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Regina is the major commercial centre of southern Saskatchewan. It is the provincial capital and was previously the territorial headquarters of the North-West Territories, of which today's provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta originally formed part. Regina was also the district headquarters of the District of Assiniboia. Regina was named in 1882 after Queen Victoria, i.e. Victoria Regina, by her daughter Princess Louise, wife of the then-Governor General the Marquess of Lorne. Its name is pronounced , as was conventional pronunciation of Latin at the time of its founding (cf. the shouts of the Westminster choir boys at coronations of British monarchs: "Vivat Rex! Vivat Regina!"). It is located at . Regina's elevation is 577 metres (1,893 ft) above mean sea level.

Regina is a cultural metropole for both southern Saskatchewan and adjacent areas in the neighbouring American states of North Dakota and Montana. It attracts numerous visitors for the vitality of its commerce, theatre, concerts and restaurants. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the see city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox Dioceses of Regina and the Anglican Diocese of Qu'Appelle.

History and profile

Origins and demographics

Demographics
According to the Canada 2001 Census:

Population: 178,225 (-1.2% from 1996)
Land area: 118.66 km² (45.8 sq mi)
Population density: 1,501.9 people/km² (3,890.1 people/sq mi)
Median age: 35.8 (males: 34.4, females: 36.9)
Total private dwellings: 74,814
Mean household income: $46,847

The metropolitan area had a population of 199,000 as of 2006 with an annual growth rate of 0.4%.

History

Also see: History of Northwest Territories capital cities

Regina was established in 1882 when it became clear that Edgar Dewdney, the lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories, eschewed the previously-established and -considered Battleford, Qu'Appelle and Fort Qu'Appelle as the territorial headquarters; these were widely considered more amiable locations for what was anticipated would be a major city, situated as they were in amply watered and treed rolling parklands whereas "Pile-of-Bones," as the site was then called, was in the midst of arid and featureless grassland.

Dewdney had acquired land adjacent to the route of the future CPR line at Pile-of-Bones, which was distinguished only by collections of bison bones near a small spring run-off creek, some few kilometres downstream from its origin in the midst of what are now wheat fields. This probably constituted an improper private interest of Dewdney's in promoting the site of Pile-of-Bones as the territorial headquarters and was a national scandal at the time, but until 1896 when responsible government was accomplished, the territorial lieutenant-governor and council governed by fiat and there was little legitimate means of challenging such decisions.

Regina attained national prominence in 1885 during the North-West Rebellion despite the fact that the Canadian Pacific Railway had still only reached the formerly designated territorial headquarters of Troy (Qu'Appelle) some 30 miles to the east, which became the marshalling point to the northwest for troops arriving from eastern Canada by train. Subsequently, the rebellion's leader, Louis Riel, was tried and hanged in Regina — giving the infant community increased and, at the time, not unwelcome prominence in connection with a figure of significance in Western Canada's history.

Regina was incorporated as a city on June 19, 1903 and was proclaimed the capital of the province of Saskatchewan on May 23, 1906 by the first provincial government, led by Premier Walter Scott.

On June 30 1912, a tornado known as the Regina Cyclone hit the community, levelling much of the young city's business district, killing 28 people, and injuring hundreds, making it Canada's deadliest tornado.

Regina's early history was of rapid growth which continued until the Great Depression began in 1929, at which point Saskatchewan had been the third province of Canada in both population and economic indicators. Thereafter, Saskatchewan never recovered its early promise and Regina's growth slowed and at times reversed.

During the 1930s and '40s and beyond, Regina was the centre of considerable political activism and experiment as its people sought to adjust to new, reduced economic realities.

The city's population has stabilized in recent years at just under 200,000 but its physical size has continued to expand as the average number of people per household continues to drop and new houses and businesses are built.

Events of national importance which occurred in Regina include the trial of Louis Riel (followed by Riel's execution) in July 1885; the Regina Manifesto, 1933; the Regina Riot, 1 July 1935 and the Saskatchewan Doctors' Strike in 1961 when medical doctors witheld their services in response to the introduction of medicare.

Climate and topography

Regina has a dry climate with cold winters and moderate daytime temperatures during the summer — it is normal to have a handful of summer evenings warm enough for bathing in residential subdivision swimming pools or al fresco dining on the numerous outdoor patios and beer gardens. Even after the hottest summer days in July and August, only a few Regina nights are warmer than "room temperature".

Precipitation is heaviest from June through August with June being the wettest month at 75 millimetres (3 in). Annual precipitation is 390 millimetres (15 in) with December, January and March having the most snowfall (80% of the total). The average daily temperature for the year is 2.8°C (37°F). The lowest temperature ever recorded was -50.0°C (-58°F) on January 1, 1885 while the highest recorded temperature was 43.3°C (109.9°F) on July 5, 1937.

The city is situated on a broad, flat and treeless, though fertile plain. There is an abundance of parks and greenspaces, but most of the trees, shrubs and other plants were hand planted. As with other prairie cities, American elms were planted and are the dominant species in the urban forest. But the streetscape is in danger. Dutch elm disease has reached the community, but has been controlled through intense pest management programs. As well, species not susceptible to this disease are being planted.

Industry and resources

Oil and natural gas, potash, kaolin, sodium sulphite and bentonite contribute a great part of Regina and area's economy. The farm and agricultural component is still a significant part of the economy but it is no longer the major driver of the economy; provincially it has slipped to eighth overall, well behind the natural resources sectors. The Innovation Place Research Park near the University of Regina hosts several science and technology companies.

Urban Planning Issues

The central business district in a prairie city

Regina has grown from a collection of wooden shanties and tent shacks clustered around the not-yet-built railway line into a modern city. In its early days, the town was served by town planners (notably Thomas Mawson and his patron, Premier Walter Scott) of astonishing foresight: Wascana Centre and Wascana Lake itself are beautiful urban park features by any standard.

However, in recent decades the central business district has suffered.

As in other Canadian cities, the disappearance of Simpson's and Eaton's retail department stores, as well as a proliferation of "big box stores" in the suburbs has hurt the downtown core. Elevated and street level pedways accessing most of downtown have helped increase foot traffic during the colder weather.

A former shopping mall has been converted into a federal office building, bringing hundreds more people into the core each day. The former location of The Bay department store is also being converted into offices. A number of condominium projects in converted offices have increased the number of people living in the area. Globe Theatre, Casino Regina and its show lounge, and many restaurants draw visitors in the evening.

Regina Downtown, the business improvement district for the area, is working to bring more people in to work, to live and for special events, such as the mid-winter Ice and Fire Festival.

Historic buildings and precincts

Many buildings of historical significance and value were lost to Regina during the period from 1945 through approximately 1970; this was one side-effect of the city's mid-centuury modernization. Regina's loss of the Romanesque Revival City Hall on 11th Avenue is a particularly unfortunate example of the phenomenon. (It was replaced by a shopping mall, which has itself now been taken over by government.)

Since the seventies, as has also occured in many other Western cities, a more historically conservationist attitude has taken hold in Regina, and old buildings have been put to new uses instead of being demolished: the transformation of the old Normal School on the Regina College campus of the University of Regina into the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage (see photo, below) is a particularly felicitous such preservation.

Natural recreational amenities

Regina has a large percentage of its overall area devoted to parks and greenspaces, with biking paths and other recreational facilities throughout the city. The City operates five municipal golf courses, including two in King's Park northeast of the city. Kings Park Recreation facilty is also home to ball diamonds, picnic grounds as well as stock car racing.

Within an hour's drive is the summer cottage and camping country in the Qu'Appelle Valley with Last Mountain and Buffalo Pound Lakes and the four Fishing Lakes of Pasqua, Echo, Mission and Katepwa; slightly farther east are Round and Crooked Lakes.

Wascana Centre

Wascana Centre is a 9.3 square kilometre (2,300 acre) park built around Wascana Lake and designed by Minoru Yamasaki — the Seattle-born architect best known as the designer of the original World Trade Center in New York — in tandem with his starkly modernist design for the new Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan.

It brings together lands and buildings owned by the City of Regina, University of Regina, Province of Saskatchewan and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, including:

Wascana Lake was created as a "stock watering hole" in 1883 when a dam and bridge were constructed to the west of the present Albert Street Bridge. A new dam and bridge were built in 1908 and Wascana Lake was used as a domestic water source and to cool the city’s power plant.

By the 1920s Wascana Lake had ceased to have utilitarian purpose and had become primarily a recreational facility, with bathing and sailing its principal uses. It was drained in the 1930s as part of a government relief project; 2,100 men widened and dredged the lake bed and created two islands using only hand tools and horse-drawn wagons.

During the fall and winter of 2003-2004, Wascana Lake was again drained and dredged to deepen it by about an average of 5 metres (16 ft).

Bedroom communities

From its first founding, Reginans have repaired to the nearby Qu'Appelle Valley on weekends and for summer holidays.

Since the 1940s, many of the towns near Regina, particularly those close to the Qu'Appelle Valley, have steadily lost population as western Canada's agrarian economy reorganised itself from small family farm landholdings of a quarter-section (160 acres, the standard land grant to homesteaders) to the multi-section (a "section" being one square mile) landholdings that are nowadays necessary for economic viability.

Some of these towns have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance as a result of the excellent roads that for many decades seemed likely to doom them; they—and to some extent the nearby city of Moose Jaw—are now undergoing a mild resurgence as commuter satellites for Regina.

Qu'Appelle enjoyed a temporary reprieve from its inexorable decline during the 1950s and '60s when Regina cottagers passed through en route to the Qu'Appelle Valley; Highway 10, which bypassed Qu'Appelle quickly ended this brief holiday; Fort Qu'Appelle remains the summer vacation resort of choice; Indian Head is far enough from Regina to have an autonomous identity but close enough that its charm and vitality attract commuters; White City and Emerald Park are quasi-suburbs of Regina, as have become Balgonie, Grand Coulee, Pilot Butte and Lumsden in the Qu'Appelle Valley, some ten miles (16 km) to the north of Regina.

Regina Beach—situated on Last Mountain Lake (known locally as Long Lake) and a 30-minute drive from Regina— has been a summer favourite of Reginans from its first establishment; Rouleau (also known as the town of Dog River in the television sitcom "Corner Gas") is 28 miles (45 km) south of Regina.

Transportation

The city's public transit agency, Regina Transit, operates a fleet of buses with access to the city centre from most areas of the city.

The CPR no longer operates regular passenger services between western Canadian cities, though in the past it constituted the principal mode of inter-urban transit. Its former station in downtown Regina — once the urban hub — has become a casino (see below). Nowadays Regina can be reached by several highways including the Trans-Canada Highway from the west and east sides and four provincial highways from other directions. The city is serviced by Ring Road, a high speed connection between Regina's east and northwest that loops around the city's east side (the west side of the loop is formed by Lewvan Drive ) with plans calling for another perimeter highway to encircle the city farther out.*

Regina International Airport, the oldest established commercial airport in Canada, has recently undergone a major upgrade and expansion to allow it handle the projected increase in traffic for the next several years. Situated on the west side of the city, it has eight gates that handle flights to major centres in Canada as well as daily flights to and from Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota via Northwest Airlines. WestJet and Air Canada Jazz airlines are also regularly scheduled in and out of Regina International Airport.

Education

The University of Regina

The University of Regina had some 12,500 students as of the 2002-2003 academic year and was rated 6th in the 2005 Maclean's magazine Canadian National Comprehensive Universities Rankings.

The University developed out of the Methodist-founded Regina College, a high school and junior college affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan.

When the financially hard-pressed United Church of Canada could no longer maintain Regina College during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Regina College was disaffiliated and surrendered to the University of Saskatchewan; it became the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan in 1961.

After a protracted contretemps over the siting of several faculties in Saskatoon which had been promised to the Regina campus, Regina Campus sought and obtained a separate charter as the University of Regina in 1974.

The original Regina College buildings on College Avenue continue in use; the old Girls' Residence is now the Regina Conservatory of Music and the old Normal School is now the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage.

Campion College and Luther College were church-run, private high schools offering junior college courses accredited by the University of Saskatchewan, on the same basis as the old Regina College. Both colleges now have federated college status in the University of Regina, as does the First Nations University of Canada.

The Regina Research Park is located immediately adjacent to the main campus and many of its initiatives in information technology, petroleum and environmental sciences are conducted in conjunction with university departments. A member in the research park is Canada's Petroleum Technology Research facility, a world leader in oil recovery and geological storage of CO2.

Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology

The Wascana campus of this province-wide technical institute is adjacent to the University of Regina. It occupies the former Plains Health Centre, formerly a third hospital in Regina which in the course of rationallizing health services in Saskatchewan was in due course closed.

As with the federated colleges of the University of Regina, however, SIAST participates in and contributes to university life to the advantage of both its own and University of Regina students.

SIAST offers diplomas in some 175 trade and semi-professional fields ranging from accountancy and auto-mechanical technician through corrections worker, dental hygiene, driving instructor, nursing and school secretarial qualifications.

RCMP national training academy

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police national training academy is on the western perimeter of the city. Regina was the headquarters of the Royal North-West Mounted Police (the RCMP'S predecessor) before "the Force" became a national body with its headquarters in Ottawa in 1920. The city takes great pride in this national institution which is a major visitor attraction and a continuing link with Regina's past as the headquarters of the Force. An RCMP Heritage Centre is planned for opening in May 2007. a

Public, separate and private schools

The Regina Public School Board operates over 50 elementary schools and ten high schools with approximately 21,000 students enrolled throughout the city. The Roman Catholic (but publicly-funded) Separate School Board operates over 20 elementary schools and five high schools. Luther College (Saskatchewan), operated by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, is the one remaining private high school of several which formerly operated in Regina, in addition to being a federated college of the University of Regina. The Western Christian College, operated by the Churches of Christ, had previously moved from Radville, Saskatchewan to Weyburn, Saskatchewan and Dauphin, Manitoba and has a total enrollment of some 100 students.

Cultural life, sports and visitor attractions

Culture in Regina

Regina has a rich cultural life in music, theatre and dance, amply supported by the substantial fine arts constituency at the University of Regina, which has a large fine arts department including faculties of music and theatre. At various times this has attracted notable artistic talent: Donald M. Kendrick and Joe Fafard have been particular stars. The Regina Conservatory of Music operates in the former girls' residence wing of the Regina College building. Regina’s multicultural community earned Heritage Canada’s designation of 2004 "Cultural Capital of Canada" (in the over 125,000 population category).

Regina lacked a large concert and live theatre venue for many years after the loss to fire of the Regina Theatre in 1938 and the demolition of the Old City Hall in 1962 at a time when preservation of heritage architecture was not yet a fashionable issue, though until the demolition of downtown cinemas which doubled as live theatres the lack was not urgent, and Darke Hall on the Regina College campus of the university provided a small concert venue.

The default was remedied in 1970 with the construction of the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts (now the Conexus Arts Centre) as a Canadian Centennial project, a theatre and concert hall complex overlooking Wascana Lake. According to its promotional literature, it is one of the most acoustically perfect concert venues in North America. The Royal Saskatchewan Museum (the present 1955 structure a Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee project) dates from 1906.

Holy Rosary Cathedral (Regina) and Knox-Metropolitan United Church have particularly impressive pipe organs, maintain substantial musical establishments and are frequently the venues for choral concerts and organ recitals.

Sports

Professional sports teams in Regina include the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League, the Regina Thunder of the Canadian Junior Football League, the Regina Red Sox of the Western Major Baseball League, the University of Regina's Regina Cougars, Regina Rams of the CIS, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the CFL.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders have the distinction of being a community-owned professional sports team. The Riders have a strong and loyal fan support base. Out-of-town season ticket holders often travel 300 to 400 kilometres (200–250 mi) or more to attend home games.

Regina's curling teams have distinguished the city for many decades. Richardson Crescent commemorates the Richardson curling team of the 1950s; in recent years Olympic Gold medal winner Sandra Schmirler and her rink occasioned vast civic pride.

Visitor attractions

Attractions for visitors in Regina include the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (museum of natural history), Saskatchewan Science Centre, the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery and numerous smaller galleries and museums, the Saskatchewan Legislative Building, Holy Rosary Cathedral, the RCMP national training centre and museum, Government House, Casino Regina, the Globe Theatre, events held at Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field , Ipsco Place (formerly Regina Exhibition Park), the venue for the annual Buffalo Days Exhibition every August and the Connexus Arts Centre (see the City of Regina website).

Some have expressed concerns about the visitor amenities at the University of Regina, such as the lack of a reception centre or, in recent years, a general-interest bookstore.

Local Media

Newspapers

The Regina Leader-Post, founded by Nicholas Flood Davin in 1883, was the original Regina newspaper of record. Published weekly by the mercurial Davin, it merged with another paper, the Regina Evening Post, and continued to publish daily editions of both before consolidating them under the title The Leader-Post. Other newspapers absorbed by the The Leader-Post include the Regina Daily Star and The Province. It is now owned by CanWest Global Communications Corp., based in Winnipeg, MB.

The Regina Sun is published by the Leader-Post and distributed free of charge.

The Prairie Dog is an alternative newspaper published by a worker co-operative and taking a left-wing editorial position.

L'eau vive is a weekly newspaper established in 1971. The only French language newspaper in Saskatchewan, its offices are located in Regina; it serves the entire province's French speaking community.

Radio Stations

Television Stations

(On Air Broadcast numbers)

Cable Stations

Famous Reginans

Notable persons who were born, grew up in or established their fame in Regina, Saskatchewan:

See also

North: Lumsden
West: Moose Jaw Regina East: Pilot Butte
South: Weyburn

Further reading

  • "Germantown" 11th Avenue East. Regina’s Heritage Tours, City of Regina, 1994.
  • Argan, William. Cornerstones 2: An Artist’s History of the City of Regina. Regina: Centax Books, 2000.
  • Argan, William. Cornerstones: An Artist’s History of the City of Regina. Regina: Centax Books, 1995.
  • Barnhart, Gordon. Building for the Future: A Photo Journal of Saskatchewan's Legislative Building. Canadian Plains Research Center, 2002. ISBN 0889771456
  • Brennan, J. William. Regina, an illustrated history. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1989.
  • Brennan, William J., ed. Regina Before Yesterday: A Visual History 1882 to 1945. City of Regina, 1978.
  • Castles of the North: Canada’s Grand Hotels. Toronto: Lynx Images Inc., 2001.
  • Chapel Royal Canadian Mounted Police "Training Academy", Regina, Saskatchewan (brochure), 1990.
  • Drake, Earl G. Regina, the Queen City. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1955.
  • Hughes, Bob The Big Dig: the Miracle of Wascana Centre. Regina: Centax Books, 2004.
  • Neal, May. Regina, Queen City of the Plains: 50 Years of Progress. Regina: Western * Printers. 1953.
  • Regina Court House Official Opening (brochure), 1961.
  • Regina Leader Post
  • Riddell, W. A. The Origin and Development of Wascana Centre. Regina, 1962.
  • The Morning Leader

External links

Attractions

Regina, Saskatchewan | Cities in Saskatchewan | Provincial and territorial capitals of Canada

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