Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Prairie participants in this year's Grey Cup, are the Siamese twins of the Canadian heartland.
In the national consciousness, they represent a sleepy place where grid roads divide endless fields of wheat, where nothing important ever happens and where, if you're any good, you leave, says Bill Waiser, a distinguished historian at the University of Saskatchewan.
But the Prairie tiger economies are roaring in a way they haven't for 100 years. And as the new century brings new prosperity, the provinces once thought to have so much in common have never been more different.
Saskatchewan is swaggering these days. For the first time since the Great Depression, it's more prosperous than Manitoba. Real-estate values in Saskatoon and Regina have exploded in the past year, fuelled by a popular belief that those who went west in search of Alberta's riches are coming home to the saner life in Saskatchewan.
"It seems to me the change has occurred in Saskatchewan, not Manitoba," said Warren Cariou, a Saskatchewan-born writer and the director of the centre for creative writing and oral culture at the University of Manitoba. "Saskatchewan's idea of itself has radically transformed, and it may be only in the last two years."
After 60 years on top, being called the poor cousin is a source of trepidation in Manitoba, where economic growth is more modest. Until recently, the two provinces were usually neighbours on any given national index - from crime, where they often had the worst rates in the country, to the economy, where they were typically in the middle of the pack.
But oil and gas have made Saskatchewan rich, forcing it out of equalization and into the rarefied domain of the "have" provinces. Potash and uranium mining are booming, too, and in a few years oil sands and oil shale development could make the province even wealthier. Although Saskatchewan's economy is more diverse now than it once was, it may still be vulnerable to the boom and bust of non-renewable resources.
Manitoba has one of the most diverse economies in the country, with manufacturing, agriculture and mining among the important sectors, but it has no overwhelming success story to trumpet. Unlike Saskatchewan, which residents are now calling Alberta Light, Manitoba has pinned its future to green energy, primarily hydroelectric, geothermal and wind. As its neighbour draws steadily closer to Alberta, Manitoba finds its economic interests more closely aligned with Quebec and British Columbia, and even with such U.S. states as Minnesota and Wisconsin, where Premier Gary Doer has forged alliances on climate change and energy sales.
Politically, the two provinces have similar two-party systems, but this year Saskatchewan sent an NDP government packing after 16 years in office, while Manitoba re-elected its NDP leader with a third straight increased majority. Mr. Doer, who bet on the Grey Cup with his counterpart Brad Wall, said he dislikes the year-to-year comparison between the provinces.
"All the West is doing well and that's good. Our growth has been steady over the last five years and we don't worry about one year over another, we worry about steady growth. Our GDP this year is projected to be third-best in Canada and next year is projected to be second-best in Canada," Mr. Doer said. "Saskatchewan has had more spurts than we've had, but I think it's great. Both of us are enjoying a return of our people from across the country."
Growing up in Meadow Lake, Sask., Prof. Cariou said Alberta always loomed larger than Manitoba for his group of friends.
"We thought of Alberta as a place that we envied but also despised. There was something about it that was crass and we thought we'd never become like that, and yet there was a clear desire to," he said.
"We had a kind of pride but it was something you'd want to keep to yourself, or certainly never express beyond the borders of Saskatchewan, because you'd be belittled and made fun of."
That has changed. Saskatchewan has grown more brash and assertive. Television hits such as Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prairie, both set in the province, play up the stereotypes of rural Saskatchewan in a way the community embraces, and they have projected the province onto the national screen and beyond.
But that vision of rural prairie life is disappearing. More than two-thirds of people in both provinces live in cities today.
"A lot of recent criticism has started to argue, or wonder at least, whether that notion of the Prairies is an anachronism," Prof. Cariou said. "So much of Prairie identity in that 1960s-to-1990s era was tied to a nostalgia for a rural past of homesteaders and the dustbowl, a generation that had a huge impact on Prairie history. ... I don't think we have the same connection to those rural stories that we used to have."
In Manitoba, about 8 per cent of the population belongs to a visible minority, many of them immigrants from Asia and Africa, and about 13 per cent are aboriginal. Saskatchewan is less visibly multicultural, and has a native population of a similar size.
Prof. Waiser argues that it may be the aboriginal population that is the most significant commonality between the provinces. It's projected that they could make up a third of Saskatchewan's population by mid-century.
"Aboriginal peoples are the future of Manitoba and Saskatchewan," he said. "The fortunes of the two provinces will depend in large part on how well they integrate aboriginal peoples in future."