Today, when the citizens of Saskatchewan vote, the people of the province typically know with some certainty who is going to take the office that evening. In 1905, when the province was voting for its first premier, that was not the case.
Yorkton had some confidence in their MLA quite quickly, with the Yorkton Enterprise declaring victory for Thomas Garry of the Liberal Party. His opponent was W.D. Dunlop who was running for the Provincial Rights party. The Enterprise gave credit for his victory to the large foreign-born vote in the region. At the time, the morning after the election, there were 10 polls that still needed to report.
Garry went on to take the district with a majority of 239. This was reported in the December 27, 1905 edition of the Enterprise. The December 20 edition had a note that there was not reliable polling information at that time and many of the reports from Winnipeg-based papers was conflicting, and that the official results for the Yorkton district would not be known until the next week, though they were confident that Garry would win.
Back in the December 13 edition of the Enterprise, early election results declared a likely provincial victory to Frederick Haultain, leader of the Provincial Rights party. In a special telegram sent to the Enterprise at the last possible minute – dated December 14 at 2:00 p.m., after the official publishing date of that week’s paper – predicted that it was highly probable that Thomas Walter Scott of the Liberals would be defeated “if nothing crooked is attempted.” The polls were neck and neck for the two parties, with Haultain leading in 11 seats to Scott’s 7, with 7 seats in doubt.
In the next edition of the Enterprise, the seats in doubt were given to Scott, who was judged most likely to take the seat as the province’s first premier, from what it described as a reliable source in Regina. The final, official result tipped the scales further in favor of Scott, with 16 seats to Haultain’s 9. Scott officially became the first premier of the province.
Yorkton had another problem on its hands, an excess of grain. A plea was put out for more train cars to help move grain from the city, with mayor W. D. Dunlop declaring the situation the worst in the city’s history, with every vacant spot in town filled with grain. While the mayor at the time was assured that more cars would be forthcoming, it remained a problem in the city, and the following week a petition was published demanding more grain cars be sent to the city.
While waiting to ship grain or get the election results, what could you do? An advertisement at the time suggested drinking piping hot Bovril, possibly with some cold milk.
