📘 The river begins as a meeting

What you’ll learn

1. From mountain snow to prairie riverTrace the river’s headwaters from the eastern Rockies into the prairie and identify where the South Saskatchewan begins.Mountain snow is stored in tributaries before the Bow and Oldman meet in Alberta.
2. A valley becomes a reservoirExplain how the Gardiner and Qu’Appelle River dams changed the river valley into Lake Diefenbaker.Two dams join two valleys into a long managed reservoir opened in 1967.
3. What a dam changesDistinguish a reservoir’s several water uses from the river’s natural flow.Lake Diefenbaker stores and releases water for communities, farms, power, flood management, and other users.
4. The river reaches SaskatoonFollow the river north from the reservoir through Saskatoon and onward to its confluence with the North Saskatchewan.The managed lake is one section of a longer river whose channel continues through a major prairie city.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• Water Security Agency, Gardiner Dam (accessed 20 August 2026): Gardiner Dam is 64 m tall and 5,000 m long; with Qu’Appelle River Dam it forms the 225 km Lake Diefenbaker reservoir; both were officially opened on 21 July 1967; the agency says more than a third of Saskatchewan’s population depends on the lake for various purposes; construction ran from 1958 to 1968.
• Water Security Agency, Irrigation Project Status (accessed 20 August 2026): the two dams were constructed between 1958 and 1967, and the reservoir supports irrigation and flood control among other uses.
• Government of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Water: 25-Year Plan (2012), ‘Lake Diefenbaker: Our Most Important Water Source’: the reservoir is formed by Gardiner Dam across the South Saskatchewan valley and Qu’Appelle River Dam in the Qu’Appelle valley; the report describes source water, irrigation, hydropower, industry, mining, aquaculture, recreation, and a 60% population estimate at that time.
• Library and Archives Canada, Prairie Land and Water Resources / South Saskatchewan River Project: the project’s purposes included power, rural and urban water supply, recreation, flood control, and irrigation, with Gardiner and Qu’Appelle dams creating the reservoir.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, South Saskatchewan River (accessed 20 August 2026): the river is formed in Alberta by the Bow and Oldman rivers and continues through Saskatchewan before joining the North Saskatchewan to form the Saskatchewan River.
• Wikimedia Commons image pages used: NASA satellite image of Lake Diefenbaker in Saskatchewan Canada.jpg (NASA/GSFC, public domain); Sk Hwy 44 over Gardiner Dam.jpg (Masterhatch, CC0); South Saskatchewan River, Saskatoon 01.jpg (Ryan Hodnett, CC BY-SA 4.0).

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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