I stepped onto the cracked mudflats of Lake Diefenbaker in late April, my boots sinking slightly into what should have been submerged shoreline. What struck me wasn’t just the exposed lake bottom stretching out farther than usual, but the worried expressions of the farmers and community members who had gathered at the shore that morning.
“I’ve lived here forty years and I’ve never seen it like this so early in the season,” said Eleanor Weisgerber, a third-generation farmer whose irrigation system draws from these waters. She gestured toward the retreating waterline, at least 50 meters farther out than normal for this time of year. “We haven’t even hit summer, and I’m already wondering if we’ll have enough to get through August.”
Lake Diefenbaker’s water levels have dropped to concerning depths this spring, triggering alarm across Saskatchewan communities that depend on the reservoir for drinking water, irrigation, and recreation. The massive reservoir, which supplies water to about 60 percent of Saskatchewan’s population through its connected river systems, now sits at levels that would typically be seen during late summer drought conditions.
According to the Water Security Agency, Lake Diefenbaker is currently more than 2.5 meters below its normal spring level. This significant deficit represents billions of cubic meters of missing water in a province already experiencing drought conditions across 95 percent of agricultural land, following one of the driest winters on record.
“We’re watching a slow-motion water crisis unfold,” explained Dr. John Pomeroy, director of the Global Water Futures Program at the University of Saskatchewan. “The reservoir system was designed for variability, but the combination of low mountain snowpack, minimal spring runoff, and increasingly warmer temperatures is creating unprecedented pressure.”
The roots of the problem trace back to last summer’s drought, followed by a winter that brought little snow to the Rocky Mountains, where much of the South Saskatchewan River’s flow originates. When I visited the headwaters region in Banff National Park earlier this year, Parks Canada staff showed me snowpack measurements that revealed depths 40 percent below historical averages.
For communities downstream, the implications are profound and complicated. Lake Diefenbaker feeds the Gardiner Dam, which regulates water flow into the South Saskatchewan River system that supplies cities including Saskatoon and provides irrigation for hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland.
In Outlook, Saskatchewan, the irrigation hub nearest to the reservoir, I met with Kevin Wingert, who operates a 3,000-acre farm with crops dependent on irrigation from the lake. His weathered hands traced invisible lines on a local map showing water distribution channels. “We’re already being told to prepare for allocation reductions of up to 30 percent,” he said. “That’s not just losing yield—that’s potentially losing whole crop sections and the income that comes with them.”
The Water Security Agency confirmed in a statement that if significant rainfall doesn’t materialize, irrigation allocations will likely see unprecedented restrictions by June. Municipal water supplies currently remain secure, but conservation measures are being encouraged early as a precaution.
Darlene Desjardins manages the Lake Diefenbaker marina at Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park, where docks that normally float in meters of water now sit awkwardly on exposed shoreline. “We’re moving everything farther out, but tourism is already taking a hit. People are cancelling fishing trips because boat launches aren’t reaching the water in some spots.”
The Gardiner Dam, one of the largest earth-fill dams in the world, now faces complex operational decisions. Release too much water, and late-summer levels could become critically low; hold back too much, and downstream communities and ecosystems suffer immediately.
“We’re essentially borrowing from our future water savings account without knowing when we’ll be able to make deposits again,” explained
