Langham

Town, pop 1,145, located about 30 km NW of Saskatoon on the Yellowhead Highway. The NORTH SASKATCHEWAN RIVER lies a few kilometres to the north and west. Doukhobor families began settling in the region in 1899, followed by Mennonite settlers emigrating from the United States as well as people from eastern Canada and Great Britain. With the construction of the Canadian Northern Railway through the area toward Edmonton in 1904–05, the townsite began to develop. In 1905 the post office was established, and in 1906 Langham was incorporated as a village. It attained town status the next year. By the 1920s, the community’s population was over 400; however, after the initial rush of settlement it began to decline, slipping to 305 by 1951. This trend was reversed a decade later, when in the 1960s the Yellowhead Highway was routed from Saskatoon directly to Langham, reducing the driving time between the communities to about 20 minutes. Young professionals and businesspeople began locating their families to Langham and commuting to work in the city. What was once a service centre for the surrounding agricultural district mushroomed into a bedroom community for a number of people.

David McLennan