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There’s been much talk lately about the imagined province of Buffalo — one large western province between Manitoba and British Columbia.

That was Territorial Premier Frederick Haultain’s proposal when the question of provincehood was first debated in the North-West Territories assembly in Regina in November 1896.

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“A dream of one large province holding its own in confederation, the most powerful province in confederation” Haultain rhapsodized, “would be a much more desirable thing … than a number of small areas confined in their powers and their influence.”

Saskatoon

It was a dream of the region as a whole, in its entirety — the physical expression of a territorial identity.

It was not, however, a dream of a stand-alone entity, separate and apart from Canada.

Nor was Haultain, in any sense, a western separatist.

He just wanted the region to have the ability, especially the finances, to meet the growing service and infrastructure demands of the great settlement boom of the late 1890s.