Land of Living Skies
Saskatchewan is the prairie province at the geographical heart of Canada, a vast rectangle of wheat fields, boreal forest, and lakes where the sky genuinely feels bigger than anywhere else in the country. The clichés about endless flatness only fit the southern third — the north is a sparsely populated wilderness of forest and water, and even the south has the surprising rise of the Cypress Hills, which top out at 1,392 metres, the highest point between the Rockies and Labrador.
Saskatoon, strung along the South Saskatchewan River with its seven bridges, is the largest city and the most appealing for visitors — university town, riverbank trails, a lively Broadway district, and the excellent Wanuskewin Heritage Park preserving 6,000 years of Northern Plains Indigenous history. Regina, the provincial capital, is home to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police academy — the only training depot for Mounties in the country — and to the legislative grounds in Wascana Centre, one of the largest urban parks in North America.
The real reasons to come, though, are the parks. Prince Albert National Park, 200 km north of Saskatoon, is a magnificent stretch of southern boreal forest with canoe routes, a free-roaming plains bison herd, and the cabin where Grey Owl lived with his beavers. Grasslands National Park in the deep south protects one of the last unploughed pieces of mixed-grass prairie, complete with prairie dog towns, black-footed ferrets, and the kind of dark night skies that have earned it Dark Sky Preserve status. The Cypress Hills, shared with Alberta, are an unexpected island of lodgepole pine and aspen rising from the surrounding wheat.
Saskatchewan is culturally diverse — Cree, Dene, Saulteaux, Métis, and the descendants of Ukrainian, German, Scandinavian, and Doukhobor settlers who broke the prairie a century ago. It has the highest proportion of Indigenous residents of any province at around 16%. Summers are hot and bright with sunsets that go on forever; winters are long and seriously cold, with January temperatures regularly dropping below -30°C. Come in late June through September if you want to enjoy being outside.
Destinations in Saskatchewan
Saskatoon Regina Prince Albert North Battleford Swift Current Grasslands National Park Canora
