Highlighting a Sask History Resource
My immediate family roots are in Saskatchewan. My parents were born there as were my siblings and myself. My grandparents were homesteaders in the province along with one set of my husband’s grandparents and his great grandmother.
Because of our close ties to this province I’m always looking for resources that will aid my genealogy research.
One such resource is the Saskatchewan Settlement Experience.
The Sask Settlement Experience is a beautifully designed website of historical photographic, audio and video content about the settlement of this prairie province.
It features the time line of the history of the province from before 1870 to the 1930s. This is a wonderful resource for those interested in what homesteading might have been like in the province…Or perhaps for those with an interest in the fur trade or the Riel Rebellion? There are photographs from many different eras in the province.
Sections include:
- Aboriginal Peoples
- Steps to a Homestead
- Settlement Patterns
- Life on the prairies
- Agriculture
- Labour and Economic Growth
- Transportation and Communication
- Women
- Education and religion
- Teacher’s Resources
A search on my hometown of Nokomis brought up two entries. One a photograph of a blacksmith and the other an audio recording of Olga Felskie.
“Born in 1905, Olga’s parents immigrated from Polish Russia in 1900 to settle in the Nokomis area. In this section of the interview Ms. Felskie recalls, with great detail, what it was like to be a student in a small rural school. Olga eventually became a teacher, and her story is an excellent example of how important education was to the immigrants.”
The Saskatchewan Settlement Experience is brought to us by the Saskatchewan Archives and the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society with funding from the Canadian Heritage and Library and Archives Canada through the Canadian Memory Fund/Canadian Cultural Online Program.