“We get children in here, and you can not believe how excited the elementary school children get.” Sharon Clark is an archivist at the Rosetown library. “And I’ll show them books and say, this is older then your parents, older then your grandparents, and older then their grandparents. Because I do have some books that are over 100 years old.

February 3rd to 9th has been proclaimed as Saskatchewan Archives week. The annual proclamation is used to shed a light on Saskatchewan archives and the important roll they play in our communities.

“If you don't store it, your going to forget where you came from,” Sharon says. “If you forget where you come from you don't have the true ability to go forward.”

From the tens of thousands of photographs archived in the provincial systrem, a photo was selected from Rosetowns collection to help promote the acclaimed week.

“It goes back to 1916,” says Sharon. “It’s five swathers being pulled by a Rumely pull tractor, and it’s south of Rosetown because of a building in the back.”

While much of actual archives exist as paper, books, microfilm, and artifacts, a surprising amount of the provincial collection has been digitized. That collection has also been made incredibley easy to access and search,

To begin your dive into Saskatchewan’s history just visit the Archives associations website at www.scaa.sk.ca.