Saskatoon's Prairie Lily riverboat cancels all summer voyages due to low water levels

Alex Kozroski · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 08, 2025 2:05 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Extremely debased h2o levels successful the South Saskatchewan River person near 1 of Saskatoon's biggest tourer attractions precocious and dry.

The Prairie Lily riverboat usually cruises the river, giving tours of Saskatoon and the Meewasin Valley. This year, debased h2o levels and sandbars person made it excessively dangerous. With debased h2o levels and build-ups of silt changing the riverbed's ecosystem, the boat's owners accidental they won't beryllium capable to tally any cruises for the full summertime season.

Joan Steckhan, the co-owner of the Prairie Lily is inactive hopeful for business, adjacent if it's not retired connected the river.

"I situation anybody to person a nicer venue, a amended patio platform and the ship, the view," Steckhan said. "We thought radical loved this ship, truthful adjacent if we can't sail, we inactive person dinners, we've inactive got brunches, we've inactive got vino tastings, we've started having dockside drinks."

With a important deficiency of precipitation successful Alberta, the h2o level successful Lake Diefenbaker has caused the Water Security Agency to support travel done the Gardiner Dam debased for the 5th consecutive year. One important rainfall lawsuit successful precocious June brought immoderate anticipation successful raising the levels, but it wasn't capable to summation the travel astatine the dam from 70 cubic metres, which is astir fractional of the yearly average.

"From a tourism perspective, Discover Saskatoon does this truly large occupation of promoting the river," Steckhan said. "What we person is specified a unsocial mounting present successful Saskatoon and unluckily that isn't available. So a batch of what we bash to merchantability this metropolis has been damaged."

In May, Steckhan's company called for the Water Security Agency (WSA) to merchandise much h2o into the stream to let for the Prairie Lily to embark.

WSA president and CEO Shawn Jaques said this week that the low-flow h2o conditions don't impact overmuch different than navigation connected the river.

"We would similar to spot much h2o coming into Lake Diefenbaker to assistance summation the flows connected the South Saskatchewan River," Jaques said. "Without the dam, determination would person been a play of clip for astir apt implicit a period wherever it would person been down to astir 50 cubic meters per 2nd due to the fact that that's each that was flowing connected the Saskatchewan River, but due to the fact that of the retention successful the lake, we were capable to merchandise a spot more."

WATCH | Low h2o levels person Saskatoon's Prairie Lily Riverboat docked for full summer: 

Jaques said having capable h2o for quality depletion and irrigation outweighs recreation.

"I cognize determination are immoderate activities impacted and I bash recognize done the metropolis of Saskatoon, the h2o level is little than we would each similar to spot it," said Jaques. "I deliberation it has a debased interaction connected those ecosystems and food populations."

Steckhan said that this was already planned to beryllium their past play astatine the ship's helm and that she is inactive hoping to merchantability the riverboat.

"If we tin negociate a sale, Captain Mike [Steckhan] and I are inactive committed to moving with a aboriginal owner, moving adjacent year, hoping that the River Valley does get the attraction it needs and making definite that Saskatoon successful Saskatchewan inactive has a truly amusive attraction to proceed into the future."