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The Province of Saskatchewan: A Short History

Saskatchwan's human history stretches back thousands of years to migratory hunting and gathering peoples. Contact with Europeans first occurred through the fur trade. Many of the early settlers in the 1800's came as traders or hunters. The British (in 1670) had given Rupert's Land to the Hudson Bay Company (HBC), which gave the company dominion over lands where there was water passageway from the Hudson Bay. Aboriginal people traded beaver pelts and other furs with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and with French traders who ventured as far west as modern-day Saskatchewan. The North West Company was of French-Canadian extraction and traders arrived out west in Saskatchewan from Eastern Canada via inland routes. Each built a network of inland posts extending to the Rockies and beyond. The HBC eventually absorbed its rival in 1821 and dominated the fur trade, and the western interior, for another half century.

The traders arrived to the Saskatchewan area via Hudson Bay and then travelling westward. In 1774 the first inland trading post (Cumberland House) was built in Saskatchewan. At this time northern Saskatchewan was settled as southern Saskatchewan had experienced drought like conditions during early explorer expeditions, and was considered a part of the US desert.

In the early 1880's, there were fewer than 1000 non-Aboriginal people in the area that was to become the province of Saskatchewan. Ten years later 20,000 people occupied the territory, mostly settlers from Ontario. The population of the North-WestTerritories grew slowly during this period, from 56,446 in 1881 to 98,967 a decade later. Most of those who came to take up land or work in the few towns were from other parts of Canada–Ontario and the Maritimes primarily, or from Great Britain.

By the 1890s the trickle of newcomers became a flood, as tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, were attracted to the “Last Best West.” Inter-provincial migration accounted for part of this influx, but larger numbers came from Great Britain, the United States and Europe, especially the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. These newcomers–Canadians and British, Germans and Scandinavians, Russians and Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians, Mennonites and Doughboys–helped to swell the population of the North-WestTerritories to 211,649 by 1901.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's the railway and the Dominion Government of Canada wanted more settlers out west to unite Upper and Lower Canada -the eastern provinces of Canada with British Columbia. The rail lines didn't want to lay track over land with no settlement as it wasn't economically feasible. As the demand for furs declined and the buffalo population dwindled, Saskatchewan started noticing the agricultural land capabilities in the middle and southern portions of the province.

Settlement, towns and rail lines developed the prairies south of the tree line. Immigrants were attracted to Saskatchewan by the Homestead Act, which granted a quarter section or 160 acres to homesteaders if they could 'prove' the land in three years. The immigration pattern resulted in ethnic bloc settlements.

The government's efforts to promote immigration and encourage agricultural development between the 1890s and the 1920s increased the Saskatchewan population to almost a million by 1920. Wheat production also began to rise. In 1901, territorial farmers harvested a 12,736,642-bushel crop.

The success of the federal government’s efforts to attract settlers to the North-WestTerritories soon led to a campaign for provincial status. An expanding population looked to the territorial government in Regina to construct roads and bridges, to assist in establishing schools and building railway lines, and to provide other necessary services. However, the government of Premier F.W.G. Haultain found it increasingly difficult to meet these demands. It could not borrow money, or secure revenue from public lands which were under federal control. An annual grant from the federal government was not enough.

Provincial status seemed the obvious solution, and from the turn of the century Haultain vigorously pressed the case with Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. Finally, in 1905, the federal government created two provinces. This pleased most territorial residents, but not Haultain, who wanted a single province. Alberta and Saskatchewan were not given control of their public lands and natural resources, though each was to receive an annual federal subsidy as a substitute. Parliament approved the Autonomy Bills in July, 1905, and Alberta and Saskatchewan officially came into existence on September 1.

Canada became a nation in 1867. On September 1, 1905, Saskatchewan became a province of Canada with Regina as its capital city. By 1925 Saskatchewan had the highest per capita income in the world. The 1929 economic crash, combined with a decade of drought and bad harvests, brought the lean years of the Great Depression to the province. The recovery of the 1940s and 1950s saw the economy, once dependent solely on agriculture, become more diversified with the development of oil, uranium, potash, coal and other minerals.

The MidTown History
Davidson: One man's dream becomes a progressive reality.

More than eight decades ago, a determined entrepreneur from Glencoe, Ontario made his dream come true. Andrew Davidson realized his ambition to “settle and develop my native country” when he led the drive to promote a new central Saskatchewan community and its rich agricultural assets – a community which would bear his name.

Born and raised on an Ontario farm, Andrew Davidson decided at the age of 19 that his fortune lay not in his father’s farm, but in the cut and thrust of American business. He traveled south and spent a year working as a lumberjack in the Wisconsin forests. After saving $800, he enrolled in a school of telegraphy. When he graduated, Davidson made his first connection with the booming railway business, at Blair, Minnesota.

A hard worker and frugal man, Davidson amassed enough savings in his four years with the railway to invest in a general store, a grain a lumber business, and latter a bank in Minnesota. Eventually he became the mayor of Little Falls, Minnesota, having previously turned down offers of higher office on the national level.

He was recognized as an outstanding personality, even by the military. Minnesota granted him a commission as Colonel in the National Guard, and Canada, not to be outdone, made him an honorary Colonel in Sr. Sam Hughes’ headquarters in Ottawa.

Other men would have been content with this fame, but Davidson’s heart still lay in his native country. His dream of developing Canada’s wide-open regions into bustling communities was still strong, and in 1902 he took his first step into its realization.

He left Minnesota just after the turn of the century and was one of the first men to arrive at a tiny Saskatchewan settlement that was forming at the midway point of Saskatoon and Regina. He was one the first businessmen to recognize that the soil of western Canada was capable of growing the best wheat in the world, and sought to capitalize on that strength.

At his own expence, approximately $15,000 dollars, Davidson organized a special excursion train, which traveled from Chicago to Saskatoon, via Davidson. On board were American bankers, entrepreneurs and newspapermen whom he had invited to make the journey, all expenses paid.

Before the group even returned to Chicago, Davidson and his partners had sold more than 180,000 acres of land in the Davidson area. Eventually, the company would sell 1.2 million acres of land in and around the town site.

Andrew Davidson knew how to promote a product. His marketing strategy included naming some streets after some former presidents of the United States, to make the community more attractive to American land buyers. Street signs soon proclaimed the names of Lincoln, Grant, Washington, and Garfield.

Promotion of the town didn’t stop with the Americanization of its streets. In 1910, the “Davidson’s 5000 club” formed to promote the enlargement of the town site, prepared by a brochure that would spread the news of the great future for anyone who chose to live in Davidson.

Growth was rapid. A few homesteaders arrived in 1902. A 1903 issue of the Regina leader reported several businesses and good accommodation to serve the land seekers and travelers. A 1904 census showed 98 men, women and children within a five-mile radius and the village was incorporated on March 7, that year.

Activity at the depot was frantic. Additional agents, a larger depot, and more warehouse space were soon required to handle the influx of settlers, their effects, the lumber and supplies required to serve a trading area that included Watrous, Outlook, Elbow and Long Lake districts before the building of more railway branch lines.

As early as 1904, Davidson was nicknamed the Midway Town because of the central location to three major centers. On November 15, 1906 it was incorporated as a town, with a population of 520. While it never reached the city status, the colonel had foreseen, Davidson was undeniably a bustling, booming town. In 1913, it became home to the first hospital of its kind in the province, with the cornerstone laid by the Duchess of Connaught.

Today, Davidson is a vibrant community of more than 1,100. Because of its proximity to three major cities, Saskatoon, Regina and Moose Jaw, it often serves as a meeting place for organizations from all three major centers.

It offers excellent facilities, for business and group functions, or for the overnight traveler who wishes to avoid the morning traffic congestion between Saskatoon and Regina. Three main grain companies make the town one of their focal delivery, point in Saskatchewan. The elevators offer area farmers storage capacity of more than 1 million bushels.

Courtesy, The Davidson Leader

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(Updated January 6, 2007)

Town of Davidson
204 Washington Avenue
Box 340, Davidson, SK S0G 1A0
Phone: (306)567-2040, Fax: (306)567-4730