Colonsay is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

in the

Rural Municipality A rural municipality is a classification of municipality, a type of local government, found in several countries. These include: * Rural municipalities in Canada, a type of municipal status in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, a ...

of Colonsay No. 342, in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British Nort ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North ...

. Colonsay is located on

Highway 16 Route 16, or Highway 16, can refer to: International * Asian Highway 16 * European route E16 * European route E016 Australia - Thompsons Road (Victoria) - South Australia Canada ;Parts of the Trans-Canada Highway: * Yellowhead ...

(the

Yellowhead Highway The Yellowhead Highway (french: Route Yellowhead) is a major interprovincial highway in Western Canada that runs from Winnipeg to Graham Island off the coast of British Columbia via Saskatoon and Edmonton. It stretches across the four western ...

part of the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on ...

) running east–west in central Saskatchewan near the intersection with

Highway 2 The following highways are numbered 2. For roads numbered A2, see list of A2 roads. For roads numbered B2, see list of B2 roads. For roads numbered M2, see list of M2 roads. For roads numbered N2, see list of N2 roads. International * AH2, As ...

. Colonsay derived its name from the

Inner Hebrides The Inner Hebrides (; Scottish Gaelic: ''Na h-Eileanan a-staigh'', "the inner isles") is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, whic ...

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

island An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be ...

Colonsay Colonsay (; gd, Colbhasa; sco, Colonsay) is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, located north of Islay and south of Mull. The ancestral home of Clan Macfie and the Colonsay branch of Clan MacNeil, it is in the council area of Arg ...

All the streets in the village are also named after islands located along the west coast of Scotland.

History

Colonsay experienced a record setting 167-day-long frost-free period in 1978, which was, to the dismay of a number of residents, still not a long enough growing season for yams or

sweet potatoes The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable. The young sho ...

. The ship U-Sea Colonsay is named after the local potash mine.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Colonsay had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Climate

Economy

The main economy of the area is agriculture featuring grain crops such as wheat, canola, barley, oats, rye, as well as lentils and peas. Livestock raised in the vicinity are cattle, hogs, sheep, and buffalo. The potash mine of Colonsay was first named Noranda Mines Potash Division then separately constituted as Central Canada Potash. Central Canada Potash was acquired by Imc. Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, Colonsay, IMC Potash Colonsay and is now Mosaic Potash Colonsay. Potash is mined and sold to crop nutrient manufacturers for fertilizer, as well as for use as icemelter ingredient and

water softener Water softening is the removal of calcium, magnesium, and certain other metal cations in hard water. The resulting soft water requires less soap for the same cleaning effort, as soap is not wasted bonding with calcium ions. Soft water also ext ...

regenerant.

Sports

Colonsay & District Sports Centre was re-opened in 2006 following fund raising efforts by the community as well as funding initiatives such as the Green Municipal Investment Fund, a joint venture of the Government of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The Sports Centre has a new heating system as well as ''ice-cube heat'' which will allow a longer artificial ice season for skaters, curlers and ice hockey players. The Colonsay Monarchs were a team that played for the Northern Saskatchewan Baseball League as of 1951.

References

External links

* {{Coord, display=title, name=Colonsay, Saskatchewan, 51, 59, N, 105, 53, W, region:CA_type:city Colonsay No. 342, Saskatchewan Towns in Saskatchewan Mining communities in Saskatchewan