Without advanced permission from Nav Canada, you cannot fly a drone above Regina. If you choose to do so anyway, you open yourself up to a $1,000 fine for recreational users or a $5,000 fine for commercial users.
Additionally, if you fly an unregistered drone, you can be fined another $1,000, and if you don't have a licence to fly, you'll be fined an additional $1,000.
According to Transport Canada, a "drone" is a small, remote-controlled aircraft between 250g and 25kg. A micro-drone, on the other hand, is anything smaller than 250g. This puts it under completely different legislation and thus not applicable to any of the fines.
I used to fly a DJI Spark, which although was very small, it was still considered a "drone" as it weighed 255g. This means I needed to take a course, get a licence, register it and I still could not fly it within Regina.
Below are two maps of Regina's Wascana Lake area taken from the Government of Canada's "Drone Site Selection Tool". The first shows the map for drones bigger than or equal to 250g. The next shows the map for drones smaller than 250g. While the first map shows the entire area listed as "forbidden" to fly for regular drones, it is accessible to fly in for micro-drone.
The first image text reads: "Airport. Basic drone operations are not permitted within the 3 nautical mile zone indicated by the red circle.
Part of the selected shape overlaps with a Control Zone and a Certified Airport/Heliport. Basic RPAS operations are not permitted in those areas."
The second image reads "Exercise a high degree of caution due to potential aircraft traffic around airports/heliports. Drone operations when other aircraft are present and/or in the vicinity of airports/heliports are strongly discouraged, and may be considered negligent or reckless. Refer to "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" section for recommended best practices."
Granted, there are some height limitations near airports and helipads, and you can't fly within a certain distance of runways, but for the most part, the entire city is your aerial playground. If you're flying the drone downtown, you can even take it 400 feet (120 meters) into the sky – which is higher than the McCallum Hill Towers!
Micro-drones offer more flexibility than large drones, but they aren't a complete substitute. They only weigh about as much as a soup can, or one and a half baseballs, or between 1.5 to 3 newborn kittens, so if there is a strong wind, the drone might get sent to Oz. They also have shorter battery life and honestly, the bigger drones look cooler than the small ones.
I should also mention that the micro-drone exception is specific to Regina. Some other cities have their own municipal bylaws that forbid it. For example, Saskatoon has Bylaw 5729 which states: "No person shall fly a remotely piloted aircraft in, on or above property owned by the city, or leased by the city, or under the jurisdiction and control of the city, except as permitted by the city."
Other places, such as national or provincial parks and military areas, have their own laws too.
As of April 2021, the city of Regina has minimal bylaws that restrict drone flying. The only bylaw that exists is Bylaw 2004-27 that states "11(1) No person in a park or open space area shall: (p) use any remote controlled airplane or vehicle;". This bylaw only applies to being in a park, but not about flying over the park. If you were on the street or on anything not deemed a "park or open space", you can still fly the drone. Beyond that, you can fly a micro-drone just about anywhere you want in Regina, as long as you do it safely.
Did you know you could fly a micro-drone in Regina? Would you ever want to try it out? Let me know in the comments below!
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And, as always, a big thank you to my sweetheart Jessica Nuttall for proof reading a countless number of my articles. I couldn't do any of this without you. I love you.
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Without advanced permission from Nav Canada, you cannot fly a drone above Regina. If you choose to do so anyway, you open yourself up to a $1,000 fine for recreational users or a $5,000 fine for commercial users.
Additionally, if you fly an unregistered drone, you can be fined another $1,000, and if you don't have a licence to fly, you'll be fined an additional $1,000.
There is a change in the air. T-shirts are being replaced by bunny hugs and coffees are being replaced by pumpkin spice lattes. For a few weeks, the air is crisp, the skies are blue, and the trees are on fire with orange, red and yellow leaves. Autumn has finally arrived to the prairies.
To celebrate this, I recently attended a trip to Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP) alongside Tim Johnson of Tim Johnson Travels and Marc Smith of Marc My Travels. It was made possible by our tireless organizers Guy Theriault and Megan Dudeck of Parks Canada and Reba Lewis of Travel Manitoba.
This was my first time to ever spend a night in a national park, so I was very excited to try out an oTENTik. For those who have never stayed in one before, oTENTik are a glamping enthusiast's dream. The "missing link" between a tent and cottage, these fully electric cloth buildings have a built-in heater and one third of them have a stove. The weather was still warm when we were in the park, so we opted not to use the stove, but we were told that in the winter – yes, you can glamp in the winter! – these make the tents nice and cosy.
With the holiday season upon us, many people have begun asking me if and how I plan to celebrate Christmas. This is a good question, and I completely understand the confusion since Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus as the human embodiment of God and since Buddhists do not believe in God, Christ's birth should have very little importance.
However, surprisingly, many Buddhists still celebrate Christmas. Buddhists believe Christ's teachings not only compliment those of Buddha, but that Jesus is a "Bodhisattva", which is one who forgoes their own benefit to help others and has compassion, kindness and love for all beings. Because of these reasons, many Buddhists see Jesus as a blessing to the earth and have no problems celebrating his birth. This differs from Christian belief as Buddhists recognize the Jesus as a man and teacher, but not the Messiah.
Buddhists also have their own holiday on December 8th, which celebrates the day Buddha achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree. This holiday, "Bodhi Day", is celebrated by eating cookies (preferable heart shaped – which matches the leaves of fig, or Bodhi, tree) and rice, drinking milk and decorating trees with bright lights. In Asia, Buddhists decorate fig trees, but since Western climate can be harsh and these trees cannot survive, many Western Buddhists instead decorate evergreen trees. Buddhists decorate these trees with multi-coloured lights which represent the many different paths to achieve enlightenment.
