Big Dig (Regina, Saskatchewan) - Amenities

Amenities

Wascana Centre includes a Waterfowl Park that provides a refuge for geese, ducks and other birds, some of which do not fly south for the winter. Speakers' Corner on the north shore of Wascana Lake features gas lamps from London and birch trees from Runnymede Meadow where King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215 .

To the immediate east of the legislative building is Trafalgar Fountain, one of a pair of fountains in Peterhead granite designed by Charles Barry and built by McDonald & Leslie, Aberdeen. The fountain stood in London, England's Trafalgar Square from 1845 to 1939. The twin of this fountain is located in Confederation Park, Ottawa. This one has been dedicated to the 1882 founding of the North-West Mounted Police Headquarters in Regina.

Wascana Centre contains many facilities, amenities and attractions, several long-predating the Centre's establishment. They include the following:

• three museums, including the Royal Saskatchewan Museum and the Saskatchewan Science Centre;
• the Conexus Arts Centre (known from 1970 till 2006 — and still largely known — as the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts) concert hall and theatre complex;
• the "new" 1966 campus of the University of Regina (formerly the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus);
• the Regina Research Park;
• the Lakeshore Tennis Club
• the Regina College campus of the University of Regina;
• the Regina Conservatory of Music (in the old girls' residence wing of the Regina College building);
• the Darke Hall theatre and concert venue on the Regina College campus of the University of Regina;
• the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery;
• the CBC's Regina Broadcast Centre, which houses CBK (AM), CBK-FM, and CBKT
• the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage; and
• the provincial Legislative Building.
• Wascana Waterfowl Park, Wascana Lake east of Broad Street bridge. "Each April, about 225 pair of Canada Geese begin nesting in the Park. Most nest on man-made Goose Island which provides protection for them during nesting. The Wascana Waterfowl Park also has resident populations of mammals including muskrat, mink, Jack rabbit, Richardson's ground squirrel, red fox, and beaver."
• the Wascana skateboard park located just east of the Saskatchewan Science Centre.

Immediately to the east of the originally Methodist Regina College complex is the former Anglican Diocesan property. This has not been absorbed into the Wascana Centre, but is being commercially developed with considerable strictures to maintain the historic ecclesiastical structures and green space. It contains the former St Chad's College (originally an Anglican theological seminary, which formally vacated to the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon), the Qu'Appelle Diocesan School (the Anglican Sisters of St John the Divine maintained St Chad's private girls' school on the premises until 1970 but the Anglican Church, like the United Church, no longer maintains any secondary or tertiary education involvement in Regina); the former Bishops Court and assorted ecclesiastical structures. The entire property was sold to the provincial Crown in the 1970s and has now been further sold for residential and commercial development.

The Centre also contains attractive venues for cross country skiing and skating during winter and tennis, bicycling, running, and motorized water sports during summer. Much of the lake-bottom dredgings from the deepening of Wascana Lake were added to an existing artificial hill on the north shore of the lake, across from the new campus of the University, creating a much larger winter toboggan run.

When Regina hosted the 2005 Canada Summer Games, most of the event venues and athlete accommodations were located in the Wascana Centre.