About Regina

Regina (pronounced /r??d?a?n?/) is the capital of Saskatchewan, Canada. The city is the second largest in the province (after Saskatoon), and is a cultural and commercial metropole for southern Saskatchewan. Its summer agricultural exhibition was originally established in 1884 as the Assiniboia Agricultural Association and since the mid-1960s has been styled "Buffalo Days".^[1] It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic^[2] and Romanian Orthodox^[3] Dioceses of Regina and the Anglican Diocese of Qu'Appelle.^[4] Citizens of Regina are referred to as Reginans.

Regina was previously the headquarters of the North-West Territories, of which today's provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta originally formed part, and 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.^[5]

Unlike other planned cities in the Canadian West, on its treeless flat plain Regina was a tabula rasa, without topographical features other than the small spring run-off Wascana Creek. Early planners took advantage of such opportunity by damming the creek to create a decorative lake to the south of the central business district and constructing the elaborate 840-foot (260 m) long Albert Street Bridge^[6] across the new lake. Regina's importance was further secured when the new province of Saskatchewan designated the city its capital in 1906.^[7] Wascana Centre, created around the artificial focal point of Wascana Lake, remains Regina's signal attraction and contains the Provincial Legislative Building, both campuses of the University of Regina, the provincial museum of natural history, the Regina Conservatory (in the original Regina College buildings), the Saskatchewan Science Centre,^[8] the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts.

Residential neighbourhoods in Regina are largely indistinguishable from those in other western Canadian cities but several precincts beyond the historic city centre are historically or socially noteworthy. Immediately to the north of the central business district is the old warehouse district, increasingly the focus of shopping and residential development;^[9] as in other western cities of North America, the periphery contains shopping malls and big box stores. Regina is Canada's 18th-largest metropolitan area by population. In 1912, Regina was a focus of international attention when the Regina Cyclone destroyed much of the town;^[10] in the 1930s, the Regina Riot brought further attention and, in the midst of the 1930s drought and Great Depression, which hit the Canadian Prairies particularly hard with their economic focus on dryland grain farming.^[11] The CCF (now the NDP, the major left-wing political party in Canada), formulated its foundation Regina Manifesto in Regina.^[12] In recent years, Saskatchewan's agricultural and mineral resources have come into new demand, and it is anticipated that it will enter into new period of strong economic growth.^[13]

Founding

Regina was established in 1882 when it became clear that Edgar Dewdney, the lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories (as they then were), eschewed the previously established and considered Battleford, Troy and Fort Qu'Appelle (the latter two both some 30 miles to the east), as the territorial headquarters: these were widely considered more amiable locations for what was anticipated would be a far more major metropole for the Canadian plains than actually eventuated, situated as they were in amply watered and treed rolling parklands whereas "Pile-of-Bones," as the site was then called,^[15] was in the midst of arid and featureless grassland. Regina viewed from the Trans-Canada Highway to the west of the city, demonstrating the extreme flatness of the Regina Plain. Note central business district to the left centre of photo; legislative building to the right.

Lieutenant-Governor 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. There was an "obvious conflict of interest" in Dewdney's promoting the site of Pile-of-Bones as the territorial headquarters^[16] and it was a national scandal at the time,^[17] but until 1897, when responsible government was accomplished in the Territories,^[18] the lieutenant-governor and council governed by fiat and there was little legitimate means of challenging such decisions outside the federal capital of Ottawa, where the Territories were remote and of little concern. Commercial considerations prevailed, however, and the town's authentic development soon began as a collection of wooden shanties and tent shacks clustered around the site designated by the CPR for its future station, some two miles to the east of where Dewdney had reserved substantial landholdings for himself and where he sited the Territorial (now the Saskatchewan) Government House.^[19]

Climate

Regina has a humid continental climate (Koppen climate classification Dfb) (though as humidity levels are rather low, this a misnomer) with strong semi-arid influences with warm summers and cold, dry winters, prone to extremes at all times of the year. Average annual precipitation is 390 mm (16.5 inches) and is heaviest from June through August, with June being the wettest month with an average of 75 millimetres of precipitation. The average daily temperature for the year is 2.8°C (37.04°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 (110°F) on July 5, 1937.^[40]

Economy

Oil and natural gas, potash,^[49] kaolin, sodium sulphite and bentonite contribute a great part of Regina and area's economy. The completion of the train link between eastern Canada and the then-District of Assiniboia in 1885, the development of the high-yielding and early-maturing Marquis strain of wheat and the opening of new grain markets in the United Kingdom established the first impetus for economic development and substantial population settlement.^[50] The farm and agricultural component is still a significant part of the economy — the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (now Viterra Inc.,^[51]), "the world's largest grain-handling co-operative" has its headquarters in Regina^[52] — but it is no longer the major driver; provincially it has slipped to eighth overall, well behind the natural resources sectors.

Modern transport has obviated the development of a significant manufacturing sector and indeed, until recently re-vivified, local petroleum refining facilities: the General Motors assembly plant north on Winnipeg Street, built in 1927 — when Saskatchewan's agricultural economy was booming and briefly made it the third province of Canada after Ontario and Quebec in both population (at just under one million people, roughly the same population as today^[50]) and GDP — ceased production during the depression of the 1930s. It was resumed by the federal crown during World War II and housed Regina Wartime Industries Ltd., where 1,000 people were engaged in armaments manufacture.^[53] It was not returned to private automotive manufacture after the war and became derelict. Imperial Oil long maintained a large refinery on the northern outskirts of Regina and IPSCO Inc., a leading world producer of steel plate and pipe and as of July 2007 a wholly owned subsidiary of the Swedish steel company SSAB, began in Regina in 1956 as Prairie Pipe Manufacturing Company Ltd; while the bulk of its assets and customers are now in USA and it has its operational headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, it retains its registered office and substantial manufacturing facilities in Regina.^[54]

Imperial Oil (the Canadian subsidiary of Standard Oil, now ExxonMobil), for many years maintained a refinery in Regina; today with high world petroleum prices making the exploitation of Saskatchewan oil resources an unprecedentedly lively proposition, Federated Co-op maintains an 103,000 barrel/day refinery and, together with the Province, an upgrading operation for heavy oil.^[55]

Crown Life, a significant Canadian and international insurance company, transferred its national head office from Toronto to Regina in 1996 but was acquired by Canada Life in 1998 and the corporate head office returned to Toronto, though with assurances that the company would retain a strong presence in Regina.^[56] (In fact Crown Life totally ceased operations in Regina in 2007 and terminated all local employees.)

On 19 May 2009 it was announced that Viterra (formerly Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, becoming Viterra after acquisition of Agricore United), the largest grain handler in Canada, will acquire ABB Grain of Adelaide, South Australia in September 2009. The Head Office will be relocated to Regina, with the worldwide malting headquarters remaining in Adelaide. The two companies together are responsible for 37 percent of the world's exports of wheat, canola and barley.^[57][58][59]

The provincial government continues to be a major driver in the civic economy, though its relative importance is declining.^[52] The Regina Research Park immediately adjacent to the University campus hosts several science and technology companies which conduct research activities in conjunction with University departments.

Regina has a substantial cultural life in music, theatre and dance, supported by the fine arts constituency at the University of Regina, which has faculties of music, theatre and plastic arts. At various times this has attracted notable artistic talent: the Regina Five were artists at Regina College (the University's predecessor) who gained national fame in the 1950s; Donald M. Kendrick, Bob Boyer and Joe Fafard, now with significant international reputations, have been other stars. The Regina Conservatory of Music operates in the former girls' residence wing of the Regina College building. Annual festivals in and near Regina through the year include the Cathedral Village Arts Festival; the Craven Country Jamboree;^[60] the Regina Folk Festival;^[61] the Regina Dragon Boat Festival;^[62] and Mosaic, mounted by the Regina Multicultural Council,^[63] which earned Heritage Canada’s designation of 2004 "Cultural Capital of Canada" (in the over 125,000 population category).^[64] As in other cities and towns across Canada the annual Kiwanis Music Festival affords rising musical talents the opportunity to achieve nation-wide recognition.

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 1906 City Hall in 1964 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 and stage venue. (See Regina's historic buildings and precincts.)

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 which is one of the most acoustically perfect concert venues in North America;^[65] it is home to the Regina Symphony Orchestra (Canada's oldest continuously performing orchestra^[66]), Opera Saskatchewan and New Dance Horizons, a contemporary dance company.^[67] The Royal Saskatchewan Museum (the present 1955 structure a Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee project^[68]) dates from 1906.^[69] The old Post Office at Scarth Street and 11th Avenue, temporarily used as a city hall after the demolition of the 1906 City Hall, is now home to the Globe Theatre, founded in 1966 as "Saskatchewan's first professional theatre since 1927."^[70] Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Cathedral^[71] and Knox-Metropolitan United Church have particularly impressive Casavant Frères pipe organs, maintain substantial musical establishments and are frequently the venues for choral concerts and organ recitals.

The Regina Public Library is a city-wide library system with nine branches playing key roles in their respective neighbourhoods. Its facilities include the RPL Film theatre which plays non-mainstream cinema, the Dunlop Art Gallery, special literacy services and a prairie history collection.^[72] The Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery in Wascana Centre and the Dunlop Art Gallery have permanent collections and sponsor travelling exhibitions.^[73]

Regina has a substantial proportion of its overall area dedicated as parks and greenspaces, with biking paths, cross-country ski-ing venues and other recreational facilities throughout the city; Wascana Lake, the venue for summer boating activities, is regularly cleared of snow in winter for skating and there are toboggan runs both in Wascana Centre and downstream on the banks of Wascana Creek. Victoria Park is in the central business district and numerous greenspaces throughout the residential subdivisions and newer subdivisions in the north and west of the city contain large ornamental ponds to add interest to residential precincts such as Rochdale, Lakewood, Lakeridge, Spruce Meadows and Windsor Park; older school playing fields throughout the city have also been converted into landscaped parks.^[74]

The City operates five municipal golf courses, including two in King's Park northeast of the city. Kings Park Recreation facility is also home to ball diamonds, picnic grounds, and stock car racing. Within half an hour's drive are the summer cottage and camping country and winter ski resorts 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, also in the Qu'Appelle Valley, and to the southeast the Kenosee Lake cottage country.

Wascana Centre is a 9.3 square kilometre (2,300 acre) park built around Wascana Lake and designed in 1961 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.^[75] Wascana Lake was created as a "stock watering hole" — for the CPR's rolling stock, that is — in 1883 when a dam and bridge were constructed 1½ blocks 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, to cool the city’s power plant and, in due course, for the new provincial legislative building.^[76]

By the 1920s with the Boggy Creek source of domestic water Wascana Lake had ceased to have a utilitarian purpose and had become primarily a recreational facility, with bathing and boating 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.^[76]

During the fall and winter of 2003–2004, Wascana Lake was again drained and dredged to deepen it while adding a new island, a promenade area beside Albert Street Bridge, water fountains, and a waterfall to help aerate the lake.^[77]

Downstream from Wascana Lake Wascana Creek continues to provide a lush parkland on its increasingly intensively developed perimeter; in the northwest quadrant of the city Wascana Creek has a second weir with a smaller reservoir in A.E. Wilson Park.

Public transportation

Regina formerly had an extensive streetcar (tramway) network but now has no streetcars, trains or subways. The city's public transit agency, Regina Transit, operates a fleet of 110 buses, on 16 routes, 7 days a week with access to the city centre from most areas of the city. A massive fire at the streetcar barns, on January 23, 1949, destroyed much of the rolling stock of streetcars and trolley buses ^[103] and helped to propel Regina's diesel bus revolution in 1951, although until well into the 1970s the streetcar rails remained in the centre of many major streets, ready to be returned to use should city transit policy change. Because of the 1949 fire, original Regina streetcar rolling stock was rare, though through later years a few disused streetcars remained in evidence — a streetcar with takeaway food, for example, on the site of the Regina Theatre at 12th Avenue and Hamilton Street, until the Hudson's Bay Company acquired the site and built its 60s-through-90s department store there.

The CPR no longer operates regular passenger services, though in the past railway passenger trains constituted the principal mode of inter-urban transit among Western Canadian cities. Its former station in downtown Regina — once the urban hub — has become a casino. 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 served 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.^[104]

Regina International Airport^[105] is situated on the west side of the city and is the oldest established commercial airport in Canada.^[14] The current, continuingly expanded, 1960 terminal replaces the original 1940 Art Deco terminal; it has recently undergone further major upgrades and expansions to allow it to handle increases in traffic for the next several years.

Domestic water, originally obtained from Wascana Lake and later the Boggy Creek reservoir north of the city and supplemented by wells, is supplied from Buffalo Pound Lake in the Qu'Appelle Valley, an artificial reservoir on the Qu'Appelle River, since 1967 with water diverted into it from Lake Diefenbaker behind the Gardiner Dam on the South Saskatchewan River.^[106] Electricity is provided by SaskPower, a provincial Crown corporation which maintains a province-wide grid with power generated from coal-fired base load, natural gas-fired, hydroelectric and wind power facilities.

Medical services are provided through two city hospitals, Regina General and Pasqua (formerly Grey Nuns) and by private medical practitioners, who, like hospitals, remit their bills to the public universal medical insurer, the Saskatchewan Medicare system.^[107]

Notes

 References

External links

Coordinates: 50°27?17?N 104°36?24?W? / ?50.45472°N 104.60667°W? / 50.45472; -104.60667

• City of Regina
• Bethune weather RADAR station
• A gallery of professional quality images of Regina and area from photographer Siamandas
• In Regina website Website devoted to all things in and around Regina
• City of Regina Transit
• Tourism Regina
• Wascana Park
• Map of Regina at Statcan
• [3] Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan