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Set on the wide South Saskatchewan River at the
heart of a vast wheat-growing area, SASKATOON
is a commercial, manufacturing and distribution centre with a
population of around 236,000 - making it Saskatchewan's largest
city and, in the opinion of many of its inhabitants, a better
claimant to the title of provincial capital than Regina. Ontario
Methodists founded the town as a temperance colony in 1883 and
named it after the purple berry that grows in the region, but
in spite of their enthusiasm the new settlement made an extremely
slow start, partly because the semi-arid farming conditions were
unfamiliar to them and partly because the Northwest Rebellion
of 1885 raised fears of Indian hostility. Although the railroad
reached Saskatoon in 1890, there were still only 113 inhabitants
at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the next decade,
however, there was a sudden influx of European and American settlers
and, as the agricultural economy of the prairies expanded, so
the city came to be dominated by a group of entrepreneurs nicknamed
boomers , under whose management Saskatoon became
the economic focus of the region. This success was underpinned
by the development of a particularly sharp form of municipal loyalty
- people who dared criticize any aspect of the city, from the
poor quality of the water to tyrannical labour practices, were
dubbed knockers , and their opinions were rubbished
by the press. The boomers established a city where community solidarity
overwhelmed differences in income and occupation, a set of attitudes
that palpably still prevails, making this a pleasant, well-groomed
place, albeit one with just a trio of principal tourist attractions
- the Mendel Art Gallery , a branch of the Western
Development Museum and, on the outskirts, Wanuskewin
, a complex dedicated to the Plains Indians.
