On to Ottawa trekkers
Regina, 1935

1936

• The University of Saskatchewan opens its Summer Art School at Emma Lake. The School owes its existence to the vision of landscape painter Gus Kenderdine and University of Saskatchewan president Walter Murray.
  
• The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration distributes the Fairway strain of crested wheat grass seed to farmers whose land has been ravaged by drought. This tough, drought-resistant grass, developed at the University of Saskatchewan, helps hold down blowing soil.
  
• Uranium is discovered at Goldfields on Lake Athabasca.

1937

• This is the worst year of the Depression in Saskatchewan. Crops average an all-time low of 2.7 bushels per acre. Drought, dust, heat, grasshoppers, western equine encephalitis and army worms drive farmers to desperation.
  
• The temperature at Midale reaches 45°C, the highest ever recorded in Saskatchewan.
  
• When some banks pull out of drought-stricken Saskatchewan, the government passes the Credit Union Act. The Regina Hebrew Savings and Credit Union is the first urban credit union organized under the Act. A year later, Lafleche sets up the first rural credit union.
  
• The Saskatchewan Métis Society is formed. The organization is concerned with the plight of the Métis people who are essentially landless because of the failure of the scrip system years earlier.
  
• Saskatchewan’s first provincial sales tax is introduced to help fund education.

1938

• The Canadian Society for the Control of Cancer is organized in Saskatoon. It will become the Canadian Cancer Society a few years later.
  
• An outbreak of western equine encephalitis, or sleeping sickness, strikes some 50,000 horses in Saskatchewan and kills more than 15,000 in 1937-1938. To a farm population already hit hard by drought, the loss of so many horses is a heavy blow.

British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
Prince Albert, 1940

1939

• The visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth draws thousands of people to the royal train’s whistle stops across the province. Melville paints a royal greeting on its grain elevator. Sixty thousand people jam into town.
  
• The Rural Municipality of McKillop, near Bulyea, introduces a health care plan paid for by tax dollars. The five dollar annual fee to RM residents covers medical services. The plan is the first of its kind in North America.
  
• Canada declares war on September 10. Some 80,000 Saskatchewan men and women will serve in the armed forces over the next few years.

1940

• Construction begins on British Commonwealth Air Training Plan bases in 14 Saskatchewan communities. Thousands of young men from all over the Commonwealth pour into Saskatchewan. The Plan is good for business, helping to pull the province out of the doldrums.
  
• Saskatchewan sends its first female member of parliament to Ottawa. Dorise Nielsen, representing the United Progressive Party, is elected by voters in the North Battleford constituency.
  
• The federal government takes over the General Motors factory in Regina for the duration of the war. As Regina Industries Limited, it becomes the province’s largest war plant. The 1500 men and women who work there assemble anti-aircraft guns and munitions.

1941

• Despite the hard times of the 1930s, which drove many people from Saskatchewan, the 1941 census reveals that the province remains Canada’s third most populous.
  
• The province is still waging war on tuberculosis. Melville citizens take part in Canada's first mass TB survey.
  

1942

• Gasoline and butter rationing are implemented across Canada due to shortages during the Second World War. Before long, sugar, coffee, meat and other goods are added to the list.
  
• Wally McLeod of Regina earns a reputation in Malta as a fighter ace. By the time he is killed in a “dogfight” in 1944, he is the Royal Canadian Air Force’s top fighter pilot.

1943

• The new polio clinic at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon is the first of its kind in Saskatchewan.
  

1944

• In a landslide vote, Saskatchewan electors propel the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation into power. T.C. (Tommy) Douglas becomes premier with an ambitious social and economic agenda.
  
• Free treatment of cancer is given to Saskatchewan people who have lived in the province for six months immediately before treatment.
  
• By the 1940s, the province can no longer sustain over 5000 local school districts. The Larger School Units Act is passed by the new CCF government at the urging of teachers and teacher organizations, Onc of the main objectives of the legislation is to reduce the inequality of educational opportunities between the "have" and the "have not" school districts.