As I mentioned before this June 30 is the 100th Anniversary of the Regina Cyclone – actually an F4 Tornado – that hit on a hot summer weekend and devastated Regina and killed 28 people (still the deadliest tornado in Canada’s history).
And last evening as a commemorative walking tour took place in downtown Regina, the city and the province were under tornado warnings. A few did indeed touch down – outside of Moose Jaw and in Pense along the Number One highway between Moose Jaw and here (if you’ve driven across the Prairies this is where you say, my isn’t this flat, really).
I took these pictures of Mammatus clouds at 9 last eve just outside of the Bushwakker Brew Pub (built out of the rubble in 1913, and which has an enormous collection of archival photos of the 1912 tornado lining all of its walls, and great beer) in the Warehouse District in Regina.
The 1912 tornado came from the south in two funnel clouds, swept past the new Legislative Building, had a dip in Wascana Lake, then travelled through downtown creating havoc and destruction (more on that on June 30) and across / through the railway lines and into the Warehouse District. The streets around Bushwakker were destroyed and a number of people died. The railway line is right across the street from Bushwakker – and these clouds. That's the Rough Riders Taylor Field off to the west in the photo at the right.
from the Regina Plains Museum, Saskatchewan Archives
