| White Bear | |
| Settlement Type: | Unincorporated community |
| Pushpin Map: | Saskatchewan |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | Canada |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Name1: | Saskatchewan |
| Subdivision Type2: | Region |
| Subdivision Name2: | Southwest Saskatchewan |
| Subdivision Type3: | Census division |
| Subdivision Type4: | Rural municipality |
| Subdivision Name4: | Lacadena No. 228 |
| Leader Title: | Governing body |
| Established Title: | Established |
| Established Title2: | Incorporated (village) |
| Established Title3: | Dissolved |
| Population As Of: | 2006 |
| Population Total: | 13 |
| Population Density Km2: | 8.8 |
| Timezone: | CST |
| Coordinates: | 50.8808°N -108.2186°W |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal code |
| Area Code: | 306 |
| Blank Name: | Highways |
| Blank Info: | Highway 342 |
| Blank1 Name: | Waterways |
White Bear is an unincorporated community in the Rural Municipality of Lacadena No. 228, Saskatchewan, Canada. Listed as a designated place by Statistics Canada, the hamlet had a population of 15 in the Canada 2006 Census.[1] The community is approximately 55miles northwest of Swift Current on the north side of the South Saskatchewan River.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, White Bear had a population of 25 living in 10 of its 13 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 10. With a land area of, it had a population density of in 2021.[2]
The community's name comes from the sighting of a probable but now extirpated white prairie grizzly bear by an Assiniboine warrior on the shores of a neighbouring lake during the Palliser Expedition of the 1850s. Records from early Metis settlers and the North-West Mounted Police state the last roaming herd of American buffalo being slaughtered in the hills of the Missouri Coteau located 25miles northeast around 1879.
During the 1930s, White Bear was a bustling community of approximately 250 residents with two grocery stores, a school, four grain elevators and three garages servicing an area of 200 families, but has since dwindled to a population of 15 in 2006. Part of the decline is attributed to federal policy Canadian National Railway rail line in that area of Saskatchewan. The region rarely suffered poor crops, except during the droughts of the Great Depression and 1988. It is connected to the rest of the province through Highway 342, a now-decrepit road featuring signs with Imperial units in portions. Farmers from the area played prominently in the socialism that later defined Saskatchewan and then Canada through the introduction of Medicare and state-ran insurance. The White Bear Hotel remains the only business in operation.