Saskatchewan

I

Introduction

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”.

II

Land and Resources

Saskatchewan, with an area of 652,330 sq km (251,865 sq mi), is the fifth-largest province of Canada. 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.

A

Physical Geography

The Canadian Shield, which covers most of the northern third of Saskatchewan, is a rolling land with abundant lakes and rivers. The southern two-thirds of the province is a plains region with a flat to gently rolling terrain. 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.

B

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.