{"id":262,"date":"2010-08-04T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/wordpress\/?p=262"},"modified":"2010-08-04T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T13:45:00","slug":"sska-ch-wan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/2010\/08\/04\/sska-ch-wan\/","title":{"rendered":"s\u0259\u02c8ska ch \u0259\u02ccw\u00e4n"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/photos\/blog6\/sask1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>It still feels a little strange telling people that we spent a week vacation in Saskatchewan. We don&#8217;t have any family there and we live 60 minutes from Banff.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The province does take its share of derision, second probably only to Newfoundland. The facts that it is so flat and boring and sparsely populated do not help it. Certainly the most charming thing that I knew about the province before visiting it last week was its curious collection of place names: Mozart, Cut Knife, Moose Jaw, Elbow, Eyebrow, Wartime, Shooter Hill, Forget, Antler, Climax, and Biggar (&#8220;New York is Big, but this is Biggar&#8221;).<\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/photos\/blog6\/sask2.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We visited the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalsaskmuseum.ca\/\">Royal Saskatchewan Museum<\/a> on our last day in the province with the kids. Free admission and an encouragement to take as many pictures as we wanted were what the lady at the info counter told us. <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/photos\/blog6\/sask4.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I was exceedingly impressed with the place. Wonderful dioramas of the seven climatic areas in SK fantastically illustrated the provinces wildlife and vegetation.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/photos\/blog6\/sask3.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>Saskatchewan&#8217;s history is rich with the meeting of western government with the native population. Many of treaties signed by Canada and First Nations were drawn up in Saskatchewan. Sadly, First Nations people remain second class citizens off the books, but the museum did a fine job capturing their spirit and way of life and presenting it in an admiring way.<\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/photos\/blog6\/sask5.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>Blaise was particularly impressed with the dinosaur exhibits. He&#8217;s pictured where with a triceratops skull.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I have always admired the provinces social action tradition going back to Tommy Douglas (founder of universal healthcare in Canada) through the various left-leaning parties being elected to government (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the New Democratic Party have ruled 43 of the last 76 years). A consequence of this is Saskatchewan&#8217;s high royalty rates on their vast petroleum reserves which restrained corporations from plundering it all as they did in Alberta.<\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/photos\/blog6\/saskmap.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve visited quite a large swath of the province over the years, stopping to get my picture at the giant snowman in Kenaston in 1988, being a speaker in <b>Quill Lake<\/b> in the mid-90s, visiting friends in <b>Saskatoon<\/b>, attending a youth conference in <b>Caronport<\/b>, cycling through and spending nights in <b>Gull Lake<\/b>, <b>Chaplin<\/b>, <b>Regina<\/b> and <b>Whitewood<\/b>, and touring with the CUC Silverwinds and playing in <b>North Battleford<\/b>. <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So, to you Saskatchewan, I lift high my glass.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It still feels a little strange telling people that we spent a week vacation in Saskatchewan. We don&#8217;t have any family there and we live 60 minutes from Banff. The province does take its share of derision, second probably only to Newfoundland. The facts that it is so flat and boring and sparsely populated do &#8230; <span class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/2010\/08\/04\/sska-ch-wan\/\">[Read more&#8230;]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14,20,22,29,30],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-admin","4":"post-262","6":"format-standard","7":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-canadiana","9":"category-flashback","10":"category-nature","11":"category-politics","12":"category-travel","13":"category-zr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}