2005; the airport was established in 1930.
Airlines offering service to Saskatchewan are Air Canada, WestJet, Delta Air Lines, Transwest Air, Sunwing Airlines, Norcanair Airlines, La Ronge Aviation Services Ltd, La Loche Airways, Osprey Wings Ltd, Buffalo Narrows Airways Ltd, Île-à-la-Crosse Airways Ltd, Voyage Air, Pronto Airways, Venture Air Ltd, Pelican Narrows Air Service, Jackson Air Services Ltd, and Northern Dene Airways Ltd.
The Government of Canada agreed to contribute $20 million for two new interchanges in Saskatoon. One of them being at the Highway 219/Lorne Avenue intersection with Circle Drive, the other at the Senator Sid Buckwold Bridge (Idylwyld Freeway) and Circle Drive. This is part of the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative to improve access to the CNR's intermodal freight terminal thereby increasing Asia-Pacific trade. Also, the Government of Canada will contribute $27 million to Regina to construct a CPR intermodal facility and improve infrastructure transportation to the facility from both national highway networks, Highway 1, the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 11, Louis Riel Trail. This also is part of the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative to improve access to the CPR terminal and increase Asia-Pacific trade.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the province's professional Canadian football team playing in the Canadian Football League, and are based in Regina but popular across Saskatchewan. The team's fans are also found to congregate on game days throughout Canada, and collectively they are known as "Rider Nation". The Roughriders are one of the oldest professional sports teams and community-owned franchises in North America and have won five Grey Cup championships. The province also boasts successful women's football teams. The Saskatoon Valkyries and the Regina Riot are the only two teams to win championships in the Western Women's Canadian Football League since it began play in 2011.
The province is home to two other professional sports franchises. The Saskatchewan Rush play in the National Lacrosse League. In 2016, their first year after relocating from Edmonton, Alberta, the Rush won both their Division Title and the League Championship. In 2018, the province received a Canadian Elite Basketball League franchise, the Saskatchewan Rattlers, which won the league's inaugural championship in 2019. The Saskatchewan Heat are a semi-professional team in the National Ringette League. The province boasts six teams in the Western Canadian Baseball League.
rink set up on Emma Lake]]Curling is the province's official sport and, historically, Saskatchewan has been one of the strongest curling provinces. (2026). 9780889771758, Canadian Plains Research Centre. ISBN 9780889771758 Teams from Saskatchewan have won seven Canadian men's championships, five world men's championships, thirteen Canadian women's championships, and four world women's championships. Notable curlers from Saskatchewan include Ernie Richardson, Joyce McKee, Vera Pezer, Rick Folk, Sandra Schmirler, and Ben Hebert. In a 2019 poll conducted by The Sports Network (TSN), experts ranked Schmirler's Saskatchewan team, which won the gold medal at the 1998 Olympics, as the greatest women's team in Canada's history.
| + Sports teams in Saskatchewan | |||||
| Canadian Football League | 1910 | Mosaic Stadium | 33,350 | ||
| Saskatchewan Rush | Saskatoon | National Lacrosse League | 2016 | SaskTel Centre | 15,100 |
| Saskatchewan Rattlers | Saskatoon | Canadian Elite Basketball League | 2019 | SaskTel Centre | 15,100 |
| Regina Pats | Regina | Canadian Hockey League | 1917 | Brandt Centre | 6,000 |
| Saskatoon Blades | Saskatoon | Canadian Hockey League | 1966 | SaskTel Centre | 15,100 |
| Swift Current Broncos | Swift Current | Canadian Hockey League | 1967 | Innovation Credit Union iPlex | 2,879 |
| Canadian Hockey League | 1982 | Art Hauser Centre | 2,580 | ||
| Canadian Hockey League | 1984 | Mosaic Place | 4,414 | ||
| Saskatoon Valkyries | Saskatoon | Western Women's Canadian Football League | 2010 | Saskatoon Minor Football Field | 5,000 |
| Regina Riot | Regina | Western Women's Canadian Football League | 2010 | Leibel Field | 1,200 |
In 2005, Saskatchewan Environment held a province-wide vote to recognize Saskatchewan's centennial year, receiving more than 10,000 online and mail-in votes from the public. The walleye was the overwhelming favourite of the six native fish species nominated for the designation, receiving more than half the votes cast. Other species in the running were the lake sturgeon, lake trout, lake whitefish, northern pike and yellow perch.
Saskatchewan's other symbols include the tartan, the licence plate, and the provincial flower. Saskatchewan's official tartan was registered with the Court of Lord Lyon King of Arms in Scotland in 1961. It has seven colours: gold, brown, green, red, yellow, white and black. The provincial licence plates display the slogan "Land of Living Skies". The provincial flower of Saskatchewan is the western red lily.
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