Outlook sits on the South Saskatchewan River in west central Saskatchewan, about 80 kilometres south-southwest of Saskatoon. Farmers and immigrants looking for farmland began moving into the area in the early 1900s, and the settlement officially began on August 26, 1908, when the Canadian Pacific Railway started auctioning town lots.
On November 23, 1908, the townspeople welcomed the first train, which came from Moose Jaw. Within the month the CPR was running a tri-weekly service hauling in great piles of lumber, though the demand for new buildings far outstripped the supply of workers and materials. The Outlook CPR Station was built in 1909, and on November 1, 1910, Outlook was officially declared a town. That same year a fire that started in the hardware store spread until it had swallowed a city block.
In 1912 the Skytrail bridge was finished, letting passengers and commercial traffic cross the South Saskatchewan River for the first time without taking the ferry. The old railway bridge was later converted for pedestrian use, though it has been closed since 2013 because of unsafe conditions.
Today the old station houses the Outlook & District Heritage Museum, with more than 2,500 artifacts from the area. The town is also home to Outlook & District Regional Park, founded in 1961, the Equinox Theatre community theatre group, and the Lutheran Collegiate Bible Institute. A research facility on the edge of town, the Canada Saskatchewan Irrigation Diversification Centre, tests crops under dryland and irrigation.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Outlook, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.