Villages were built mostly along the railway lines that came to the North West Territories, the first being the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway that entered what is now south eastern Saskatchewan (Whitewood, Broadview, etc) in 1882. It was mostly young men who came West for homesteads, but decided on village life and constructed buildings in which to practice their trades or commercial ventures. Main Street in Insinger, Sask., shown here is representative of what was being built across Western Canada beginning almost two decades before the 20th century and on into early 1900s. Main Street was typical with frame buildings, with the painted-on commercial sign or with attached signage. Many photos also show a 2 or 3 storey hotel and in the early 1900s, grain elevators. Other streets would have contained a school and a church. In the 1920s, villages prospered. Some had a resident doctor, even a photographer! Men walked to their work place, women stayed home to look after the family’s needs. Residents and district farmers shopped locally. Having been raised in a Saskatchewan village, I can attest that children had an easy life, compared to our envious farming friends. In the 1940s, most children were allowed much freedom to play. During the mild weather seasons, we roamed around the countryside and played ball till nightfall. Walking by the cemetery was always a bit scary experience, but when our priest let a few of us ring the church bell for weekday Mass, we felt pretty special! No town or city kid would have had that privilege! If we wanted a sense of tranquility and awesomeness, we looked at the sunrise and sunset, and the unobstructed moonlit and starlit skies!
Re: _Photo –late 1980s courtesy of Frank Korvemaker in the book Historic Architecture of Saskatchewan.
Insinger is an unincorporated village on Highway 16 between Yorkton and Foam Lake. It is named after F. R. Insinger who was in 1892, elected representative for the Territorial Government. He was a wealthy Hollander who had settled on a ranch not far from Willowbrook until 1897 when he moved to Spokane, Washington to manage a bank there.
Contact Terri Lefebvre Prince,
Heritage Researcher,
City of Yorkton Archives,
Box 400, 37 Third Avenue North
Yorkton, Sask. S3N 2W3
306-786-1722
[email protected]
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