Saskatoon

Riverbank walks, Remai Modern's Picassos and Wanuskewin in 48 hours

Saskatoon rewards a weekend, and the first day needs no car. Spend day one on the Meewasin Trail below the Delta Bessborough, lunch on Broadway Avenue and see the Picasso linocuts at Remai Modern. On day two drive 15 minutes north to Wanuskewin Heritage Park for plains bison and 6,000 years of Northern Plains history, then visit the Western Development Museum.

Start the first day below the Delta Bessborough, the railway hotel whose turrets make it look like a French chateau dropped onto the prairie. Walk the Meewasin Trail north past Kiwanis Park and cross the University Bridge for the view back at the skyline, then return along the east bank through Nutana. Lunch on Broadway Avenue.

Give the afternoon to Remai Modern at River Landing. The gallery holds one of the world's largest collections of Picasso linocuts alongside contemporary Canadian art, and its upper terraces look straight down the river. If you have time, the Ukrainian Museum of Canada on Spadina Crescent explains the settlers who shaped so much of the province. As the light goes, walk out on the Broadway Bridge, then eat in Riversdale.

On day two, drive about 15 minutes north to Wanuskewin Heritage Park and arrive when it opens. The Opimihaw Creek valley holds evidence of some 6,000 years of Northern Plains life, including buffalo jumps, tipi rings and a medicine wheel, and a small herd of plains bison now grazes the land again. Walk the valley trails before the exhibits. Back in town, the Western Development Museum's reconstructed 1910 boomtown street makes a good rainy-afternoon stop, and Baba's on 51st Street is close by for perogies.

Perogies, bison burgers and saskatoon berry pie

Saskatoon eats prairie food shaped by Ukrainian settlers and Indigenous ingredients. Order perogies and cabbage rolls at Baba's Homestyle Perogies on 51st Street East, bison burgers around town or at Wanuskewin's restaurant, and saskatoon berry pie, made from the fruit that named the city. Broadway Avenue and 20th Street West are the best streets for dinner.

Food here reflects who settled the prairie. Ukrainian farmers arrived in large numbers in the early 20th century, and their cooking is still everyday food: perogies filled with potato and cheddar or sauerkraut, topped with fried onions and sour cream, along with cabbage rolls and garlicky kubasa sausage. Baba's Homestyle Perogies on 51st Street East cooks them to eat in and sells them frozen, and it famously hands them out through a drive-through window.

Bison is the other prairie staple. You will see bison burgers and steaks on menus around town, and the restaurant at Wanuskewin builds its menu on Indigenous ingredients such as bison, bannock and wild rice. Finish anything with saskatoon berries, small purple fruit a little like blueberries with an almond note, baked into pies or stirred into jam. The city took its name from them.

For an evening out, Broadway Avenue in Nutana is the most reliable street, with bakeries, a French restaurant, a British-style pub with a summer rooftop patio and a blues bar. Riversdale, along 20th Street West, has the newer kitchens, including a cafe built around local produce. Downtown, a long-running pasta house on Idylwyld Drive draws students on cheap weeknights.

Saskatoon's summer festivals and minus-twenty winters

Visit Saskatoon between late June and August, when afternoons average around 25C, daylight lasts past 10pm and the festivals run: the TD Sask Jazz Festival in early July, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan from mid-July and the Fringe on Broadway around early August. January highs sit in the minus teens, with nights below -20C.

The climate is continental and extreme. Saskatchewan keeps the same clock all year, so summer evenings stay light especially late.

Summer is festival season. The TD Sask Jazz Festival takes over Victoria Park and other stages by the river for a week in early July. Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan plays in its riverbank amphitheatre from mid-July to late August, and the Fringe Festival turns Broadway Avenue into a street of buskers and small stages for ten days around the start of August.

September is short, golden and quiet, with the riverbank trees turning yellow and the first frosts by the end of the month. Spring arrives late: the ice breaks on the river in April, but snow can fall into May.

Day trips work best in summer. Pike Lake Provincial Park, about half an hour south-west, has a beach and swimming. Batoche National Historic Site, around an hour north-east, marks the site of the 1885 Métis resistance. Manitou Beach, roughly 90 minutes east, sits on a salt lake so dense that you float without effort.