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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Couple wins Manitoba's biggest jackpot

By: Mary Agnes Welch

9/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 26

RUTH.BONNEVILLE@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Home on Sagkeeng First Nation where $50-million winners Marie and Kirby Fontaine live with their children. Will they stay or will they go?

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RUTH.BONNEVILLE@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Home on Sagkeeng First Nation where $50-million winners Marie and Kirby Fontaine live with their children. Will they stay or will they go?

SAGKEENG FIRST NATION -- By the time the limousine swooped into the reserve to whisk Kirby and Marie Fontaine off to Winnipeg Saturday night, everyone in the area already knew the extraordinary news.

They are the winners of the $50-million Lotto Max prize, one of the biggest jackpots in Canadian lottery history.

BIG MONEY: Some past Manitoba jackpot winners

1998
Norway House resident Gerald Muswagon wins a $10-million Super 7 jackpot

2006
Manuel Spence of Sandy Bay and his wife, Myrah, win $7.4-million Lotto 6/49 draw

2005
Winnipeg credit union account manager Dawn Fraser wins $27.2-million jackpot

It's the biggest lottery win ever in Manitoba.

"In a small town like this, you don't hear stuff like that very often," said Michel Bruneau, a cashier at the convenience store in the Broadlands strip mall in Pine Falls, just outside the Sagkeeng First Nation. "I'm so happy for them."

Marie Fontaine, who works in the personal care home in Pine Falls, bought the winning ticket from the convenience store just outside Sagkeeng on Friday, and called Bruneau for the winning numbers shortly after the draw.

"By the time I told her the last number, she knew it," said Bruneau. "She was just like, 'Oh, my God!' "

With her family in tow, Fontaine came right down to the store to check the ticket electronically, and then cashier Dale Swampy validated it again on his computer behind the counter.

"Her face just lit up," said Swampy.

The win was the talk of the town Sunday. Nearly everyone either knows the Fontaines, played baseball with them or were relatives. The win was a bit of serendipity for an area in the grips of a nasty labour dispute with Pine Falls' major employer.

The eastern boundary of Sagkeeng and Pine Falls are a few minutes' drive apart along Highway 11, about 110 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

"It's done a lot for the town," said Laurie Wilson who, with her husband, Kim Wilson, owns the Broadlands Mall store that sold the winning ticket.

"There's been so much heartache with the Tembec lockout," said Wilson, whose husband is one of 270 paper mill workers who have been locked out for more than two months.

"It's nice to see Pine Falls back on the map but for some awesome news," she said.

On the picket line Sunday, the locked-out workers were preparing for a long winter. As they built a more permanent shelter to weather the winter, news of the lotto win was top of mind.

"Find out if she's single," joked one locked-out worker as he cradled a Tim Hortons coffee. "She could have her pick here."

But just what Marie and Kirby Fontaine will do with all that money, we'll we'll have to wait to find out.

People in Pine Falls and Sagkeeng said the win couldn't happen to a nicer family, or one that deserved a little good news.

The Fontaines live on the reserve in a tidy yellow mobile home surrounded by friendly cats and dogs and lawn ornaments stuffed with silk flowers.

Neighbours and friends say Marie works at the personal care home nearby but Kirby, who used to work security at the South Beach Casino, suffered some health problems over the summer and had been off work. They have two children, a boy and teenaged girl.

"I think it's just awesome," said Terri Papineau, who played baseball in the same league as the Fontaines. "I'm just so amazed for them."

Lotto Max is the new game from the Western Canada Lottery Corp. that replaced the old Super 7 draw. The $5 tickets give people a one-in-28,633,528 chance of winning. It's far more likely you will make two hole-in-one shots during the same round of golf.

An official announcement will be made this morning by the lottery corporation.

Andrea Morantz, spokeswoman for Western Canada Lotteries, said they don't offer rewards to retailers for selling winning tickets, other than giving them some great publicity.

-- With files from Carol Sanders

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 9, 2009 A3

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26 Commentscomment icon

Hey... my long lost cousins! lol jk - Congrats!

Congratulations to the family!!! I just don't understand why a picture or their home was shown???

Way to go you are great people!! My address is ;_0


Congratulations to the winners. Glad to see that they could use the help. I hope they have good people counsel them as to what needs to be done..a small town can get awful crowded after news like this. Congrats but to the winners...be careful.

Wonderful!

I thought that when you won the lotto, when its official the lotto corp prints your photo, name and address?? Congrats to the family...

I agree with Terminator Salvatore, why have a pic of their house - kinda like an "X" marks the spot.

Wish them well with their winnings, I hope that they will still be able to have a relatively normal life.

Congrats, folks. I just skimmed the comments, though, and I have to say, if no one else has said it, that I'm thinking that it's not incredibly wise for the WFP to be showing pictures of the house of people who have just come into a $50-million windfall.

I wonder if they will make a small donation to their community?

Congrats. on the win. (I'm jealous as all ^%$&^). Make sure to use a financial planner, and be careful about all the old friends/relatives who are probably comming out of the woodwork already. And be careful of all the new friends as well...Cept for me...O.K.??? Lol

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