Lloydminster is a city in Canada straddling the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city is incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administration.
History
left|thumb|Barr colonists in 1903
Intended to be an exclusively British utopian settlement centred on the idea of sobriety, Lloydminster was founded in 1903 by the Barr Colonists, who came directly from the United Kingdom. At a time when the area was still part of the North-West Territories, the town was located astride the Fourth Meridian of the Dominion Land Survey. This meridian was intended to coincide with the 110° west longitude, although the imperfect surveying methods of the time led to the surveyed meridian being placed a few hundred metres (yards) west of this longitude.
The town was named for George Lloyd, an Anglican priest who would become Bishop of Saskatchewan in 1922. Lloyd was a strong opponent of non-British immigration to Canada. During a nearly disastrous immigration journey, which was badly planned and conducted, he distinguished himself with the colonists and replaced the Barr Colony's leader and namesake Isaac Montgomery Barr during the colonists' journey to the eventual townsite.
The town developed rapidly: by 1904, there was a telegraph office as well as a log church; in 1905, the Lloydminster Daily Times started publication and the first train arrived on July 28. Its main north–south street, today named Meridian Avenue (or 50th Avenue), along which stores, businesses and the post office began locating, was situated right on the Fourth Meridian, although the actual road right-of-way was located in Saskatchewan. To comply with temperance principles, alcohol was not available in Lloydminster for the first few years after its founding.
Beginning in 1900, calls for provincial autonomy in Western Canada grew, including from Frederick Haultain and James Hamilton Ross, two members of the Legislative Assembly of the North-West Territories. Haultain and Ross initially proposed that the districts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Assiniboia, and Athabasca be merged to create one province. However, feeling that such a large province would be too large to administer, Parliament chose to create the two new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905. Lloydminster residents petitioned for the new border to be revised so as to encompass the entire town within Saskatchewan, without success. Lloydminster functioned as two towns with separate municipal administrations until the provincial governments agreed in 1930 to amalgamate the towns into a single town under shared jurisdiction. The provinces, again jointly, reincorporated Lloydminster as a city in 1958.
The majority of Lloydminster's population lived on the Saskatchewan side until recent decades; in the 2011 Canadian Census, nearly two-thirds of the city's population lived on the Alberta side. In 2000, the city hall and municipal offices were moved from Saskatchewan to an Alberta location on Meridian Avenue, also known as 50th Avenue, which runs along the Fourth Meridian.
Despite its bi-provincial status, Lloydminster was not exempted from anti-smoking legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. Citizens responded by initiating a referendum against the wishes of the mayor, as permitted in the charter, which resulted in the enactment of a citywide anti-smoking bylaw. The matter became moot when Alberta enacted its own anti-smoking legislation, which was the solution that the mayor and council preferred.
Geography
The provincial border runs north to south, falling directly on 50th Avenue (Meridian Avenue) in the centre of Lloydminster. Meridian Avenue north of the Yellowhead Highway (also named 44th Street) remains the main downtown street for stores, offices and businesses, with some also located on the intersecting east–west streets. Addresses east of 50th Avenue are considered to be in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan and addresses west of 50th Avenue are considered to be in Lloydminster, Alberta. The city is bordered by the County of Vermilion River, Alberta, on the west, the Rural Municipality (R.M.) of Britannia No. 502, Saskatchewan, on the northeast and the R.M. of Wilton No. 472, Saskatchewan, on the southeast. The majority of the large retail properties serving the city, including larger stores, gas stations and hotels, are located in its Alberta portion, in particular along the Yellowhead Highway west of Meridian Avenue and along the Alberta side of 50th Avenue south of the Yellowhead Highway.
Lloydminster's distinctive situation is reflected in other legal matters, including its time zone. Most of Saskatchewan does not observe daylight saving time, instead staying on Central Standard Time year-round. However, Alberta mandates daylight saving time. Lloydminster's charter allows the city to follow Alberta's use of daylight saving time on both sides of the provincial border in order to keep all clocks within the city in synchronization. This has the effect of placing Lloydminster and the surrounding area in the Mountain Time Zone along with Alberta. During the summer therefore, the entire city is on UTC−06:00—Mountain Daylight Time, which is the same as the rest of Saskatchewan where the time is defined as Central Standard Time. During the winter, Lloydminster is on Mountain Standard Time with the rest of Alberta, which is UTC−07:00, and is therefore one hour behind the time in the rest of Saskatchewan.
The provincial line divides the city in two aspects related to communications. Telephones on the Saskatchewan side are assigned to area codes 306 and 639, the two area codes assigned to that province, while land lines on the Alberta side have numbers in the 780 and 587 area codes, the two area codes assigned to northern Alberta. Similarly, Saskatchewan addresses have a postal code with a forward sortation area designation (first three characters) of "S9V", and addresses in Alberta have postal codes beginning with "T9V". All postal codes in Canada beginning with the letter "S" are assigned to Saskatchewan, and those beginning with "T" belong to Alberta.
Climate
Lloydminster experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb), which approaches a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc) due to May and September being only marginally above . Winters are long, cold and dry, while summers are short, warm and moderately wet. Year-round precipitation is fairly low, with an average of , whilst the dry winters restrict snowfall to .
The coldest temperature ever recorded was on 13 January 1911. The highest temperature ever recorded in Lloydminster was on 12 July 2002. The record high daily minimum was recorded July 10, 2001.
|date=1 May 2016
|source 2= weatherstats.ca (for dewpoint and monthly&yearly average absolute maximum&minimum temperature)
Demographics
thumb|left|The flags of Saskatchewan and Alberta flanking the flag of Canada in Lloydminster