100 reasons to Celebrate Saskatchewan

1. The easiest province in the country to draw.

2. We make great jellied salads, and we're okay with calling them "salads" even though there isn't one lick of lettuce in them.

3. Scotty, the T. rex skeleton discovered near Eastend. The remains are 65 million years old, and they grabbed the world's attention when they were unearthed.

4. More doilies per capita than any other province.

5. More hockey players than you can shake a stick at, among them, Olympic gold medallist in women's hockey, Hayley Wickenheiser, judged the best female hockey player in the world, from Shaunavon.

6. A host of former hockey greats are from Saskatchewan - Gordie Howe (Floral), Wendell Clark (Kelvington), Bryan Trottier (Val Marie), Johnny Bower (Prince Albert) and Eddie Shore (Fort Qu'Appelle) just to name a few. Other NHL notables include Doug Wickenheiser (Regina), Dirk Graham (Regina) and Theoren Fleury (Oxbow).

7. Saskatchewan is home to the Notre Dame Hounds in Wilcox who have produced such great hockey players as Brad Richards, Rod Brind'Amour, Curtis Joseph, Wendel Clark and Vincent Lecavalier.

8. Bird watchers get your binoculars out! There are 427 documented species of birds in Saskatchewan.

9. Saskatchewan is one of the few places in North America where you can see magnificent whooping cranes relatively up close.

10. 100,000 lakes and rivers (beat that, Minnesota!).

11. Famed folk singer Joni Mitchell was raised in Saskatoon.

12. All RCMP in Canada are trained in Regina.

13. Regina's Wascana Centre is one of the largest urban parks in North America.

14. Thunderstorms! With a ringside seat to the best show on earth.

15. The Saskatchewan Roughriders.

16. Saskatchewan Roughriders fans.

17. We have spaces between communities, not suburbs.

18. One of the best places to live in the world according to the United Nations Human Development Index.

19. More writers than you can shake a stick at : Lorna Crozier, winner of the 1992 Governor General's Award for Poetry, was born in Swift Current; Guy Vanderhaeghe from Esterhazy, the 1996 recipient of the Governor General's Literary Award for his novel The Englishman's Boy; W.O. Mitchell, author of Who Has Seen the Wind?, was from Weyburn; Sharon Butala, from Nipawin, twice short-listed for the prestigious Governor General's Award, and Maria Campbell, Métis from northern Saskatchewan, recognized in 2004 by the Canada Council for the Arts for her contribution to Canadian and Aboriginal literature and significant impact on the cultural evolution of Canada.

20. Allan Fotheringham, long-time smart-mouth, sardonic columnist for Maclean's, is originally from Hearne.

21. Renowned journalists Pamela Wallin, Keith Morrison and Eric Malling are all from Saskatchewan.

22. The first female Governor General of Canada, Jeanne Sauvé, was from Prud'homme.

23. The first Ukrainian Governor General of Canada was from Saskatchewan (Ray Hnatyshyn).

24. More curlers and curling than you can shake a stick at.

25. Olympic gold medallist and three-time world champion curler, Sandra Schmirler and her team from Regina.

26. Prince Albert is the only constituency in Canada that has ever been represented by three prime ministers : William Lyon Mackenzie King, John Diefenbaker and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

27. Many Aboriginal cultures: Woodland Cree, Swampy Cree, Plains Cree, Saulteaux, Dene, Dakota, Nakota, Lakota, and the Métis with rich linguistic and cultural traditions.
28. The state-of-the-art First Nations University of Canada is in Regina.

29. More actors than you can shake a stick at : Leslie Nielsen, star of Airplane and Naked Gun, is from Regina. His father was an RCMP officer and his brother, Erik, a former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada.

30. Actor Kiefer Sutherland is the grandson of a former premier T. C. (Tommy) Douglas. Actor Shirley Douglas is his daughter, and mother of Kiefer.

31. Actor John Vernon (National Lampoon's Animal House, Wojeck, and Dirty Harry) was born in Zehner.

32. Comedian Brent Butt, star of the TV show Corner Gas, is from Tisdale.

33. Where else can a whole generation of people recite every episode of The Flintstones? (Except for the first seven minutes of each one; we were still on our way home for lunch then.)

34. We don't have rush hours. We have rush minutes.

35. Because of our strong agricultural community, we have a good sense of the earth, the land, and where our food comes from. Whether you live on a farm, in a town or in a city, you know whether it's good that it rained or that it's sunny or that the frost is early or late.

36. A low cost of living : you can afford homes in Saskatchewan that people in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and Montreal can only dream of owning.

37. Saskatchewan is the birthplace of an idea that rang loud around the hemisphere: that no one should ever die because they didn't have enough money to see a doctor - our medicare system.

38. No hurricanes nor volcanoes.

39. Dry cold.

40. Dry heat.

41. Sweet grass.

42. The first co-operative oil refinery in the world built in Regina in 1934.

43. More artists than you can shake a stick at. Among others: multimedia artist Russell Yuristry, photographer Hans Dommasch, potter Victor Cicansky, sculptors Bill Epp, Doug Bentham, Joe Fafard; painters, Augustus Kenerdine, Ernest Lindner, Wilf Perreault, Robert Christie, Bill Perehudoff, Dorothy Knowles, Reta Cowley, Robert “Sky Painter” Hurley, Otto (Don) Rogers, and Eli Bornstein, founder of the international art annual, The Structurist.

44. The Regina Five – artists Ken Lochhead, Art McKay, Ron Bloore, Ted Godwin and Doug Morton, internationally acclaimed in the 1960s for their artistic and creative works.

45. Michael Lonechild, Cree painter, from the Whitebear First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan and .Allan Sapp, world-renowned Plains-Cree artist, grew up on the Red Pheasant Indian Reserve near North Battleford.

46. Internationally known singer/songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, born on the Piapot Reserve in the Qu'Appelle Valley was adopted and raised in Maine and Massachusetts. She received a Ph.D. in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts and also holds degrees in Oriental Philosophy and teaching.

47. Two national parks and 23 provincial parks, among them, Wanuskewin Heritage Park with findings older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt: tipi rings, stone cairns, a medicine wheel and many more artifacts date back more than 8,000 years.

48. The Big Muddy (near Big Beaver) in south central Saskatchewan was the only Canadian stop on the Outlaw Trail - a trail that ran from Canada to Mexico and was used by Butch Cassidy and his gang to elude ‘them thar’ authorities.

49. Lake Manitou near Watrous, with legendary healing powers. It's almost three times saltier than the Dead Sea, making it impossible for a person to sink. That's cool!

50. Rare wild plants, including eleven species of orchids found in the bog-fen area near Macdowall.

51. Saskatoon berries. Yum!

52. Saskatchewan is the site of North America's oldest bird sanctuary, established in 1887 at Last Mountain Lake. An important breeding ground for approximately 100 species, this area is used by over 280 species of birds during migration. From mid-August until the end of October, more than 75,000 sandhill cranes and 400,000 geese use the lake as a stopover.

53. The farm mentality, born of necessity, of "We can fix anything."

54. Where else would people ‘raise a mountain’ (Mount Blackstrap) when the Winter Games called for one!

55. Saskatchewan produces more than 54 per cent of the wheat grown in Canada.

56. A key part of Canadian history occurred in Saskatchewan - the North West Resistance (a. k. a the North West Rebellion) of 1885, led by Louis Riel.

57. Saskatchewan has more road surface than any other province in Canada, with a total of 250,000 km.

58. The first Girl Guide Cookies in Canada were baked and sold in Regina in 1927 by Christina Riepsamen. She started baking cookies in her home to raise money for camping equipment for her Girl Guide group. The cookies were sold in brown paper bags for 10 cents a dozen.

59. The first air ambulance service in North America (and the Commonwealth).

60. The first Automated Banking Machine (ABM), or Automated Teller Machine (ATM), in North America was implemented in Saskatchewan. We debuted the first debit cards and debit card transaction in North America as well.

61. Saskatchewan is Canada's sunniest province.

62. In 1947, Saskatchewan passed the first general Human Rights Act in North America. This was one year before the UN General Assembly passed its Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

63. No bugs - in the winter.

64. The Qu'Appelle Valley. Formed by glaciation over a long period of time, the area contains a wide variety of landscapes with differing flora and fauna.

65. Some of the oldest books in Canada are housed at the museum in Wilcox. Father Athol Murray collected books and left them to the college. At least one of them was written before the development of paper on animal skin.

66. If you're shut in with a sick kid, people somehow know, and things show up on your doorstep - fresh bread, books to read, soup...and hundreds and hundreds of pounds of lasagna.

67. Cabbage rolls and perogies made by hand - and the hands belong to Baba.

68. Flat is great... flat is what you want when you're cycling for hours.

69. Drive half an hour out of town and you can take a walk in nature.

70. The Hanson Buck - Milo Hanson of Biggar is a virtual celebrity in hunting circles. He holds the world record for a white tail deer: its inside spread measures just over 27 inches, and six of the rack's 10 main points exceed 11 inches.

71. Saskatchewan's north - one of the last wild and beautiful places on the earth.

72. We can smell when it's going to rain: you can't do that in Toronto.

73. The colour of our summers - the exquisiteness of flax fields, the sunshine yellow of canola, the amber waves of wheat, all contrasted with rich, dark earth, not to mention all that blue, blue sky!

74. People who can overcome drought, tornadoes, wind, minus 40 degree weather, earthquakes, grasshoppers, mosquitoes, BSE and anything nature can throw our way.

75. Saskatchewan is a you-can-do-anything-you-want kind of place. There is so much opportunity. Because we're friendly, helpful people, it's easy to make connections to get you started, even without sidewalk cafés. You can break from your family tradition to do any career or start any business...and do well at it.

76. Canada's first heavy oil upgrader was built in Regina in 1988.

77. On any given weekend, you can hop in your car and then eat your way around Europe: French food in Gravelbourg, Thai in Moose Jaw, Dutch-Indonesian in Lumsden, Ukrainian in Yorkton, Ethiopian in Regina, Japanese in Saskatoon, to name only a few places.

78. Our whole arts community - the idea that a place needs more than an economy - it needs a soul - and artists are necessary to that.

79. People care: if you get into car trouble on a highway or road, invariably someone stops to help you.

80. Perch, trout, walleye: need we say more?

81. Community. We show it over and over again - Saskatchewan people give more time and money to help others than anywhere else in Canada.

82. No tropical plants that eat people.

83. No tropical animals that eat people.

84. If you're a fisherman, Len Thompson, a farmer from Abernethy, invented the legendary "five of diamonds" or "red & white" fishing lures here.

85. The former Governor of the Bank of Canada - Canada's chief banker and monetary policy maker - Gordon Thiessen, grew up in a number of Saskatchewan towns and graduated from high school in Moosomin.

86. We boast our own fashions - Farm Eye for the City Guy - jeans, a good shirt and a jean jacket, even in minus 40 degree weather.

87. Unique events - like the Wynyard Chicken Chariot Races and the Lumsden Duck Derby.

88. The fastest woman on ice is from Saskatoon: Olympic gold medallist/speedskater Catriona Le May Doan.

89. The relentless, yet comforting sound of crickets, no matter where you are.

90. Powwows.

91. The scent of new mown hay.

92. A multitude of incredible festivals ranging from Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, Dragon Boat Races, the Festival of Words to the Saskatoon Fringe Festival, the Regina Folk Festival and Ness Creek Music Festival (complete with bears).
93. The northern lights.

94. Incredible sunsets.

95. We can see all the stars at night.

96. Saskatchewan is "can-do-co-operative country." We know how to get the job done, together, to the best of our collective abilities.

97. Amazingly friendly people who always have coffee on. People here still wave hello on country roads - whether they know you or not.

98. New York is big, but we have a town that is Biggar!

99. The remains of the Willow Bunch Giant, Edouard Beaupré, 8'2" tall and weighing in at just under 400 pounds, finally came home in 1990. His ashes are buried in his home town near a museum that celebrates his life. Beaupré had been mummified when he died in 1904 and put on display, first in various American circus venues, and then at the University of Montreal.

100. Tell the Energizer Bunny to move over: from minus 40 to plus 40 degrees Celsius (with or without 30 km/h winds) - Saskatchewan keeps going...and going...and going...