Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell — The prairie classic, set in a small Saskatchewan town during the 1930s Depression. Mitchell's prose gives the best literary account of what the flat landscape, the sky, and the particular community psychology of the prairie feels like from the inside.
The Disinherited by Matt Cohen — A darker view of Saskatchewan farm life across generations, tracing the erosion of the family farm economy and its effects on the people who depend on it. Less famous than Mitchell but sharper in its analysis.
Tommy Douglas: Building the New Jerusalem by Vincent Lam — A biography of Tommy Douglas, Saskatchewan's CCF premier who introduced universal health insurance to the province in 1962, making Saskatchewan the birthplace of Canadian Medicare. Understanding Douglas is essential to understanding how Saskatchewan became so politically different from its neighbours.
Homesick: On Belonging and Becoming by Cathryn Motherwell — A recent memoir about growing up in Saskatchewan and leaving, the relationship between place identity and the flat landscape, and what it means to come from somewhere that the rest of Canada doesn't quite believe in.
Northwest Passage by Scott Cookman — Covers the broader history of exploration in the Canadian north that provides context for understanding the fur trade era that shaped the prairies before European settlement.