Running down Terry Fox’s dream Posted: 7:19 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 12, 2025

Stolen bike back in hands of cross-Canada traveller

Winnipeggers have come through in a big way for a man who had his bike stolen in the city while on a cross-Canada journey.

Fergus Watt, 69, had his bike stolen on Tuesday from outside the Mountain Equipment Company shop on Portage Avenue. On Friday, it was back in his possession after a Winnipeg Transit operator spotted the thief trying to get the bike on the bus.

“The person who had the bike had been trying to take the wheel off and couldn’t, so the tire was kind of slashed,” said Watt’s wife, Michele Chadwick, who posted about the stolen bike online.

“So, the Winnipeg bus driver was like: ‘well, this doesn’t make any sense,’ so he confiscated the bike.”

Mayor flip-flops on cutting tree-planting budget after intense criticism

Public opposition has prompted Mayor Scott Gillingham to change his mind about chopping $1.2 million from the city’s tree-planting program.

Running down Terry Fox’s dream

In an era when today’s endurance feats seemingly defy human limits, his accomplishments still marvel.

In 1980, a curly-haired young man dipped a prosthetic right leg in the Atlantic Ocean in St. John’s, Nlfd., before embarking on a cross-country journey to raise money and awareness for cancer research.

With his signature hop-step running gait, Terry Fox, often only wearing grey shorts, a white cotton T-shirt with the words Marathon of Hope stencilled on the front, and blue adidas shoes, ran an average of 42 kilometres, or the equivalent of a full marathon, for 143 days. In total, he tallied 5,373 kilometres spanning six provinces.

His physical journey ended Sept. 1 of that year just shy of Thunder Bay when the cancer that had claimed his leg at age 18 had returned in his lungs. He died 10 months later, shortly before his 23rd birthday. However, his dream of raising millions of dollars for cancer research never faded.

Frustration, not fear, as Exchange swells after drug crackdown

Natassia Brazeau says she doesn’t feel unsafe living and working in Winnipeg’s Exchange District — instead, she feels heartbreak.

She said that feeling intensified last week during the Winnipeg Police Service’s controversial 10-day crackdown on open drug use and drug trafficking which pushed people away from the Main Street strip.

Brazeau, who owns a business in the area, said she has never seen so many people head to the Exchange District at once.

“I’m absolutely enraged at the police response last week,” Brazeau said. “Not only was that incredibly short-sighted and doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t assist anyone that are already in incredibly vulnerable situations.”

Disc drive: petition seeks to reverse Sony decision to stop producing physical discs

Atop a counter displaying vintage video games, a sign urges passersby to petition Sony Group Corp.

The Japanese multinational company’s PlayStation system discs aren’t retro — yet. But they will be in 2028, when Sony plans to stop producing the physical products.

Its games will be sold online or in “digital formats” at shops, including as codes.

Winnipeg-based independent chain PNP Games has outfitted its St. Vital area store with signs of protest. It’s also launched an online petition — one garnering more than 231,000 signatures in roughly a week.

MMF buys long-vacant federal lab

The Manitoba Métis Federation has taken another major step in its effort to help revitalize downtown Winnipeg by acquiring the former National Research Council property on Ellice Avenue.

The federation has scheduled a news conference today to announce it has purchased the office tower, laboratory and parking lot at 435-445 Ellice Ave. The acquisition expands its downtown footprint to more than one million square feet of owned property and will eventually house about 70 per cent of its 1,300 employees.

The sale ends a years-long legal dispute between the federation and the research council. The federation had sued the federal agency after an earlier agreement to purchase the property collapsed in 2020.

“Everybody’s happy, they’re happy, we’re happy. And now we just got to start the transition of our plan,” federation president David Chartrand told the Free Press Thursday.