Luseland, Saskatchewan
| Luseland | |
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| Town | |
Aerial view of Luseland
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 Luseland
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| Coordinates: 52°04′54.5″N 109°23′24.4″W / 52.081806°N 109.390111°W | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Saskatchewan |
| R.M | Progress No. 351 |
| Post Office established: | 1910 |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Len Schlosser |
| • Administrator | Karyl Richardson |
| • Governing body | Luseland Town Council |
| • MLA Kindersley | Bill Boyd |
| • MP Battlefords—Lloydminster | Gerry Ritz |
| Area | |
| • Total | 1.53 km2 (0.59 sq mi) |
| Population (2011) | |
| • Total | 566 |
| • Density | 369.6/km2 (957/sq mi) |
| Time zone | Central Standard Time (UTC−6) |
| Postal code | S0L 2A0 |
| Highways |
 Hwy 31
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| Website | Town website |
Luseland, Saskatchewan is a small town in Rural Municipality Progress No. 351, Saskatchewan in the west central region of the province. Its population as of the 2006 Canadian Census is 571, down 5% from the 2001 Census.
It was the Métis who led the explorer John Palliser into this district in 1858, and it was he who saw most of the country as barren and unsuitable for agriculture. [5] The botanist, John Macoun, traversing the same country in 1881, after the buffalo had been nearly wiped out, saw the country as an agricultural Eden. [6] A quarter of a century later, the first settlers arrived in the Luseland district, drawn by accounts of the rich pastures of prairie wool along the Grass Lake valley. It is for this reason that Luseland became one of the most productive wheat-growing areas in the west, boasting as many as six grain elevators.
George Hoddinott and the Abbs Bros. were the first settlers, applying for a homestead, called Abbnott, in April 1906. Luseland, derived from the Luse Land and Development Company, was officially declared a village on Dec 10, 1910. Established by Mr. J.F. Luse in 1904, with headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota, its goal was to establish a German Lutheran colony for families that had initially settled in the mid-western states of Nebraska, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota, after they had been forced to leave their Russian colonies along the Volga River. In September, 1907, Sam Luse, son of the Company president wrote the Hon. Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior, indicating that the Co. had made a deal to purchase Canadian Northern railway lands, provided they could secure the remaining homesteads in Townships 35 and 36, Range 24-26. The district was already located within the large German Catholic block settlement of St. Joseph's Colony, established in 1905. In November 1907, the Commission of public lands advised that though German Lutherans would make desirable settlers it was contrary to regulations to reserve homestead lands in the manner suggested. In January 1908, the Canadian representative of the Luse Co. wrote Mr. Oliver that they had closed a deal for 100,000 acres (400 km2) from the railway company along with a deal with the Evangelical German Lutheran Church for settlement. Mr. Oliver replied that they were unable to grant this request. Meanwhile, British-Canadian settlers had begun to take up homesteads in 1907, and large numbers, particularly from Ontario, began to arrive in 1908, lured by stories of the rich dark soils along the Grass Lake valley. By 1909, the Luse Land Company had arranged for several special train loads of settlers to travel to the closest station in Scott, then overland by horse and carts with their livestock and belongings to the new land. Many of these immigrants were Russian Volga Germans who had been lured from their initial settlements in the mid-western states by Canadian government propaganda and the promise of a German Lutheran colony but instead found themselves within the large St. Joseph's Catholic colony, living side by side with British-Canadian settlers. More German settlers arrived during the next two decades, most of them coming directly from the Russian Volga colonies as conditions deteriorated there. Other ethnic and religious groups also arrived (Swiss, Polish, Hungarian, Irish and Scottish), but the genetic melting pot ( and telephone book ) today, survivors of the Dirty Thirties, consists of roughly equal parts Anglo and Teutonic, adapted to climatic change, and rapidly adapting new agricultural practices.
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