Regina audiotours

Regina's origin story is characteristically plains-blunt. The site was known as Wascana, a Cree word meaning 'pile of bones,' for the bleached buffalo carcasses left by hunters along the creek. When the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1882 and the North-West Territories needed a capital, Queen Victoria's daughter-in-law Princess Louise renamed it Regina -- Latin for queen -- and the city started its transformation from a collection of tents into a genuine urban center in under a decade. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's most iconic institution, established their training academy here in 1885 and still operate it today, offering public tours of the parade square and chapel.

Wascana Centre, the park system built around an artificial lake in the city's heart, ranks among the largest urban parks in North America -- at 930 hectares it dwarfs Central Park by several times.

The Saskatchewan Legislative Building sits at its edge, a Beaux-Arts dome rising from the flattest skyline imaginable, beautiful in its improbability. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, the CFL team with the most loyal fans in Canadian football, give the city an outsized sporting identity that fills Mosaic Stadium on autumn Sundays with a sea of green.