The Long Fight to Build Highway 37 (1924–1937)
- 16 hours ago
- 2 min read
If you’ve ever driven Highway 37 north toward Cabri or south toward the border, you’re travelling a road that didn’t just “happen.” It was fought for—repeatedly—by a town that understood how vital good roads were to the survival of rural Saskatchewan.
The campaign began as early as 1924, when the Gull Lake council formally petitioned the provincial government to build a proper highway north from town. At the time, roads were little more than rutted trails, often impassable in spring and unreliable in winter. For farmers, businesses, and families, a dependable north–south route wasn’t a luxury. It was a lifeline.
According to council minutes, the effort became increasingly persistent. By 1930, the council’s vision expanded. They urged the Minister of Highways to build an all‑weather road stretching from Highway 1 all the way to the U.S. border—the route that would eventually become Highway 37. The advocacy didn’t stop, even during the hardest years of the Depression. In 1937, the council again pressed the province to finish building the northern section to Cabri.
It took more than a decade of letters, petitions, meetings, and persistence, but the work paid off. Highway 37 became one of the region’s most important transportation corridors—connecting farms to markets, families to services, and communities to one another.
Today, it’s easy to take that stretch of pavement for granted. But the story behind it is classic Gull Lake: determined, practical, and rooted in the belief that when the region is connected, everyone is stronger.
Gull Lake Events
📖 Source: Gull Lake Memories: A History of the Town of Gull Lake
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