r/saskatoon

How busy is pike lake on weekends? I am
Not a frequent visitor and saw a post on fb about an hour wait and wanted to know if thats true

Went on the Prairie Lily recently, and they mentioned that they started operations in 2012.

I would have sworn there’s been a river boat operating for the last 30-40 years… Google says no, but I don’t necessarily trust Google AI.

Am I just wrong? Was there anything operating even for a little while in the 90s?

Hey everyone, a while back I posted a survey here about local shopping habits for a university market research project. We hit our quota, wrote up the findings, and I promised I'd share back with the community, so here's the plain-language version.

Quick disclaimer: this was a student project (COMM 357 at USask), not professional market research. Our sample was 162 survey responses plus 6 interviews, which is enough for a class project but too small to be considered representative of the whole city or province. Findings below reflect the opinions of the people who responded, not objective facts about any business.

The short version:

Saskatchewan folks genuinely like the idea of shopping local. People consistently said they want to support local producers, feel good about keeping money in the community, and would recommend local businesses to friends. That part was loud and clear across both the survey and interviews.

But liking the idea and actually doing it aren't always the same thing. A few things kept coming up as the real deciding factors:

• Price still matters, a lot. People who said price was important to them reported noticeably weaker preference for local products than people who didn't prioritize price. Over half of respondents agreed that price stops them from shopping local more often.
• Quality has to hold up. "It's local" isn't enough on its own, people want to feel like they're getting something genuinely good, not just paying more because it's local.
• Younger people are the toughest crowd. Respondents aged 18 to 24 showed a noticeably weaker preference for local Saskatchewan products compared to older age groups. This wasn't about being anti-local, it seemed more about not seeing enough clear value to justify it yet.
• Just knowing a business exists isn't enough to get people to shop there. Familiarity helped people feel more positively about a brand in general, but it didn't reliably translate into actually planning to shop there in the next few months. There's a real gap between "I've heard of them" and "I'm going to go."
• Word of mouth and social media are king. By far the two biggest ways people discover local businesses. Traditional ads barely factored in.
• The strongest predictor of whether someone plans to shop local wasn't price, wasn't how familiar they were with a brand. It was simply how much they personally value supporting local businesses. That values-based motivation mattered more than anything else in our stats.

What this might mean for local businesses:

• Leaning on "we're local!" alone probably isn't enough anymore. Pairing that with a clear reason the product is worth it (quality, story, uniqueness) seems to land better.
• Getting people from "never heard of you" to "somewhat familiar" seems to matter way more than trying to turn already loyal customers into superfans. That first step up is where the biggest shift happens.
• Word of mouth and referrals from existing happy customers might be more valuable than traditional advertising for driving new local shoppers.
• If younger shoppers are a priority, messaging probably needs to speak more directly to value and relevance rather than assuming local pride alone will do the work.

Thanks again to everyone who took a few minutes to fill this out, this genuinely wouldn't have been possible without this community.

I’m at my wits end trying to replace a specific jelly cat of my daughters that she got in Edmonton. She unfortunately left it at outside at recess on the last day and the school says it probably went home with another kid at the end of the year… Online is sold out and yes I have reached out tot eh company. We have tried multiple stores in the city but hoping for more suggestions where else sells them. It must not be a very common one. Any suggestions where else to look? I don’t mind driving out of the city because I feel awful that this happened. I only let her take stuffies because it was their last day movie party and it was included in the email kids could bring them….

Any suggestions on good ways for highschool students to get to to school? The city bus pass for students seems to be nearly $700 per year which seems a bit insane. Am I looking at the wrong pricing? Are there any other options? When it's nice riding a bike is an option but thats not going to work for a lot of the year.

Im looking to buy stainless steel pipes that are like a foot or 2 long. Most places ive searched just carry super long ones for contruction or just sell in bulk. I obviously dont need that much as its for a home project.

Need 1.75in stainess steel pipe

Cleaned out my closet today and have a bunch of clothes in good condition (some with price tags on). Most of them are trendy clothes in style but are from Urban Planet.

Any stores places that would take these?

We have had water in our basement the last several years. Who has had a similar issue and had someone fix it? Name drop companies please! Foundation crack issue

I know there is high water flow but could someone confirm/ tell me where to look for the actual speed?

I would really like to go paddleboard today—if not the river, does anyone know of alternatives nearby? (not pike lake)

Could I paddle near Chief whitecap? Any insight appreciated!

Where in Saskatoon has confirmed cherry cheesecake hard ice cream?! Anyone found any recently?