Saskatoon is the largest city in Saskatchewan, it sits on a wide bend of the South Saskatchewan River, and it carries one of the more ambitious nicknames in Canada. Paris of the Prairies. It is also called Bridge City, Hub City, POW City and Toontown, but it is the Paris comparison that people search for, argue about and occasionally roll their eyes at.
We spent three nights there on our road trip through the Alberta Badlands and Canadian Prairies, partly to see the city and partly to settle the question for ourselves.
Saskatoon is called the Paris of the Prairies because of the bridges spanning the South Saskatchewan River through the middle of the city, echoing the Seine running through Paris. The nickname dates from the early twentieth century boom years, when prairie cities marketed themselves in grand European terms. No single person is reliably credited with coining it, and Winnipeg and Regina have both been called it too.
The short version is the bridges.
Saskatoon grew up on both banks of the South Saskatchewan River, and the river still cuts the city cleanly in two. Connecting the halves takes a run of river crossings, several of them handsome, several of them lit at night, and the comparison people reach for is the Seine threading through Paris. The University Bridge and the Broadway Bridge in particular do look the part in evening light, which is when the nickname makes the most sense.
What we can say with reasonable confidence:
The nickname is old: It belongs to the boom years of the early twentieth century, when prairie cities were growing at extraordinary speed and selling themselves hard to settlers and investors. Comparing yourself to a great European capital was standard practice at the time.
Gord Downie is often credited, and probably should not be: The late Tragically Hip frontman is widely named online as the person who coined it. The nickname was in circulation long before he was. He may well have helped keep it alive for a generation of Canadians, which is a different thing..
Bob Dylan gets credited too: Also unsupported, and probably a mix-up with Joni Mitchell, who did grow up in Saskatoon.
Saskatoon is not the only claimant: Winnipeg has been called the Paris of the Prairies, and so, occasionally, has Regina. If you searched the phrase expecting one definitive city, that is why the answer felt slippery.
So the nickname is real, it is still very much in use, it refers to the bridges, but its exact parentage is lost. Which is quite Paris, when you think about it.
The name comes from a berry – Saskatoon takes its name from the Cree word misâskwatômina, meaning saskatoon berries, the sweet purple fruit that grows across the region. You will find it in pies, jams and crumbles all over Saskatchewan, and it turns up on menus constantly once you start noticing. The city was founded in 1883 as a temperance colony and incorporated in 1906, but the name is far older than either date.
Bridge City is about exactly what it sounds like. The count depends on what you are willing to call a bridge. Sources variously give seven, eight or nine river crossings depending on whether rail bridges and the newer ring road crossings are included. Nine is the figure most often quoted for total river crossings. Either way, for a city of Saskatoon’s size, it is a lot of bridges, and they are the single most defining feature of the place.
The city’s other nicknames are less poetic and rather more useful. POW City stands for potash, oil and wheat, the three things the region is built on. Hub City refers to its position as the transport crossroads of the province. Toontown and S’toon are what locals actually say.
Saskatoon is the largest city in the province of Saskatchewan, in the south central part of the province, on the South Saskatchewan River. It has its own airport if you are flying in and out.
The nearest city is Regina, roughly two hours forty minutes’ drive to the south east.
On our Alberta Badlands and Canadian Prairies road trip we came up from Regina, taking a detour via Little Manitou Lake, which stretched the drive to a little over three hours.
Little Manitou Lake sits in the middle of the prairies in a valley carved by ice age glaciers. It is unusual because of its salt content, which is around five times that of the ocean and roughly half that of the Dead Sea. Underground springs feed it with sodium, magnesium and potassium, and the result is water you float in rather than swim through.
We arrived and were a little underwhelmed, since from the car park it looks like a stony beach with a burger outlet. Then we got in, and spent a very happy half hour trying to stay balanced long enough to read a newspaper. It was a hot day, families were camped out for the afternoon, and there are toilets for getting changed. Further along the shore we found a wonderful old fashioned dance hall.
On the drive from Little Manitou Lake into Saskatoon we passed a run of potash mines that looked to be mothballed, long trains parked alongside them, idle at the time because global prices had made the mining uneconomic. Potash is the P in POW City.
Wanuskewin sits on the northern edge of the city, a fifteen minute drive from downtown. The name means “seeking peace of mind” in Cree, and the heritage centre, set above a buffalo jump in the opimihāw Valley, feels a very long way from anywhere urban.
This was the highlight of Saskatoon for us, and it is the reason we would tell anyone to come.
Wanuskewin is the site of the longest running archaeological dig in Canada. People have gathered here for more than 6,400 years, which makes it older than the pyramids of Egypt by a considerable margin. There are nineteen pre-contact sites across the property, a medicine wheel, tipi rings, buffalo jumps and around seven kilometres of walking trails. Petroglyphs were uncovered here in recent years, which was a significant find.
We arrived for opening at 9.30am and had the exhibition rooms and museum more or less to ourselves for the first hour.
Having gone through the indoor exhibits we walked some of the trails on our own, past the tipi village and the opimihāw Valley lookout.
By the time we came back for the 11.00am dance display it was much busier. We sat in a circle to watch a Fancy Dance, a fast step dance performed at powwows and celebrations. The dancer patiently corrected one visitor that what she was wearing was regalia and not a costume.
Afterwards we joined a guided tour of the buffalo jump, where Northern Plains peoples once drove bison between lines of stone cairns and over a cliff, a grisly end for the animals and food, hide and tools for those who depended on them.
Our guide explained the statues outside the heritage centre, from the Medicine Man who oversaw the jump, to the Calf Runners who covered themselves in sage and buffalo fat to mask their own scent during the drive, to the women who waved sticks and greenery to steer the herd.
The tour included the bison. A herd of eleven was brought back here in 2019 in partnership with Parks Canada, after an absence of around 150 years, and it has grown steadily since. They are not, we were reassured, still using the buffalo jump.
There is a restaurant at the heritage centre serving First Nations cuisine with a contemporary twist, and it has been named among the best Indigenous restaurants in Canada. Be prepared for bison on the menu, which we could not quite face having just spent an hour bonding with them outside.
Allow half a day here. We would happily have given it longer.
The Remai Modern is an attractive contemporary building, full of light and space, with excellent views across the South Saskatchewan River from the gallery windows.
We spent an hour wandering the rooms playing the game of deciding which piece we would take home. The gallery holds over four hundred Picasso linocuts, and when we visited there was an exhibition of printmaking by William Kentridge.
The riverfront immediately in front of the Remai Modern is River Landing, and it is where you pick up the Meewasin Valley Trail. The trail runs for around sixty kilometres along both banks, so you can walk as much or as little of it as you fancy.
We walked north from River Landing to the Prairie Lily dock, which took about half an hour and gave us the best views of the bridges we found anywhere in the city. If you want to understand the Paris of the Prairies nickname in one walk, this is it.
We took a one hour river boat trip on The Prairie Lily, which looks like a paddle steamer and is not actually powered by a paddle. We sat on the open top deck to enjoy the sunshine until the halfway point, when the captain asked the top and bottom deck passengers to swap. Canadian fairness in action.
The trip gave us clear views of the downtown buildings on one bank, including the Remai Modern and the chateau style Delta Bessborough Hotel, and on the other bank enormous houses with gardens running down to the water. Watching people out on the river in canoes, powerboats and jet skis made us want to hire a kayak.
The Prairie Lily has new owners after not operating during 2025. Check the Prairie Lily website for current sailings and bookings.
There is a summer Shakespeare programme in a theatre on the riverbank. We booked a performance of Hamlet staged in the style of the Great Gatsby, because it sounded different.
Everyone was milling about outside with a drink in the golden hour when we arrived, which was lovely, and then the cast appeared and encouraged the audience to dance the Charleston with them. Further along the river in another park, people were queuing with picnic chairs for an outdoor country music event. Saskatoon has a busy summer programme and it is worth checking what is on before you arrive.
We bought a joint ticket for the Prairie Lily and Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, which came out slightly cheaper than buying the two separately.
We tried an independent shopping trip in the Riversdale area and arrived too early, with almost nothing open. So we retreated to Midtown Mall for something more predictable.
Learn from us. Broadway Avenue in Nutana is the district most people mean when they talk about Saskatoon’s independent shops, cafes and bookshops, and both it and Riversdale run to later hours than we allowed for. Check opening times before you set out, particularly on a Sunday.
We stayed three nights in an Airbnb in Caswell Hill, on a quiet tree lined street in a smart residential pocket. Some of the surrounding streets felt less comfortable, and while walking into town would very likely have been fine, we chose to drive in the evenings. Worth knowing if you are picking a neighbourhood sight unseen, and worth saying that we never felt unsafe during the day.
For a luxury stay, the landmark hotel is the Delta Bessborough, known locally as the Bez, on the riverbank between the Broadway and University bridges. It is centrally located and looks like a chateau, which is exactly what was intended when the Canadian National Railway completed it in 1932 as one of a series of grand railway hotels.
A more modern alternative is the Delta Hotels Saskatoon Downtown, if the Bez is not available.
Saskatoon fed us better than anywhere else on the trip, and it is the thing we tell people about first.
Hearth at the Remai Modern: Good for a light lunch on the terrace in the sun, and rather more ambitious than a gallery restaurant needs to be. It has since been named among Canada's hundred best restaurants, which we can well believe.
Little Grouse on the Prairie: Our best meal of the entire holiday. Italian cooking built on Saskatchewan ingredients, a British chef, a small and nicely decorated dining room, and very good service.
Bon Temps Café: Louisiana cooking with New Orleans decor. We had blackened chicken burgers and shrimp tacos.
Thirteen Pies: Takeaway pizza for a film night at the Airbnb, where we watched Jurassic Park in preparation for Drumheller.
Primal: In Riversdale, doing rustic Italian with handmade pasta, Saskatchewan heritage grains and whole animal butchery. It has appeared on Canada's hundred best list repeatedly since it opened and it is small, so book well ahead.
Ayden Kitchen and Bar: Probably the best known chef-led restaurant in the city, downtown, built around local prairie ingredients. The name that comes up first when you ask a Saskatonian where to eat.
Broadway Café: An all-day breakfast diner on Broadway Avenue with portions to match the prairie. Exactly what we needed on the morning we set out too early for the shops and had nothing to do.
We were turned away from a couple of brewery restaurants because one of our party was under the legal drinking age. That policy is stricter than in the UK, where a minor can usually eat in a pub or brewery with adults. Worth checking ahead if you are travelling with teenagers.
In closing
On the bridges, absolutely. They are the best thing about the city. Walk the Meewasin Valley Trail at golden hour, watch the light come off the water and the stone, and the comparison stops feeling like a stretch. The river is Saskatoon's greatest asset and the city has done well by it.
On everything else, less so, and we do not think that matters. There is real art here, in the Remai Modern and at Wanuskewin. There is a summer programme that punches well above the city's size. There is the best food we ate in two weeks in Canada. What there is not, yet, is the density and the buzz that the Paris comparison sets you up to expect. We spent three nights and came away feeling we had not quite found the heart of the city, and we are still not entirely sure why.
But the nickname sells Saskatoon short. The single most remarkable thing here is not European at all. Wanuskewin is a gathering place 6,400 years old, with the longest running archaeological dig in the country, bison back on the land after a century and a half away, and a story that belongs entirely to this place and no other. Measuring a city against Paris asks it to be a smaller version of somewhere else.
Saskatoon does not need to be the Paris of anywhere. On the evidence of three days, it would do better as the front door to the oldest gathering place on the Northern Plains, with very good bridges and better restaurants than it gets credit for.
Go for Wanuskewin. Stay for the river. Let Paris keep the name.
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