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Situated on the east side of the river valley, North Battleford's downtown core is arranged into streets running north-south and avenues running west-east, forming a central gridiron that intersects with Railway Avenue, which runs southeast to northwest. Across the river, some 5km away, Battleford sprawls next to Hwy 4, its streets running from west to east and avenues from north to south.

On the Yellowhead Highway, just east of North Battleford, this town's branch of the Western Development Museum (May-Sept daily 9am-5pm, Oct-April Wed-Sun 12.30-4.30pm; $6) deals with the farming history of Saskatchewan. Inside, vintage vehicles and a "Jolly Life of the Farmer's Wife" exhibit of old ranges and laundry equipment recall older, and harder, times, while outside in the Heritage Farm and Village that contains 36 buildings, saved from around the province, including tiny churches and homesteads, banks, a general store, creaky barns and a grain elevator from 1928. The museum is a wonderful way to acquaint yourself with prairie history and realize the harshness and the changes in farming life over the last century. Try to visit on the second weekend in August when the "ghost" village comes alive in the "Those Were the Days" event, which features costumed locals bread-baking and craft-making.

The old municipal library in the centre of North Battleford , at 1091 100th St at 11th Avenue, now houses the Allen Sapp Gallery (May-Aug daily 1-5pm; Sept-April Wed-Sun same hours; free), showcase for the work of Allen Sapp, a local Cree who is often in attendance dressed in flamboyant cowboy boots, a wide-brimmed stetson and long braids. Perhaps the best known of Canada's contemporary native artists, Sapp trawls his childhood recollections of life on the Red Pheasant reserve in the 1930s for most of his material. His simply drawn figures are characteristically cast in the wide spaces of the prairies, whose delicately blended colours hint at a nostalgic regard for a time when his people had a greater sense of community.

From North Battleford there are two roads over the North Saskatchewan River: a modern flyover that's part of Hwy 16, and the shorter old Route 16A. In Battleford, the Fred Light Museum , at 11 20th St E at Central Avenue (mid-May to Aug daily 9am-8pm; free), has a substantial collection of early firearms and military uniforms and a replica of an old general store, but is thoroughly upstaged by Fort Battleford National Historic Site (mid-May to mid-Oct daily 9am-5pm; $4), overlooking the river valley from the top of a steep bluff just down the road, accessed from Central Avenue. At the entrance to the park, the visitors information centre (tel 937-2621) provides a general introduction to the fort and, next door, the restored barracks contains a display explaining its history, assisted by well-informed, costumed guides.

Within the replica stockade stand four original buildings, including the Sick Horse Stable , where the delicate constitutions of the Mounties' horses - most of which came from Ontario - were coaxed into accepting the unfamiliar prairie grasses. Centrepiece of the park is the Commanding Officer's Residence , which has been returned to its appearance in the 1880s. Broadly Gothic Revival in style, the hewn-log house contains an enormous carved bed-head and a couple of magnificent black-and-chrome oven ranges, which must have been a nightmare to transport this far west. However, the house was not as comfortable as it seems today, principally because the high ceilings made the rooms almost impossible to heat. As the first commanding officer, James Walker, moaned in 1879, "This morning with the thermometer 37 degrees below, water was frozen on the top of the stove in my bedroom".