Saskatchewan
From Conservapedia
The name Saskatchewan is derived from the Cree word kisiskâciwanisîpikikimasiy meaning swift-flowing river. Saskatchewan is the middle of the three prairie provinces of Canada between Alberta and Manitoba. It has a size of 227,134 square miles or 588,276 square kilometers. Saskatchewan started to grow when the Canadian Pacific Railway was built in the early 1880's and was founded as a province out of the Northwest Territories until 1905.
Saskatchewan's geography includes prairies, tree-covered plains, forests, and taiga. The climate is continental, characterized by large seasonal temperature ranges and low precipitation. It is one of two completely landlocked Canadian Provinces. European contact with Indian peoples occurred during the fur trade era, and increased when agricultural settlement began in the late 19th century. In the early 20th century, that settlement history produced a largely agrarian population concentrated on farms and in communities across the prairie. In 2006, provincial Gross Domestic Product was over $36 billion. Agriculture is still a large part of the economy and wheat has been its primary agricultural export, but many farmers are increasing production of canola. Manufacturing, mining, petroleum also make up over 20% of the economy. Mineral resources include world-class deposits of potash and uranium as evidenced by cities with names like Uranium City.
Saskatchewan has been one of Canada's more left-leaning provinces, because of the largely rural population where many people work independently of large capital. In 1944 Tommy Douglas became the first overtly socialist premier of any regional (state or provincial) government in North America. The New Democratic Party, originally named the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, was born out of Saskatchewan, and Douglas was it's first federal leader.
The 2006 population of Saskatchewan was 985,000 people. It's largest city is Saskatoon at 202,000, followed by Regina, the provincial capital with 180,000 people. The cities then get much smaller with only two having more than 30,000 people; Prince Albert has 34,000 people while Moose Jaw has a population of 32,000.
