Northern Saskatchewan's Boreal Shield Ecozone was home to at least 400 generations of cultures. The most visible of the region's archaeological sites are vertical bedrock outcroppings on which paintings in a durable reddish-brown pigment have been applied. At this writing 70 sites are known. This comprises about ten per cent of the sites which may be designated part of the "Canadian Shield rock art style." Some 700 sites extend from Saskatchewan in the northwest, then eastward through Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Minnesota and Michigan.
~ Atlas of Saskatchewan
| Pictographs |
“Why would they do it?” an archaeologist asked me rhetorically. “They aren’t work: this is they don’t produce food of clothing or make houses. Think how hard this must have been to do, how long it must have taken. Their people must have seen it as important, and it follows, then that these must have had to do with their spiritual life.”
~ Sharon Butala, Coyote’s Morning Cry
This page originally included several photographs of pictographs from various locations in Northern Saskatchewan, part of the Institute for Northern Studies fonds at the University of Saskatchewan's University Archives and Special Collections. In May 2022, we removed these culturally significant images since we did not have permission to include them. This is part of our efforts and ongoing learning to be respectful custodians of collections relating to Indigenous communities.
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