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SasKatchewan

Motto: Multis e Gentibus Vire (Strength from Many Peoples)

Saskatchewan's tartan was created in 1961 by Mrs. Frank Bastedo, wife of Frank Lindsay Bastedo, former Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan.  The predominantly yellow palette is meant to represent Saskatchewan's identity as the ‘breadbasket’ of Canada, with gold for wheat and yellow for rapeseed and sunflower.  The other colours are green for forests, red for the prairie lily, white for snow, brown for summerfallow, and black for oil and coal.  Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada.  It has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups.  

The first known European to enter Saskatchewan was Henry Kelsey in 1690, who travelled up the Saskatchewan River in hopes of trading fur with the province’s indigenous peoples.  The first permanent European settlement was a Hudson’s Bay Company post at Cumberland House, founded in 1774 by Samuel Hearne.  

In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase transferred from France to the United States part of what is now Alberta and Saskatchewan, though, was part of Rupert’s Land and controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company.  

In 1870, Canada acquired the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territories and formed the North-West Territories to administer the vast territory between British Columbia and Manitoba.  It became a province in 1905, its name derived from the Saskatchewan River.  The river was known as ‘kisiskāciwani-sīpiy’ (swift flowing river).  

Choose from one of the SasKatchewan tartans listed below: