The Road to Shiloh: The Untold Story of the First Black American Community on the Saskatchewan Prairies

From Jim Crow to the Last Best West

In 1910, twelve African American families from Oklahoma journeyed north to claim the promise of a better life in the Canadian West. Among them was Julius Caesar Lane, a former enslaved man whose legacy, and that of his family, is intertwined with the history of Saskatchewan’s first Black community. The settlement, anchored by Shiloh Baptist Church now a designated Provincial Heritage Property —near Maidstone, became a symbol of resilience, faith, and dete...