Royal Visits

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Broadview, 1939.

Grenfell Museum, The

Royal visits began in 1901 when the future King George V and Queen Mary came to Regina. The Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria, inaugurated the Saskatchewan Legislative Building as Governor General in 1912. The Prince of Wales visited Saskatchewan in 1919 and 1927. The historic national tour of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939, the first by a reigning monarch, drew huge crowds across Saskatchewan. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited in 1951, returning in 1959 as Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. They came for the RCMP centennial in 1973 and for major provincial tours in 1978 and 1987. The Queen’s sister Princess Margaret made a brief stop in 1958 and her cousin Princess Alexandra came in 1967 for the Canadian centennial.  Princess Margaret attended Saskatchewan’s 75th anniversary in 1980, Princess Anne visited in 1982, the Queen Mother in 1985, and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, in 1989. The 1990s saw only one visit, that of Prince Edward, the Queen’s youngest son, in 1994, but the frequency of visits resumed in the new millennium. Charles, Prince of Wales, paid his first visit in 2001 and Prince Edward, as the Earl of Wessex, came to Saskatchewan in 2003 and 2006.  Princess Anne, now the Princess Royal, visited in 2004 and 2007.  The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh joined in the celebrations of the provincial centennial in May 2005.

Michael Jackson

Further Reading

Jackson, M. 1990. The Canadian Monarchy in Saskatchewan. Regina: Government of Saskatchewan.