Twice a year, every year all across North America thousands of people arrive to appointments, work and church an hour early or an hour late according to whether their clocks fall back or spring forward. The phenomenon, which brings out such tardiness over an entire continent is of course daylight saving time (note that there is no S on the end of saving!). The idea of daylight saving time is of course an artificial one, which was thought to be a good idea for commercial enterprises, although it did not work well for some occupations.

One occupation that was adversely affected by the invention of daylight saving time was farming and ranching. For that reason, some locations where these activities were mainstays of the economy refused to embrace the change, and their time remain mercifully static all year long. One notable place is the town of Elkhart, Indiana, which not only differs from the rest of the United States in this regard but also from its state as well. So, do we have any of these exceptions in Canada?

The answer is no. As you might expect from the fact that the province’s economy has traditionally centred around agriculture, the prairie province of Saskatchewan does not change its clocks each year.

Wait a minute, you might say, if Saskatchewan does not change its clocks, then it does not observe daylight saving time, right? Well, not quite. The fact is, Saskatchewan actually observes Daylight Saving Time all year long, instead of returning to standard time in the fall.

In fact, Daylight Saving Time is the default position of all the communities and municipalities in the province, due to the mandates during the World Wars, which made it a necessary step in order to conserve fuel and energy. The difference with Saskatchewan was that it chose not to return to standard time after the wars ended.

To further complicate matters, some communities in Saskatchewan have different times than others. This is due to the fact that the province covers two different time zones and thus embraces a combination of Mountain Time and Daylight Saving Time. The city of Lloydminster is the exception to the rest of the province, and does switch its clocks year to year.