There was a flutter of excitement in Regina earlier this year as over 20,000 citizens voted for their choice for Regina’s Official Bird. The winner? The feisty black-capped chickadee with more than 8,500 votes, beating out the second-place red-breasted nuthatch by nearly 2,500 votes!

“The black-capped chickadee is the perfect embodiment of Regina to me,” shares Dr. Ryan Fisher, Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. “It’s a hardy little bird that makes a living year-round in Regina – it’s smart, resourceful, and best of all, you can see it anywhere in the city! Without the protection and management of all the old trees in Regina, we probably wouldn’t have as many chickadees that we do today.”

The selection cements the black-capped chickadee as a part of our living and cultural heritage, building on Regina’s new certification as a Bird Friendly City, received from Nature Canada in 2022. Our natural heritage is an intrinsic part of our cultural heritage – our wild spaces, and the wildlife that inhabit them, are as much a part of our city’s heritage as our people and buildings are. As a Bird Friendly City, Regina is firmly announcing itself as invested in our natural heritage.

As Regina has grown over the years, urban influence on wildlife and habitat has grown, too. 437 species of birds are found in Saskatchewan, many native to Regina and the surrounding prairies. As their natural habitats shrink – in this case, becoming more urban – mitigations are crucial for the survival of our birds.

Regina’s ranking as a Bird Friendly City is currently entry-level, as we are just beginning to work on improving protection for bird species. The designation strives to encourage municipalities to work towards being a haven for birds, and in doing so Regina joins other municipalities across Canada including Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Vancouver.  One area of concern to be addressed in Regina is window strikes—when a bird mistakenly flies into a window—which kill more than a billion birds in North America every year. Window strikes can be reduced by simply placing stickers on windows.

“When people think of nature, they often think about leaving the city to go on a hike or heading to the lake, but in fact nature can be found throughout our urban centres if you take the time to look,” explains Ellen Bouvier, Communications Manager at Nature Saskatchewan.  “Birds play a significant role in the health of our city, from pest control to pollination, and birdwatching offers many recreational and mental health benefits.  Nature Saskatchewan is proud that the City of Regina has taken the steps to become a Bird Friendly City.”

Regina’s 2,300-acre Wascana Centre is a critical component to protecting bird populations and their habitat. Over 276 bird species call the park home each year, whether they are year-round residents (like the black-capped chickadee or the infamous Canada goose) or use the park as a stopover during their seasonal migrations. Around 257 acres of the park is designated as a federal Migratory Bird Sanctuary which provides federal protections to migratory birds and their nests. The east end of Regina also boasts the 171-acre McKell Wascana Conservation Park, an equally important sanctuary for both grassland and wetland bird species.

The city has also established a “no-roam” bylaw, which mandates that pets, particularly cats, are not allowed to roam freely outdoors. House cats pose a significant predation threat to various bird species in the city, particularly during nesting. Keeping pets indoors ensures that birds within the city’s residential spaces are not placed under excess pressure, particularly species who live elsewhere and are migrating through the city.

Regina’s new designation as a Bird Friendly City is an important step in the right direction towards bird conservation in our city. Our native species are integral parts of our natural heritage, and as a result should be spared no effort to ensure that these populations can remain a part of our living heritage, rather than relegated to the history books.

Additional Resources:

Bird Friendly City webpage – City of Regina

Bird Friendly City: A Certification Program – Nature Canada

With thanks to Ellen Bouvier at Nature Saskatchewan, and Dr. Ryan Fisher at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum for their contributions to this article.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Government House on March 7 for Family Tree 101! We were overwhelmed by the interest, and will definitely be taking feedback about expanding any future genealogical events!

In the meantime, we’ve compiled a list of the genealogical resources that our partner organizations showcased at the event. These are great places to get started with your genealogical research.

Regina Public Library

With your library card, you can access several resources on their website here: https://www.reginalibrary.ca/digitalservices/genealogy

Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan

The Provincial Archives have a webpage dedicated to family history research: https://www.saskarchives.com/using-the-archives/family-history-research. You can search archival records online, or visit them in-person during the week and have one of their friendly archival specialists help you get started!

Saskatchewan Genealogical Society

This organization has a selection of resources on their website https://saskgenealogy.com/, and offers a research service for a fee. You can find information about the service here: https://saskgenealogy.com/research-services/.

Keep an eye on our website and social media so that you’re the first to know about any upcoming events!

Heritage Regina board member John Robinson joined CBC’s The Morning Edition this weekend. Hear about how John and his brother, Frank, kept warm in their hand-built homestead shack during the extreme temperatures that gripped the prairies last week: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-205-saskatchewan-weekend/clip/16036698-why-two-brothers-spent-weekend-extreme-cold-homestead

The accompanying article can be found here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/homestead-shack-1.7090109

To hear about how John, Frank, and their team built the homestead shack, be sure to join us on January 27 for John’s lectures, and see our on-site homestead replica and interactive tool demonstrations! For more information see our events calendar: https://heritageregina.ca/event/the-robinson-homestead-2024-lecture-series/

George Reed: October 2, 1939 – October 1, 2023

Photo: Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame

By Tom Fuzesy

George Reed was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on October 2, 1939. Reed played college football at Washington State University (alongside future Saskatchewan Roughrider star receiver Hugh Campbell!). Undersized for the NFL, and with CFL salaries as good (if not better) than NFL salaries at the time, he signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders as a running back in 1963. Reed made an immediate impact as a powerful fullback and was an instant fan favourite: he was voted Most Popular Player in his first year.

In a two-game total point Western Semi Final against Calgary, the Riders first lost 35-9. In the second game, however, they came back, scoring 39-12, and won the series at 48-47, a coup which has been called “The Little Miracle of Taylor Field”. George Reed was the hero of this game, scoring the winning touchdown from 10 yards out with only three minutes left.

Reed kept improving, too: in 1963 he rushed 751 yards on 173 carries. In 1964 it was 1,012 years on 185 carries, and in 1965 it was 1,768 yards on 274 carries for an amazing 6.5 yards a carry. He averaged 111 yards on 17 carries per game. On Oct 24, 1965, Reed rushed for 268 yards in a Rider 30-14 victory over BC, clinching a playoff spot. It was the CFL’s second-best rushing performance in a single game (behind Ron Stewart’s 287 yards in 1960). Reed was the first Roughrider to win the Schenley Award for Most Outstanding Player in the CFL in 1965.

After making it to, but not through, the playoffs four years in a row, in 1966 the Roughriders defeated Winnipeg in two straight games, putting them in the Grey Cup game for the first time since 1951. Their final hurdle was the Ottawa Rough Riders.

Ottawa scored the first touchdown, but Saskatchewan came back to tie the game. In the 4^th quarter, SK scored two touchdowns, winning the game 29-14. Saskatchewan’s first Grey Cup win! George Reed, of course, scored the last touchdown on a 31-yard run. In total, he rushed 23 times, for 133 yards. He was voted MVP that game.

1967-1969 were very successful times for George Reed and the Riders. Reed rushed for well over 1,000 yards every year through 1969, was named to the CFL all-star team every year from 1965-1969 and was runner-up to the league’s Most Outstanding Player award in 1968 and 1969. Saskatchewan, and Canada, loved the man with the heart and the talent.

The Riders had 37 wins, 10 losses and one tie from 1967-1969. In the 1967 Grey Cup, they lost 24-1 against Hamilton. In the leadup to that game, the Riders had played four playoff games, including three in eight days for the ‘best of three’ Western conference final, while Hamilton had only played two playoff games in the Eastern conference final, resulting in a tired Riders lineup. In 1969, they lost the Grey Cup once again, 29-11 against Ottawa – Ottawa had simply outplayed them in that game.

1969 marked the eighth consecutive year of making the playoffs, and making the Grey Cup for three out of the previous four years. Their success was a team success but George Reed was a very critical component. His powerful running style made him the best fullback in the CFL.

As the 1970s dawned, George Reed and the Saskatchewan Roughriders were achieving a significant amount of success, having won at least 12 games out of 16 in each of their previous three seasons. The future certainly looked bright, and they won 14 of 16 games in their 1970 season.

Unfortunately, Reed suffered a knee injury in Ottawa on Aug 11, 1970. Initially diagnosed as a bad bruise, he was only out for a single game. As he continued playing, however, it became clear that his knee was not getting better, and it was X-rayed. Two months after the initial injury, Reed discovered he had fractured his tibia — and played eight games on a broken leg. Doctors put him in a cast, and he was put on a 30-day injury list.

Reed returned to play for the best of three western final playoffs against Calgary. Although the Riders went in with a 14-2 season, they lost twice to Calgary. The deciding game was lost 14-12 on a bitterly cold day in Regina. Reed, still rehabilitating his knee, was not in top form.

In 1971, Reed returned with a healthy knee and continued his scorching pace, becoming a CFL all-star once again and retaining the honour through 1974.  In 1972, he became president of the CFL Players Association—the first American to hold the title. One of his first goals was to increase the number of Canadians playing in the CFL.

1972 was also George Reed’s final Grey Cup appearance. The Riders got there with a heart-stopping, last-second field goal giving them a 27-24 come-back win over Winnipeg in the western final. Without a doubt, Reed’s 156 rushing yards and two touchdowns helped the Riders storm back after being down 24-7 in the 3^rd quarter.

The Grey Cup was a less stellar affair for Reed: Hamilton won 13-10 in a snooze of a game.

Reed’s 1973 season was particularly memorable. In an August 20^th game against Ottawa, he rushed 81 yards, helping bring Saskatchewan an 18-12 victory. More importantly, those 81 yards secured him the pro-football all-time rushing record, beating the previous record holder (Jim Brown, of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns) by a single yard. With 12,312 rushing yards to his name, George Reed was now the record holder.

1973 also saw Reed celebrated at home. On October 7, during a BC-SK game, the City of Regina proclaimed October 7 as George Reed Day. He was joined on the field at halftime by his wife, Angie, children Keith, Vicky and Georgette, his mother, and six sisters. The ceremony included a heart-shaped Snowbirds flyover. Reed certainly lived up to the day by scoring three 4^th-quarter touchdowns for a 24-9 Saskatchewan victory.

After months of speculation, George Reed announced his athletic retirement on May 31, 1976. After 13 years with the Roughriders, he ended his career with multiple rushing and scoring records to his name, including 16,116 rushing yards and 137 touchdowns. Reed’s fantastic career was honoured at Taylor Field on October 24^th during halftime in a game against Winnipeg. A crowd of 22,508 gave Reed, to this day an iconic symbol of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a thunderous standing ovation.

While Reed’s highs in Saskatchewan were sky-high, there were lows as well. He faced a lot of racism when he first arrived: in 1963, he had to stay in a hotel for two years, because no landlord would rent an apartment to him. Landlords would quickly tell Reed that an apartment was already rented when he came to look at a place, only for the same rental to be available to any of his friends who called and inquired. Only once he became famous after earning his Most Outstanding Player Award was he able to rent his own apartment. He discovered that there was a rule that capped the number of Black players on each CFL team. He even noticed that some of his teammates refused to shower at the same time as him. He noted in his 2011 autobiography that “I realized [Regina] wasn’t as tolerant as people made it out to be”. Despite all of this, George chose to make Regina home, and the fans embraced him. He gave back enormously to the community.

While George is celebrated for his athleticism and career, he is equally celebrated for his philanthropy and dedication to his community. Throughout his CFL career, Reed was a strong advocate for children with disabilities, working with the Special Olympics and the Saskatchewan Council for Crippled Children and Adults since the late 1960s. In 1975, he formed the George Reed Foundation, a charity focused on supporting programs for individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities. His legacy lives on in his foundation, which continues to be a financial supporter and resource for those in need today.

Tom Fuzesy is a volunteer for Heritage Regina, and an avid sports fan, researcher, and local sports historian.