Date: 06 Nov 1992 16:13:04 -0600 (CST) From: jones@skdad.usask.ca (W. Jones) Subject: Re: East-Saskatchewan -> Saskatchewan To: ado@elsie.nci.nih.gov Cc: eggert@twinsun.com, hardie@herald.usask.ca, henry@zoo.utoronto.ca, peachey@pixar.com, tastad@sklib.usask.ca ...

Earlier I wrote:

...

The most likely answer is that no-DST was adopted province-wide on some date (say in the late 1960s), and before that was subject to community variations. One thing I might ask is what precision you consider important for describing earlier practice. (Whatever the date, there were certainly no Unix systems running in affected areas.)

The approximate answer below is based on information I got from our law library, the provincial archives, and the provincial Community Services department. A precise history would require digging through newspaper archives, and since you didn't say what you wanted, I didn't bother.

Saskatchewan is split by a time zone meridian (105W) and over the years the boundary became pretty ragged as communities near it reevaluated their affiliations in one direction or the other. In 1965 a provincial referendum favoured legislating common time practices.

On 15 April 1966 the Time Act (c. T-14, Revised Statutes of Saskatchewan 1978) was proclaimed, and established that the eastern part of Saskatchewan would use CST year round, that districts in northwest Saskatchewan would by default follow CST but could opt to follow Mountain Time rules (thus 1 hour difference in the winter and zero in the summer), and that districts in southwest Saskatchewan would by default follow MT but could opt to follow CST.

It took a few years for the dust to settle (I know one story of a town on one time zone having its school in another, such that a mom had to serve her family lunch in two shifts), but presently it seems that only a few towns on the border with Alberta (e.g. Lloydminster) follow MT rules any more; all other districts appear to have used CST year round since sometime in the 1960s.

Here's how I would summarize things. Establish a "Saskatchewan" CST time zone, and note that it officially exists as of 15 April 1966. Any current exceptions can put themselves in the "Mountain" zone, since those are the rules they follow. Any past exceptions can be forgotten, since that's what those who live here have done.