The Saskatchewan Traveller: Venture to Leader

By Trudy & Dale Buxton

Continuing on with our travels, after a nice stop at Tim Horton’s, we continue heading south on highway 21.

We come to Glidden, which is a small Hamlet of about 40 people. The original town-site was built about a mile east of the present location. The reason for the move was that the original location was washed away in the rains of the summer. It was said that Glidden got it’s name from Charles Glidden, who owned large deposits of land in the area. Charles Glidden sold the land to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Glidden was an immigrant from Michigan and some say that he had family ties with the famous Glidden family in the USA who had interests in the invention of barbed wire and a paint company.

Continuing on to the next town of Eatonia, which was named after Timothy Eaton, founder of Eaton’s department store. The town currently has a population of around 450 people. Eatonia was founded in 1919 as a station for the Canadian National Railway. The original station is still upright and used as a library along with a caboose and a wood framed house that ordered out of the Eaton’s catalogue.

I have to say that of all the highways that we have travelled, highway 21 into Leader is probably the nicest highway in Saskatchewan. I don’t believe that there is a bump in the road for 30 miles.

Leader is a great little community of around 875 residents.

Originally called Prussia, mainly from the large settlement of German immigrants in the early 1900’s. The RCMP was established in 1909 and the railway was established in 1913. With that Prussia was incorporated in 1913.

By 1917 there was a large anti-German sentiment, surrounding the events of World War 1. This prompted the community to change its name and also change the name of the streets that were in German.

The name Leader came from the Regina Leader newspaper that started to arrive on the train, the community adopted the name and was incorporated in 1917 as a town.

Leader is the home to the Smith Barn that was at the time North America’s largest barn. It took 100 people five months to complete that project, the foundation to this massive building still exists.

In 1995, aviator Steve Fossett landed near Leader after taking off from South Korea, becoming the first to make a solo flight across the Pacific in a balloon.

Leader is on the northwest corner and largest community close to the Great Sandhills. The Sandhills region is home to a wide variety of wildlife which is prominently displayed with various sculptures that are placed around Leader, that you can’t help to notice when travelling into town.

If you want to go for a little walk, you have to be careful for the prairie rattlesnake, which is one of the few known places in Saskatchewan where rattlesnakes thrive.

Leader is always a great place to venture, there is lots to do in this area.

Stay tuned for more adventures.