Senate, Saskatchewan
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| Ghost Town of Senate | |
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| Coordinates: | |
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| Country |  Canada |
| Province |  Saskatchewan |
| Region | Saskatchewan |
| Census division | No. 4 |
| Rural Municipality | Reno |
| Post office Founded | N/A |
| Village established | N/A |
| Government | |
| - Former Mayor | |
| Population (1940) | |
| - Total | 63 |
| Time zone | CST (UTC) |
| Postal code | S0N 2G0 |
| Area code(s) | 306 |
| Highways | Highway 13 |
| Waterways | *Cypress Lake |
Senate was once a small hamlet in the southwestern located on highway 13, about 20 km east of the Alberta, Saskatchewan border and is about 200 km southwest of Swift Current.
[edit] History
If you stop along Highway 13 in the furthest reaches of southwest Saskatchewan, 20 or so kilometres west of the village of Consul, listen closely because you might miss the music. At first, you might think it's just the howling wind mournfully sweeping over the rolling prairie, echoing the lonely feeling in this hauntingly beautiful but barren land. But then again, you might swear it's either a saxophone or clarinet.
If you see a bluff just above the east side the highway, there is a lonely steel black marker that on first thought has no business being there, mainly because it's a chore to drive off the highway and walk up the short hill to check it out.
But this is where the ghosts of Senate, Saskatchewan play. This is the site where Paul Kalmring practised his sax inside his family corner store and gas station for more than a half century.
"When the store was empty, I would practice - just so I wouldn't chase anybody away," chuckles 87-year-old Kalmring at his nearby farm in 2001. When he wasn't minding the store, he and his four-piece orchestra, including his wife Margaret on the piano, barnstormed across Saskatchewan and Montana.
But for most of the time between 1916 to 1983, Kalmring and his family were fixtures in the tiny community, named after federal senators of the day when the hamlet was created in 1914. Kalmring's family moved to he area when Paul was two, and his father soon purchased a convenience store and gas station. It was a primary meeting place for locals, to share stories and hopes for the future.
Senate's population peaked at 63 in the 1940s and was a stopping point for the Canadian Pacific Railway. For a few years, Senate even had its own train ticket agent.
In those early days, recalls Kalmring, travelling by train was popular with the bachelors in the area who would take the ride southwest to Govenlock, a popular community to sneak a drink during prohibition.
"The would go to play poker, drink all night and come back home on the train the next day," says Kalmring.
For many of the early years of Senate, it was a land of opportunity. The west had just been opened up to waves of European settlers seeking prosperity, and at first, the future appeared promising for Senate and several others along Highway 13, or what is now know today as the Red Coat Trail.
During Senate's best years, the hamlet boasted two elevators, a five-room hotel and restaurant, blacksmith shop, lumberyard and of course Kalmring's general store and gas station. For leisure, the citizens of Senate also built a tennis court and a baseball diamond across the train tracks.
"This place kind of clings to you," says Kalmring, walking through the tall grass and weeds near the spot where his house used to be at Senate. "There are a lot of nice people around, and if you look north, you can see the Cypress Hills."
But as in most other locales along southwest Saskatchewan, Senate's best days did not last - its fortunes declining after the 1940s. Regional farm consolidation, drought and rural depopulation ended all hope for any lasting life at Senate.
"Some smart guy in Consul put in a beer parlour and the ladies went there with the men to do their shopping," says Kalmring, trying to find a reason for Senate's demise. "But people get old or they just move out. I could see it coming."
By the early 1980s, Kalmring sold his store and moved to his farm, three kilometres north of Senate. And in 1983, the hamlet was empty, home only to prairie ghosts. In 1994, with the railway and elevators also gone, rural municipality officials brought in the bulldozers and levelled Senate's remaining dilapidated buildings and dumped part of the debris into a nearby landfill.
"It died a bad death," laments Kalmring. But every once in a while, Kalmring returns to the bluff beside Highway 13 to reflect on the good times, sometimes on the spot where his store stood. It is usually silent there, except for the passing cars from the highway below, or the wind blowing yet another ghostly song.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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Medicine Hat | Maple Creek Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park |
Robsart |
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| Govenlock |  |
Consul | |||||
 Senate  |
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| Montana, USA | Grasslands National Park |
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