There's a single highway that connects it to the rest of the country, and it's 550km to the nearest major city. That highway doesn't actually run to the town though; in the winter there's an ice road, and in the summer there's a ferry from the west side of the lake.
If you're stranded in the bush near there, you're pretty much hoping that you can signal an aircraft that can land on the lake and pick you up. My guess is that the SaskPower repair/rescue crew probably came in via helicopter. I'm going to spend a few minutes here looking at the satellite view to try to find the power line (I can almost guarantee that it's a single one that links Wollaston Lake and Hatchet lake)
Edit: didn't find the power line, but did find confirmation that the repair was helicopter:
> "We have to charter a helicopter to fly the line to find out what the issue is and that's what we did on Friday. We discovered the four poles that were toppled and discovered him as well."
> The man had been out on the lake in a boat when bad weather struck. His rather dire circumstances may save him from the financial consequences of his unorthodox rescue signal -- which could cost the utility upwards of $100,000 to repair.
It's also worth noting that Saskatchewan is not very populated in general, either. There are 1.2M people, in an area 1.5x the size of California (which has 39.5M). At least 500K of those are way south of Wollaston, in Regina and Saskatoon.
There is no one around when you're up that far north. You're not getting overflights the way you might in the US. There are 3 flights (~30 max passengers each) daily to CZWL (Wollaston) by one SK airline - there's one other airline that might service it, not sure. There might be a few other small aircraft, but in an area with about 1k people, not many. So, yeah - you are not getting rescued without being lucky, and/or taking drastic measures.
Really, though, that's true once you leave the 49th parallel. In general, you get about half way up through the provinces in Canada, and there is nothing much left to go find.
Not quite true in northwest BC and all of AB are exceptions, AB due to oil, BC may be the same and/or mining. Then you have to get up into the territories.
You sound like you're around here :). I'm in Regina. If you're nearby and want to grab coffee, my email's in my profile. There aren't too many SK HNers...
Alas, no, I'm a Vancouverite. I just travel north a bit here and there, and to the prairies on occasion. You pick things up, and, well, there's not a huge amount of difference (in density at least) between northwest BC and northern SK/MB, so a lot of the same points apply.
And of course, there's always google for the numbers when I (somewhat inevitably) forget them.
