What to See in Regina - Top Sights and Attractions

Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Wascana Centre is a 930-hectare urban park built around Wascana Lake in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, established in 1912 with a design from renowned architect Thomas Mawson. The park is designed around the Saskatchewan Legislative Building and Wascana Lake. High-profile features include the University of Regina, Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Conexus Arts Centre, Saskatchewan Science Centre, and CBC Regional Broadcast Centre. Wascana Centre brings together lands and buildings owned by the City of Regina, University of Regina, and Province of Saskatchewan. The park is located immediately south of the city's downtown core, bordered by residential areas on the east, south and west, and on the south-east edge it spills out onto open Saskatchewan prairie along Wascana Creek.

Wascana lake was created in 1883 by damming Wascana Creek, a low flow seasonal run-off stream, to serve as a reliable water reservoir for the town and railway, and which residents readily began using for recreation. In 1905 Saskatchewan gained provincial status and planning began on a monumental – and in retrospect wildly optimistic – new capital building in Regina, a vision which required an equally monumental landscaping plan. The new Saskatchewan Legislative Building was completed in 1912 and with it the 1912 Mawson Plan for Wascana Park.

By the 1950s the city was growing rapidly and pressures on the park led to its incorporation as the Wascana Centre Authority (1962), with a mandate to establish an ongoing vision protecting the park as a valued asset of the city and province. The first Master Plan was developed the same year in conjunction with a new University of Saskatchewan campus to be built on the southeast end of the park. A revised Master Plan has been published every five to seven years since, the most recent being 2016.

In 2017 Wascana Centre Authority was dissolved and management was absorbed into the Saskatchewan government's Provincial Capital Commission.^[2]

Stadium in Regina, Saskatchewan. Mosaic Stadium is an open-air stadium in Regina, Saskatchewan. Announced on July 12, 2012, the stadium replaced Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field as the home field of the Canadian Football League's Saskatchewan Roughriders. It was designed by HKS, Inc. in joint venture with B+H, the architects of record. Preliminary construction on the new stadium began in early 2014, and it was declared "substantially complete" on August 31, 2016. The stadium is owned by the city of Regina and operated by the Regina Exhibition Association Ltd..

The stadium soft opened with a university football game between the Regina Rams and the Saskatchewan Huskies on October 1, 2016. The Roughriders moved into the stadium for the 2017 CFL season. It hosted the 2019 NHL Heritage Classic and will host the 109th Grey Cup in 2022.^[3]

Museum in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Royal Saskatchewan Museum is a Canadian natural history museum in Regina, Saskatchewan. It was established in 1906 as the Provincial Museum after Charles Noddings stole a large boulder with a carved face on it in the Beaver Hills area on December 25, 1905. When Noddings donated the Grandfather to the Province of Saskatchewan, the stimulus for a provincial museum was born. The first museum in Saskatchewan, and the first provincial museum in the three Prairie Provinces, the institution was formed to secure and preserve natural history specimens and objects of historical and ethnological interest. This museum received royal patronage from Queen Elizabeth II, and was renamed the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in 1993.^[4]

Museum in Regina, Saskatchewan. The MacKenzie Art Gallery is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds eight galleries totaling to 2,200 square metres of exhibition space.

The museum originates from a private collection donated to Regina College (later the University of Regina) from Norman MacKenzie. In 1953, the college established the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery in order to exhibit works from that collection. In 1990, the art museum was incorporated as an independent institution from the university, and moved into the T. C. Douglas Building at the southwestern edge of Wascana Centre.

The MacKenzie Art Gallery's permanent collection has over 5,000 works spanning over 5,000 years of Canadian history. In addition to exhibiting works from its collection, the museum has also organized, and hosted a number of travelling arts exhibitions.^[12]

Building in Regina, Saskatchewan. Queen Elizabeth II Court is the city block containing Regina City Hall, a 16-storey office tower in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The city hall is built in the International Style.

Opened in 1976, "he construction manager was Poole Construction Limited and the architect, Joseph Pettick. It cost CA$10.1 million." It replaced two previous city halls—built in 1885-86 and 1908—and a temporary one in the old post office on 11th Avenue at Cornwall Street.

By the time the cornerstone was laid in 1906 for the second, the "gingerbread city hall," "he wooden building which had served as Town Hall and as Regina's first City Hall was no longer sufficient for the city's needs. This is not surprising, since the tiny wooden building was used as City Chambers, the police station, the fire hall, a school, a public meeting hall and a banquet hall."

The 1908 building "was grand in scope and size, emphasizing the confidence city fathers saw in the future of the city. Built on 11th Avenue between Hamilton and Rose Streets (where the Alvin Hamilton Building housing Service Canada now stands), the new building was ornately decorated. It was often known as 'The Gingerbread Palace.' Constructed between 1906 -1908, it came into use in 1908 as a city hall, centre of arts, music and literature, and a banquet hall. Like its wooden predecessor, the massive stone structure was used for everything from lectures to dances – even boxing matches were held within its hallowed walls. However, by 1963, the revered old hall was showing its age and all civic offices were moved to the Old Post Office building. The building sat vacant for two years until it was demolished in 1965 to make room for the Galleria Shopping Centre (renamed the Alvin Hamilton Building)."

The temporary city hall in the old post office (the "Prince Edward Building"), was used as a substitute from 1963 to 1975 for the city hall on 11th Avenue between Hamilton and Rose Streets, which had been closed and demolished without plans for any long-term replacement. It is most substantially used as theatre by Globe Theatre, Regina. The current City Hall does not contain or provide facilities for public social and ceremonial activities as its 1910 predecessor did, they not being available elsewhere in Regina then but now are. The current building is far more largely for office work.

The City of Regina in 2002 undertook an energy efficiency audit and environmental upgrade to the building.^[13]

Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Victoria Park is a public park in the centre of downtown Regina, the capital of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

The park is the size of two city blocks, bordered north and south by 12th Avenue and Victoria Avenue, and east and west by Scarth Street and Lorne Street. The centre of the park divides north and southbound Cornwall Street. On the north side of the park is City Square Plaza, a stone paved plaza encompassing part of 12th Avenue and part of the park, used for festivals and the Regina Farmers Market. On the south side of the park is a children's play area in the south-east corner and a memorial of John A. Macdonald (until its removal in 2021) at the south central entrance at Cornwall Street. The north-west corner has small maintenance buildings and the centre of the park is the focal point where the cenotaph is located amidst a raised circular area covered in pavement stone and surrounded by a circular wall.

Originally a treeless square that was set aside in 1883, it was renamed after Queen Victoria in 1907. Since that time it has received considerable improvements including many trees, the Regina Cenotaph, and a children's playground. The original centerpiece of the park was the Davin Fountain, named after Nicholas Flood Davin, local Member of Parliament and founder of the Regina Leader-Post newspaper. The fountain was removed in 1926 when the Cenotaph was erected in its place.^[14]