Lovell, Provincial secretary's office. Digitized by Google Books 20 Sep Papers relative to the exploration by Captain Palliser of that portion of British North America which lies between the northern branch of the River Saskatchewan and the frontier of the United States; and between the Red River and Rocky Mountains: presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, June Command papers Great Britain.
John Palliser. Publisher G. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode, Original from Harvard University. Digitized 7 Oct February 26, Exploration Trails Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan. Atlas of Saskatchewan Celebrating the Millenium and Edition selected maps showing the evolution of Saskatchewan and ethnic bloc settlements. Graphic Maps. March 8, Saskatchewan Government. March 2, A Short History of Canada. If the immigrants didn't always speak English, that was the language they wanted to learn, rather than French.
In the early days of Territorial government, French, Roman Catholic education had equal status with English, Protestant schools, but over the years this had changed. By the time Alberta and Saskatchewan were to be created as official provinces in , education was primarily in English. The Autonomy Bills creating the new provinces had a clause added to them that would bring back French Catholic schooling, but Sifton opposed the idea and resigned.
Laurier decided to compromise by accepting Sifton's resignation, but letting him rewrite the clause anyway. Today, Saskatchewan is in the middle of another boom period. Today, Saskatchewan is a modern, largely urban, and rapidly-growing province filled with cultural activities like the symphony orchestras and dance companies, within its two major cities.
Many First Nations groups have managed to preserve their own renowned music, crafting, and Pow-wow dancing. Click here for Weather in Saskatchewan. South Carolina. South America. World Wonders. Luxury Travel. However, a number of non-official languages are spoken in the homes of Saskatchewan residents, with Tagalog, Algonquian, Cree-Montagnais, and Chinese languages numbering the highest, according to the census.
The current predominance of English was written into the conditions by which Saskatchewan joined Confederation in Owing to the protest of Clifford Sifton , minister of the interior, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier withdrew provisions made in the Autonomy Acts to protect the rights of French Catholics.
When European settlement of Saskatchewan began in earnest, residents of French origin slightly outnumbered those of British, but both comprised less than 11 per cent of the population — almost all the rest were Aboriginal peoples.
According to the Census, German, English and Canadian were the most cited ethnic origins. Of this number, Filipino, South Asian and Chinese people represent the largest groups.
Saskatchewan has a large indigenous community compared to other provinces. In , 16 per cent of the population identified as Aboriginal.
The majority of Saskatchewan is Christian , with 72 per cent of the population identifying with a Christian denomination in The next largest religious group were those identifying with Aboriginal spirituality about one per cent , followed by Muslims , Buddhists and Hindus each less than one per cent. Those claiming no religious affiliation numbered 24 per cent. Throughout the province's history, religious groups have been active in expressing their views on such varied social issues as prohibition, immigration, education and the language used in schools.
Religious factors lie behind the division of the province's public schools into Protestant and Roman Catholic systems, and a particularly bitter confrontation occurred in the late s when the Ku Klux Klan took the lead in inflaming the electorate over religious symbols specifically Catholic in the schools.
The Conservative Party was perceived at the time to have Klan support, and hence some Catholic voters thereafter were thought to be supporters of the party's opponents.
However, in , the party, led by a Roman Catholic, won an overwhelming victory. The earliest human inhabitants of the area that became Saskatchewan were nomadic Aboriginal peoples grouped roughly from north to south as follows: three tribes of the Athapaskan linguistic group the Chipewyan , the Amisk and the Slavey ; two groups speaking Algonquian the Cree and the Blackfoot ; and two tribes of the Siouan group the Assiniboine and the Gros Ventres.
Each of the three main language groups occupied approximately a third of the area. Those in the north depended heavily on caribou and moose as a staple food; those in the southern third i.
These peoples lived in small groups and did not live within fixed territorial boundaries. Exploration of the Canadian prairies came as the fur trade expanded to meet European demand for beaver pelts, which were used to make hats. The Europeans, once they had discovered the usefulness of the plains for this purpose, wasted little time in moving in.
None penetrated north of the Churchill River until , when David Thompson explored the area before heading to Lake Athabasca. At that time little was known of the southern third of the province, but in Peter Fidler crossed the area using the South Saskatchewan River.
Aboriginal peoples participated in the fur trade by trapping furs as well as procuring supplies for the European traders. Others served as middlemen between the trading posts and Aboriginal groups farther to the west. Some groups such as the Cree, Ojibwa and Assiniboine moved west as the fur trade expanded to maintain their role in the trade. Contact with Europeans brought great changes to Aboriginal culture and society.
The introduction of the horse and the rifle changed the method by which Aboriginal peoples hunted buffalo and other big game upon which they were reliant. Additionally, horses , which were able to carry more than humans or dogs, allowed for a greater accumulation of wealth and more elaborate cultural institutions.
Beginning in , epidemics of European diseases, such as smallpox , devastated the Aboriginal population, as did the introduction of alcohol. Not all exploration was motivated by profit. Men interested in the land and the environment entered the region a century behind the traders.
The best known of the early observers were Sir John Franklin and Dr. John Richardson , between and , and John Palliser in — Previously, the Northwest had been viewed as a desolate wasteland, unsuited for settlement.
The reports produced by the Palliser and Hind expeditions refuted this long-held belief and helped to encourage European settlement and agricultural development in the region. In , in order to facilitate westward expansion and, hopefully, avoid the type of conflicts occurring in the United States, the Canadian government began negotiating treaties with Aboriginal peoples in the Northwest to extinguish their title to the land and establish reserves for Aboriginal settlement.
Aboriginal leaders signed these treaties to maintain as much of their traditional way of life as possible while adapting to the challenges they faced resulting from the encroachment by European settlers and the devastating collapse of the buffalo population.
Aboriginal leaders insisted on making grants of farm implements and animals part of the treaties. Although traditionally nomadic, they sought to take up agriculture as they could no longer rely on the buffalo as their principal food source. Their efforts, however, were undermined by maladministration by the Canadian government. Using the nearly-completed Canadian Pacific Railway , the government was able to send troops to the Northwest and quickly put down both uprisings.
Aboriginal leaders Big Bear , Poundmaker and One Arrow were sentenced to prison, and the government implemented more restrictive measures to subjugate Aboriginal populations. Also during this time, in , Parliament passed the first Dominion Lands Act , a provision for homesteaders and an act to stimulate immigration. In —83 the first railway lines crossed the area in a southern route through Regina and Moose Jaw.
The prerequisites for European immigration and settlement were therefore all in place well before The impact of their combined influence shows dramatically in the statistics. In the population of the area was 32,, half of whom were British and 44 per cent were Aboriginal.
Just over 25 years later, in , the population was ,, half of which was still British, and the Aboriginal population had dropped to 2. Many of the immigrants who came during this period were eastern Europeans, especially Ukrainians , whom Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton regarded as the ideal candidates to settle the West.
The British had by then consolidated their hold on familiar political institutions; the principles of responsible government , which held the Cabinet responsible to a majority of the legislature, were settled in Provincial status, first sought in , came in , and with it the relevant apparatus of parliamentary government. See also Saskatchewan and Confederation. The province's size and shape were important; although many leading Prairie politicians favoured one large western province, the federal authorities always insisted that the western plains were too large to be made into a single constitutional entity.
Depending on where one settled its northern boundary, such a province could have been the largest in Canada, a potential economic threat to the central heartland.
In any event, in the federal government retained jurisdiction over crown lands in Saskatchewan. Settlement proceeded in a generally northwesterly direction, most of the arable area being occupied by the s.
The pattern of settlement itself profoundly affected the nature of Saskatchewan society. Identifiable groups of immigrants, varying from English people desiring to set up a temperance colony to Doukhobors escaping persecution with the aid of Leo Tolstoy and the Society of Friends see Quakers , established communities, which in the s still reflected their origins.
Time, social mobility and intermarriage have blurred the lines separating the original settlements, but at the time many parts of the province were still discernibly French and German, Ukrainian and Scandinavian, Hutterite and Mennonite. Leading up to the First World War , there were a number of indications the province was well on its way to establishing stability. In , the Saskatchewan Legislative building opened in Regina.
Saskatoon began constructing the University of Saskatchewan in the same year and Prince Albert became home to the federal penitentiary. Roads, hospitals, schools, and courts were also built in this period. Agriculture dominated the economy beyond the interwar years and shaped the lives of those who settled in the province. Wheat was the most important crop grown in Saskatchewan.
In the face of falling prices, farmers organized and formed the Saskatchewan Co-operative Wheat Producers Ltd. Throughout the s, the province has endeavoured to diversify agriculture to include cattle and hogs.
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