HISTORICAL EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE ON THIS DAY IN CANADA

30 June

Regina Saskatchewan, after the cyclone

Tornado Hits Regina - Hundreds Are Homeless

June 30, 1912, was a Sunday. Regina was decorated to celebrate Dominion Day on the morrow, but the flags hung listlessly in the still air in a temperature of 100 degrees. The sun was a crimson glare in a sullen pink sky.

Regina had made great progress since the days when it was Pile O' Bones, and was enjoying a real estate boom—business lots were selling for $35,000, and houses for $12,000. With prosperity had come lower moral standards, and a large crowd was listening to a sermon on this subject in the Anglican Church of St. Paul's. It was so hot that scores of people fainted. Others tried to escape from the blistering heat by paddling canoes on man-made Wascana Lake near the Legislature. Most people were just sitting at home, sipping lemonade and fanning themselves.

At about 4.30 p.m. two grey clouds were seen racing towards each other, one from the southeast, the other from the southwest. There was a rumble of thunder. The sky began to glow an eerie green, while blue-red flashes of lightning snaked along the ground.

At 4.50 p.m. the two clouds collided with a roar, just over the Legislative Building. They formed a funnel looking like a greasy ice-cream cone, the tip of the cone pointing towards the earth. It swept through the city, writhing and shrieking like 1,000 wailing banshees. Later, someone described it as being like "the black hand of the devil clutching down for us poor mortals." It slashed a path of death six blocks wide, tearing down houses and twisting the steel girders of a building so that they looked like taffy.

A man paddling on Wascana Lake was lifted half a mile in his canoe, and sailed through the third storey window of a building. He was killed. Another paddler flew through the air in his canoe for three-quarters of a mile, and was deposited gently in Victoria Park. He lived to tell the tale.

It was all over in five minutes, but the tornado killed 41 people and injured 300 others. Hundreds of homeless people were sheltered in Albert Public School, or in 250 tents put up by the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. About 500 buildings were ruined with damage rising over $6 million.

30 June

-1798    Chippewa Indians traded St. Joseph's Island for goods (see July 8) .

-1812    A proclamation gave American citizens fourteen days to leave Upper Canada. 

-1851    Robert Baldwin, Upper Canada Reform leader, retired from public life. 

-1866    New Brunswick voted for Confederation and the building of the Inter-colonial Railway.

-1948    William Lyon Mackenzie King made his last speech in the House of Commons as Prime Minister.