Winnipeg artist’s House on Fire chronicles fallout of grandmother’s MK Ultra experience

In the late 1950s, Velma Orlikow sought treatment for postpartum depression at the Allen Memorial Institute at McGill University in Montreal.

Later, it would be discovered that she was unknowingly enrolled in the secret CIA research program now known as MK Ultra, where she was the victim of brainwashing experiments at the hands of Dr. Ewen Cameron. She was injected with LSD and forced to listen to Cameron’s voice on tape for hours.

In the 1980s, Orlikow and eight other victims sued the CIA, which settled out of court.

Winnipeg visual artist Sarah Anne Johnson, Orlikow’s granddaughter, explores this difficult family history through her long-running series of work House on Fire, which is on view now at Plug In ICA.

Winnipeg-based organization resolute in its global mission — protecting children from online pedophiles

More than a century ago, a brick two-storey building near the banks of the Assiniboine River opened as an orphanage. Later, it became a residential school for First Nations children sent hundreds of kilometres away from their homes and families. Today, children are still central to the building's mission. It's here where a dedicated team wages a global battle to protects kids from abuse and exploitation at the hands of sexual predators.

Forks business brings dirty soda — trendy, sweet, cream-topped concoctions — to customers

Not in the mood to sip on a dirty martini? Well now you can chug a dirty soda instead.

‘Knows what it takes to win’: Fan favourite Scott back with the Sea Bears

Truth be told, Trevon Scott could take the summer off.

Little things to make June joyous

In this monthly feature, the Free Press collects some small actions that can have big results.

Set up guardrails before dipping toes in sports betting ahead of FIFA games

As you don your favourite soccer player's jersey and head to the nearest pub with your friends to watch a World Cup match later this month, you might also be tempted to bet money on the prospects of your team.

Spurr claims first individual win, Lafleche holds off Hayden at Match Play Championship

David Spurr was in a place he was convinced he’d never reach.

So when the 43-year-old dropped an eight-foot putt on the 12th to cap a dominant seven-and-six triumph over Manitoba’s reigning Amateur Men’s Golfer of the Year Evan Nachtigall and put an exclamation point on his men’s provincial Match Play Championship title on Sunday, he couldn’t help but let it all out.

Spurr’s head fell into his hands while his caddie, Mike, and a group of five supporters, including his girlfriend, rushed the green to share many well-deserved hugs and tears.

“Just how long I’ve been playing for,” Spurr said after his round about the emotional outpour. “I’ve never won anything. I’ve won the (Mundie) Putter League with the guys five or six times — that’s a team thing — but I have no individual wins ever, and it was just like, ‘Maybe I’m just not that guy that’ll ever win anything,’ and I guess it just kind of came out there.

What feathered creatures signify for the health of the herd

Usually, Winnipeg snowbirds are known for going no further south than Florida.

But one migratory bird, the lesser yellowlegs, can go all the way to the southern tip of South America from Alaska and back, with midway stops in the prairies.

Most yellowlegs, like “Cholao 2,” don’t go quite that far.

That’s the name given to a specimen tracked as travelling from Cali, Colombia, to near North Battleford, Sask., and which will likely summer in the subarctic or Arctic.

After years of living in encampments, Lawrence is slowly adjusting to life with a roof, instead of a tarp, over his head

Just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life in early 2020, Lawrence had a steady job, reliable income and a roof over his head. Within months, it was all gone.

After burning through his savings to keep paying rent, the 58-year-old from Sagkeeng First Nation spent the next 4 1/2 years homeless, living in an encampment along Waterfront Drive.

“At first, I couldn’t believe it,” he said while sitting in an office chair inside a low-barrier apartment complex in the city’s West End. “I was sitting at a drop-in centre trying to figure out ‘how did I end up here?’ It was too quick for me to absorb at the time.”

Lawrence, who didn’t want his last name used, has now been housed for three months through the province’s Your Way Home strategy, which aims to move roughly 700 Manitobans from encampments into stable housing.

A cache to crow about: Collector feathers nest with just about anything related to Robin’s Donuts

Ronald Moore’s personal association with Robin’s Donuts began when he was a grade schooler.

Volleyball bench boss named to coaching staff for men’s national squad tourney

Chris Voth is getting bumped into the starting lineup.

The Winnipeg Wesmen men’s volleyball head coach was named to the Canadian senior men’s national team’s coaching staff for the upcoming Volleyball Nations League tournament this summer.

Voth spent five years on the staff of the senior men’s extended roster that trains in Gatineau, Que. That time was spent with Team Canada’s reserve crop, who were young professionals or up-and-coming university athletes.

Now, he’ll help the main roster as it begins its push for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Music fest committed to exploration, experimentation

In the fifth-floor headquarters of the Cluster Festival, Ash Au is nerding out a little bit over a piece of West German machinery that’s still humming after all these years — a 1967 Nordmende 3004-C.

“The (original) warranty card on it says to get it serviced at Columbus Radio,” Au says, referring to the one-stop repair shop opened in 1968 by Bill Yaworsky, Winnipeg’s doctor of audio.

Au, the artistic director of the festival — officially titled Cluster: New Music and Integrated Arts — visited the shop at 1151 Sanford St. to get the Nordmende up and running.

With the fest settling into its Exchange District studio apartment, Au — a prolific sound designer, bassist, music educator and queer creative — figured it was about time to invest in a sick soundsystem.

Linebacker Clinton making strong case to be kept on Bombers roster

Ja’Kobe Clinton’s path to the pros hasn’t been anywhere near as glamorous as his brother’s.

The aspiring Winnipeg Blue Bombers linebacker had to scratch and claw just to continue playing after high school. Then there’s his well-known sibling, former Pro Bowl safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix — a two-time national champion at Alabama who was chosen in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers.

He went on to play eight NFL seasons and made approximately US$20 million in career earnings.

“That set the bar way tremendously high for me. But like I tell everybody, we got two different roads and I kind of took the harder route,” Clinton told the Free Press after Bombers practice on Tuesday.

Local fatboy challenge gives customers 30 minutes to devour behemoth burger

It’s just noon on what’s turning out to be the hottest day of the year and Curtis Kalmakoff, 40, takes a swig from the bottle of water next to him before taking his 11th bite of the world’s largest — and likely most expensive — fatboy burger.

Weighing as much as a three-month-old child, the burger comprises a seven-pound meat patty topped with: 10 slices of Bothwell cheddar cheese, half a pound of chopped white onions, one pound of tomatoes and half a pound of Elman’s sliced dill pickles, all smothered in 1½ pounds of chili and sandwiched between two made-to-order buns from Food Fare measuring 38 centimetres wide and approximately five centimetres tall.

As Kalmakoff wraps his lips around the 12½-pound beast in the outdoor seating area of St. James Burger & Chip Co., owner Kevin Ramberran and restaurant manager Les Bartle cheer him on.

Ramberran is the mastermind behind today’s contest.