Hours:
- Regina Office: Monday to Friday, 10:00am-4:00pm; Closed on statutory and civic holidays
- Saskatoon Office: Wednesday-Friday, 10:00am-4:00pm (No retrievals from 12:00pm-1:00pm or after 3:45pm, closed statutory and civic holidays)
Location:
- Regina Office: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, 2440 Broad Street, Regina, SK, S4P 0A5
- Saskatoon Office: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan, Room 91, Murray Building, 3 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5A4
Contact:
- Regina Office: 1-306-787-4068
- Saskatoon Office: 1-306-933-5832
Access: Appointments are not required but contacting the archives in advance is recommended. Review “Access to Restricted Records” prior to visit.
Website: http://www.saskarchives.com/
The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan offers services in two offices, in Regina and Saskatoon. The Regina office is the primary contact for business services, donation of records, and services for government. The Saskatoon office is the primary contact for business related to the history of Saskatchewan. If in doubt where to initiate an enquiry, forward correspondence to the Saskatoon office.
The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan maintains the records of the Government of Saskatchewan, its ministries such as the Ministry of Health and its predecessors, crown corporations, commissions, boards, agencies and court system. The Archives also maintains the records of various local government institutions such as rural and urban municipalities and school boards. Government records date from as far back as the Territorial period (1870s to 1905) when Battleford and then Regina were capitals of the North West Territories which was comprised of present-day Saskatchewan, Alberta, and northern Manitoba.
Records from private donors include the personal records of families and individuals (diaries, correspondence, records of professional activities, farm accounts, and reminiscences) and archival records of non-government organizations, businesses, clubs, societies and labour unions.
One of the most significant collections for the study of the history of medicine is the fonds of T.C. (Tommy) Douglas (1904-1986). This collection consists of 68.4 metres of textual records, 52 hours of audio reels, hundreds of photographs, and other materials documenting the political career of former Premier of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas, considered to be the father of Medicare. This fonds contains public, political, and private records. The Archives also maintains the records of other members of the Douglas government and people involved in the creation of Medicare such as Minister of Public Health J. Walter Erb (1909-1990), Cabinet minister and Douglas’ successor as Premier W.S. Lloyd (1913-1972), Cabinet minister C.M. Fines (1905-1993), Cabinet minister Russ Brown (1911-1971), Cabinet minister O.A. Turnbull (1917-2004), Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Everett Wood (1910-1983), MLA Arthur J. Thibault (1914-1983), and James Austin Brown ( -2008) who served as the general manager of Group Medical Services and secretary of the Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Commission.
Other records related to the history of medicine include the Saskatchewan Cancer Foundation fonds (1930-1985); the Lady Patronesses of the Regina Grey Nuns’ Hospital fonds (1907-1972), the Saskatchewan Anti-Tuberculosis League fonds (1917-1986); the records of psychiatrist Abram Hoffer (1917-2009) who served as the Director of Psychiatric Research at the Saskatchewan Department of Public Health and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan; the records of Ruth M. Buck (1905-2009), adult education advocate and daughter of an Anglican missionary and one of Canada’s first female doctors; the records of George W. Cadbury (1907-1995), who in 1963 organized what became the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada; the records of Dr. Phyllis L. Steele (1910-1988) who helped to establish a modern hospital in Balcarres, Saskatchewan and also served as a coroner for the Province of Saskatchewan; and the records of public health nurse Ruth Shewchuk (1923-2004).
The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan also maintains a large collection of material related to the First Nations and Métis people of the province. This includes the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians fonds; the records of Métis politician and activist Robert Glen Doucette (1962- ); the records of Alexander Morris, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories (1872-1876) who acted as the Queen’s Representative in the signing of Treaties 3, 4, 5, 6, and in revisions to Treaties 1 and 2; the records of folk musicologist Kenneth Peacock (1922-2000) who conducted research on the First Nations people of Saskatchewan; the records of Muriel J. Clipsham (1908-1998), who helped to establish the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre; the records of Narcisse-Omer Cote, who served as commissioner of the North-West Half-Breed Commission (1900); and the records of ethnologist Koozma J. Tarasoff (1932- ). Among the Archives’ tens of thousands of recorded sound documents is a large collection of oral history interviews. This includes interviews with First Nations and Métis people, as well as members of other ethnic groups, politicians, activists, clerics, farmers, trappers, and soldiers.
The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan has begun a long-term project to digitize its archival collections. At this point, more than 400,000 pages of newspapers from the First World War, more than 650,000 pages from the Archives’ civil court and homestead collections, as well as thousands of images have been digitized.
The Archives has also created a series of online exhibits featuring photographs, film and audio clips, maps, documentary art, textual records and publications on a variety of themes such as: the Regina Cyclone of 1912, the Dakota, the experience of settlers to Saskatchewan between 1870 and 1930, and the 1935 Regina Riot.