Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 2 of them are described by more than one encyclopedia.
Saskatchewan a province of western Canada
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a province of western Canada. It extends northward from the border line of Montana and North Dakota to the sixtieth parallel of latitude. It lies between Alberta and Manitoba. The land area is 242,322 square miles; the water area, 8,318 square miles. Aside from the river valleys, which are broken and channeled with time, the greater part of the surface is an undulating prairie having much the appearance of northern Iowa. Extensive tracts are covered with a dark, mellow, fertile vegetable loam, the product of ages of prairie vegetation. CLIMATE. Speaking for the southern and central, the occupied, portion of the province, the climate cannot be essentially different from that of North Dakota, but partisans claim that it is modified by chinook winds from the Rockies and the Pacific. Local writers avoid giving extremes. The mean temperature of February, founded on observations taken for a number of years, may be placed at 4.6 deg. F.; that of July at 63.4 deg. F. The total average rainfall varies from fifteen to nineteen inches a year. The average is placed at 17.20 inches. Snows are seldom deep. The heaviest rains come in early summer during the period of growing crops. STOCK RAISING. Native grasses furnish excellent summer pasturage. They cure on the stalk, as is the case in western Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, affording winter feed in abundance. Except during short and rare periods of heavy snowfall, cattle run out in winter and gather their own feed. The growth of the stock-raising industry in Saskatchewan may be shown conveniently: 1901 1908 Horses ..... 83,461 259,811 Milch cows ..... 56,440 119,375 Other horned cattle ..... 160,613 378,248 Sheep ..... 73,097 116,438 Swine ..... 27,753 141,264 AGRICULTURE. The province is destined to become one of the famous food-producing regions of the world. Immense plains free from obstruction facilitate the use of machinery and encourage extensive cultivation. Root crops do well. Wheat is the standard moneymaking crop. All grains are sown in the spring. The yield in bushels of cereals for 1909 was: Acreage. Yield Ave. Wheat ..... 4,085,000 90,255,000 22.1 Oats ..... 2,240,000 105,465,000 47.1 Barley ..... 244,000 7,833,000 32.1 Flax ..... 319,000 4,448,000 13.9 This yield places Saskatchewan in the third rank among the provinces of the Dominion and states of the Union as a producer of wheat and oats. Minnesota, with 94,000,000 bushels, and North Dakota, with 90,700,000 bushels, are the only states that produced more wheat in 1909 than did Saskatchewan. Minnesota's average yield was 16.8 bushels, North Dakota's was 13.7, Satskatchewan's 22.1, Kansas' 14.1, and the United States' 15.8. Illinois and Iowa were the only states that produced more oats than did Saskatchewan in 1909, their production being 159,000,000 bushels and 116,000,000 bushels respectively, as against Saskatchewan's 105,465,000 bushels. Illinois' average yield was 36.6 bushels and Iowa's 27, Saskatchewan's 47.1, Minnesota's 33, and the United States' 30.3 bushels an acre. The total area in grain crops for 1909 was 6,898,559 acres and the average acreage of grain crops to the farm for the province was 84.9 acres. The acreage of all crops in Saskatchewan in 1909 was 7,016,272. Saskatchewan produced nearly one-eighth as much wheat as did the United States and more than one-tenth as much oats. The average price on the farm for all grades of wheat was eighty-four cents a bushel, which means that the wheat crop was worth $75,814,000 to the producers. The oats crop, at an average price of twenty-six cents a bushel, was worth $27,420,000. The total value on the farm of all grain, roots, and fodder crops raised in Saskatchewan in 1909, together with that of milk and its products, was $132,539,242. HISTORY. Territorial rights were purchased by Canada from the Hudson Bay Company in 1869. Saskatchewan was made a district in 1882. It was made a province of the Dominion of Canada in 1905. Settlers are pouring into the plains of Saskatchewan to engage in wheat farming and stock raising. The population is increasing rapidly. In 1901 there were 91,460 inhabitants; in 1906, 263,713; and in 1908, there were 335,721. Regina is the capital of Saskatchewan. Moosejaw, Prince Albert, and Battleford are all prosperous towns. A system of public schools has been established. The railroads of the province are the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Northern, and the Grand Trunk Pacific.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a province of Canada which receives its name from the Saskatchewan river, which flows through the northern part. It comprises the former territorial districts of Assiniboya East, Assiniboya West, Saskatchewan, and the eastern portion of Athabaska. Prior to Sept. Sept. 1, 1905, it was a part of the Northwest Territories. From that date it became a separate province. It has an area of 251,700 square miles. In 1921 the population was 761,390. The area of the arable land is estimated at 57,884,160 acres. Production and Industry. Saskatchewan is the largest wheat producing country in the world, growing between 117, 000,000 and 118,000,000 bushels annually. The estimated acreage of wheat in 1919 was 10,587,363, of oats 4,837,747, of barley 492,596, of flax 929,945. The value of the entire grain crop in 1919 was $305,- 613,961. The total production of grain in the same year was 210,529,016 bushels. The chief mineral product is coal. There were in 1919 over 50 coal mines in operproducing about 400,000 tons. The ation, ation, estimated coal resources of the Province are 59,812,000,000 metric tons. There were in 1917 1,436 manufacturing establishments, employing 7,097 persons. The of value the product was $40,657,746. In 1918-19 the total imports were valued at $17,388,037, and the exports at $20,707, 513. There were 587 bank branches in the Province in 1919. There are about 125,000 pupils in the elementary schools and about 4,000 in the high schools. Since 1905 the government has spent over $13,- 000,000 for educational purposes. There are over 6,000 miles of railway, a longer mileage than any other Canadian province except Ontario. Lumbering is one of the principal industries. ries. The value of the produc act in 1918 was $2,122,307. The chief cities are Regina, 40,000; Saskatoon, 30,000; Moose Jaw, 22,000; and Prince Albert, 6,500. The provincial government is vested in a Lieutenant-Governor and a Legislative Assembly of 62 members, elected for five years. Women were given the franchise in 1916.
Saskatchewan a river of the Northwest Territories
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a river of the Northwest Territories, Canada, formed by two main streams, the South Saskatchewan or South Branch (called also the Bow river) and the North Saskatchewan or North Branch. The sources of these two streams are very near each other on the E. slope of the Rocky mountains. The South Branch flows S. E. to its junction with the Belly river, then N. E. to its junction with the North Branch. The North Branch flows N. past Mount Murchison, through Kutanie plain, then E. to its confluence with the South Branch. The course of the North Branch is about 836 miles, and of the South Branch, 903 miles. From their junction the river course is through the desert bed of Lake Agassiz, then E. to its mouth in Lake Winnipeg. The total length is about 1,200 miles. From its mouth it is navigable, by the North Branch, about 800 miles. The river is narrow in the greater part of its course.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a river of western Canada. Its head waters are swollen by the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains and lie between the sources of the Missouri and the Athabasca. The river gathers volume in Alberta and flows eastward through the fertile plains of the province of Saskatchewan into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. Steamboats ascend the main stream and its branches for a distance of a thousand miles. In the day of the trapper, it was a canoe journey of fifty-three days from Lake Winnipeg to the head waters of the river.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 prediction that the province was "destined to become one of the famous food-producing regions of the world" held up: Saskatchewan still grows roughly half of Canada's wheat and leads the world in exports of lentils and canola. But the explosive settlement both accounts describe stopped soon after Collier's counted 761,390 people in 1921; drought and depression in the 1930s emptied farms, and the province took a full century to pass 1.2 million. The bigger surprise is underground: the "chief mineral product is coal" of 1921 has been eclipsed by potash, of which Saskatchewan is the world's largest producer, and by the high-grade uranium of the Athabasca Basin in the far north. Politically the province is best known for electing Tommy Douglas's CCF in 1944 and introducing North America's first universal public hospital and medical insurance, the model for Canada-wide medicare.
Written for this edition, 2026.