This article is part of a series celebrating communities, culture, traditions, and adventure throughout Canada. We’re spotlighting exciting people and places across the country’s provinces, from British Columbia in the west to Newfoundland and Labrador in the east. Read more stories at afar.com/canada.
One of the best and most beautiful road trips I’ve ever taken was through Saskatchewan, Canada. The land was just so flat. It made the sky look incomprehensibly huge, like someone had taken the cover off the dome I’d been living in. It’s no wonder the local license plates call the province the “Land of Living Skies.” As we drove south from the charming small towns of the northern lakes region, through the lively city of Saskatoon, and down to Grasslands National Park along the endlessly straight two-lane “Highway” 4, we kept pulling over to take photos of the blanket of grass extending all the way to the horizon on either side of the road, the green contrasting against the black arrow of the pavement.
Over the course of two separate vacations and a road trip, I’ve gotten to see a large swath of what this central Canadian prairie province has to offer: dinosaur fossils, local history I hadn’t expected, a convent hotel, and even a sculpture of Canada’s biggest baseball bat. Here’s how to make the most of your own trip to Saskatchewan.
The recently redesigned Remai Modern museum is the latest chapter in Saskatchewan’s art history. In the 1950s and 60s, modern artists including John Cage and Donald Judd came to the Saskatoon area for art retreats.
Photo by Nic Lehoux
Start in Saskatoon for museums, doughnuts, and drinks
If you’re flying in, you’ll land in Saskatoon, the biggest city in the province, with a population of about 266,000. Get your bearings at the Western Development Museum, a local favorite that takes visitors through the region’s agricultural and industrial development, with a fun re-creation of a 1910 Boomtown (complete with old-timey buildings) and a blacksmith shop where a modern-day club teaches the historical art of blacksmithing. The museum has additional locations in three other spots around the province.
Now that you’ve got the context, take in the city itself. After gaining some sustenance at Darkside Donuts (the honey cruller was a hit with my friends) in the Central Industrial District, keep your eyes open for the murals that brighten up public walls around town (check out the outdoor Alley Gallery that adorns the walls of a few buildings between Second and Third avenues S and 20th and 21st streets E), or pop into one of Saskatoon’s many galleries, including Clay Studio Three, a 50-year-old collective of local ceramic artists, and the University of Saskatchewan sculpture garden. Don’t miss the stunning Remai Modern, a museum of modern and contemporary art in a copper-mesh-clad, prairie-style building that takes inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright, the flat landscape, and the copper roof of Saskatoon’s historic Bessborough Hotel (more on that in a minute). Traveling with kids? They’ll enjoy climbing around on the vintage trains and subway cars at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum, about a 20-minute drive from downtown. (Note: It closes for the winter after Labor Day.)
After all that traveling and traipsing, grab a pick-me-up at one of the many craft beer, wine, and cocktail spots around town. At Winston’s Pub you can try beers from Saskatoon-based breweries, including City Limits, 9 Miles Legacy, and Great Western Brewing Company (disclosure: my friend’s brother works at the latter). At Pop Wine Bar, the focus is on natural, low-intervention wines, served alongside Canadian sturgeon caviar and oysters. And just a few minutes drive outside the city, Black Fox Farm & Distillery grows its own grain, fruit, and flowers for its gin and whisky. For a full dinner that continues on the locally sourced theme, try Hearth, the only Saskatoon entry on Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list in 2024. Then get some rest at the modern Alt hotel or the historic Delta Hotels Bessborough, which was built in 1935 as a grand railway hotel and is now a Marriott property.
Climb 153 steps for a view of Murray and Jackfish Lakes, neither of which is really big enough to need a lighthouse, which was built as a tourist attraction in 1988.
Courtesy of Tourism Saskatchewan/Norm Beaver
Take a day trip north to small towns with lake beaches and unexpected exhibitions
About two hours north of Saskatoon (on a road that bisects gorgeous bright-yellow canola fields in summer), you start to run into the province’s lakes region, speckled with more than 100,000 lakes. In the summer, spend a day at a public beach like the one at Meota Regional Park, which has a supervised swimming area, or at Jackfish Lake, which has a playground and a working lighthouse built purely for show as a tourism project in 1988. Climb the 153 steps for some exercise and a view of the water below. For more of a beach-town vibe with shops and restaurants, drive to Manitou Beach, a village set on the shore of Little Manitou Lake, which is three times saltier than the ocean, meaning you can float very easily in the mineral-rich water.
In cooler weather, carve your own art, history, culture, and shopping trail through the sister towns of Battleford and North Battleford. Start at the Allen Sapp Gallery, dedicated to the Saskatchewan-born and nationally celebrated Cree painter. The gallery is in a former public library built in 1916, and it tells the story of how self-taught Sapp changed the way Indigenous people were depicted in Canadian art. Next, immerse yourself in local community history at the Fred Light Museum, a fascinating collection of ephemera compiled from area residents’ lives that fills every single nook and cranny of an old schoolhouse. My favorite find was a 1915 poster of rules for schoolteachers that prohibited them from loitering downtown at ice cream stores and mandated that they wear at least two petticoats.
Be sure to take a photo of “Canada’s biggest bat” sculpture in Battleford; the small green building you’ll find behind it is the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The province has sent a surprising number of ball players to the Major Leagues (including all-star Houston Astros outfielder Terrry Puhl), and this collection started by locals David and Jane Shury is a love letter to each of the athletes, whether they made it big or played solely on local teams. Ask for Jane when you visit; she’s full of stories.
The Convent Inn is in a former convent and school that opened in 1939 and closed in the early 1960s. Today, guests write messages on the original classroom chalkboards.
Photo by Billie Cohen
Drive through small towns, stay in a convent, and visit a national park
Now hit the road, driving south on SK-4. Your end goal is Grasslands National Park, but be sure to stop in a couple of the tiny towns along the way to get a glimpse of remote, rural Canadian life—both the beauty and the challenges. We spoke to kids who ride a bus for over an hour to get to school each day, saw fliers for movie nights screened against the sides of old grain elevator buildings, and learned about professional athletes and Olympians who trained at community centers in their one-road hometowns before making it big. Keep your eyes open for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Biggar and its tongue-in-cheek sign: “New York is big . . . but this is Biggar.”
About 242 miles from Saskatoon, you’ll arrive in Val Marie, the gateway town to Grasslands National Park. Check into one of the coolest little hotels I’ve ever stayed at: the Convent Inn. It opened as a convent and school in 1939 and ran until the 1960s before being abandoned. Robert Duncan, from British Columbia, was on vacation in Val Marie with his family when he fell in love with the brick building in 1996—shortly before it was set to be demolished. Instead, Duncan bought it, fixed it up, and opened it as an inn. Robert has since passed away, and now his son, Adam, runs the place. Almost everything in the building is original, including the confessional in the lounge and the blackboards in the guest dining room and game parlor. The accommodations aren’t luxurious (simple rooms and shared bathrooms), but they’re full of history and a sense of place. I loved my time here: great chats with Adam (who was 12 when his dad bought the building), delicious breakfasts, cozy nights in the parlor, and no nuns giving anyone disapproving looks for writing jokes on the communal blackboard.
Photo by Billie Cohen
Wake up early for a day at Grasslands, a sprawling protected landscape with one of its best features right in the name. Aside from the signature scenery, this is where western Canada recorded its first dinosaur find, back in 1874, and you can still dig up fossils there today. Each summer, the park runs the multiday Fossil Fever event, during which paleontologists from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum lead hands-on digs and talks. (In 2025, registration for the August event opened in January, so watch this space for dates.) Fossils aren’t the only thing to find underground here: Prairie dogs abound, and you can watch them pop up and down like video game characters. In summer, burrowing owls take over some of those prairie dog holes, and parkgoers can learn about them with a specialist.
Not all the fun stuff happens in the dirt, though: One of my favorite activities to do here was simply to sit and look out across the landscape—made especially easy by the red Adirondack chairs Parks Canada places at lesser-known viewpoints all across the country. If you prefer your vistas at night, Grasslands is a Dark Sky Preserve (one of the darkest in Canada), and the park runs stargazing events. If you had any doubts about the skies here being alive, one look up at the Milky Way will put them to rest.
