Gallery: City celebrates cultural diversity with the Folklorama spirit Posted: 5:12 PM CDT Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022

Moving drama at MTYP gives voice to boy who changed law

The heroic true tale of Norway House Cree Nation-born Jordan River Anderson came home Friday night, as Manitoba Theatre for Young People presented Yvette Nolan’s Jordan.

The touring production, a collaboration with Geordie Theatre, runs weekends through Oct. 11, with additional stops in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre.

Having several of Anderson’s family members witness the local première underscored the evening with poignancy. Elder and Pine Creek First Nation member Barbara Nepinak added her own dignified presence and prayers following MTYP artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna’s welcoming remarks.

The season-opener also marks the Winnipeg-raised playwright’s homecoming; the Algonquin playwright, director, dramaturg, actor and educator was a fixture in our local theatre community for many years before going on to serve as artistic director for Native Earth Performing Arts from 2003 to ‘11, among other contributions.

Broadening prediction-market gambling a bad idea

Let’s make a prediction: sooner or later, when Canadian governments find a way to take their own cut of the action, prediction-contract gambling on everything from sports to entertainment to political decisions is going to come to Canada.

And that’s a horrible, dangerous, pernicious idea.

Unless you have particular access to information — either inside information or strategic information based on skills or education — you’re not likely to make money at it. In fact, structurally, you’re likely to lose. In prediction markets, you basically pay an amount, plus fees from the company involved, to bet on whether something will or will not happen within a certain time frame. The amount you pay for your contract depends on how other people are also betting.

As Wealthsimple describes it, “You buy whichever side you think is right. Prices move with demand, so if the market leans towards one outcome, the more that side costs. If a lot of people are backing the TSX to finish above 38,000, yes gets more expensive and no gets cheaper.”

Morning-show veteran swaps microphone for macchiatos at new Corydon café

Good news if you were used to having your morning coffee with Terri Gale, who earlier this summer signed off from CTV Your Morning, after 15 years on the job.

Gale, the three-hour program’s longtime weather expert, and her husband Rob Gale, the ex-head soccer coach of Valour FC and co-founder of the Northern Super League’s new Winnipeg franchise, are the owners of Golden Hour Café and Bar at 775 Corydon Ave.

Gale (formerly Apostle) nods when she is asked who would know more about caffeinated beverages than a person who, for the last decade and a half, set her alarm to go off in the wee small hours.

“I do love coffee and take mine black. Except because I hate burning my tongue — not a good thing when you speak for a living — I got into the habit of throwing a couple of ice cubes in my cup, to be on the safe side,” Gale says, seated on the second level of their attractive, 2,100-square-foot premises, which officially opened in mid-September.

Gallery: City celebrates cultural diversity with the Folklorama spirit

Folklorama is back after two years of cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The festival officially returned with its kickoff event at Assiniboine Park in the last week of July.

There are 24 cultural pavilions in this year’s festival, at differing venues and dates across the city. The festival runs until August 13.

Here are some pictures from Folklorama, which celebrates cultural diversity in Winnipeg.

Living the dream

DETROIT – As Tyrel Bauer took a left turn out of the tunnel from the Winnipeg Jets dressing room and into the stands, he was met with a hearty round of applause from the 25 friends and family members who had made the trek from various points around North America.

Bauer had just realized a childhood dream and the significance of the moment was not lost on some of his biggest supporters.

“It was a special walk, for sure. A special walk,” Bauer said on Saturday afternoon before the Jets departed for a two-game road trip that begins on Sunday in Detroit against the Red Wings. “Those people who came – and many more that weren’t there and were cheering on from afar – they’ve always been there.

“I wanted that for my family, maybe even more than I wanted it for me. They’ve been through thick and thin. I’ve stressed mom out quite a bit over the years doing my job. That meant a lot for them and I’m really happy they could be there for it.”

Province looks to seize notorious drug den

Provincial justice officials are trying to seize a Dominion Street drug den that has been the source of trouble in the West End for years.

The owner of 982 Dominion St., 45-year-old Robert Edward Johnson, was most recently arrested in June along with several others after a lengthy Winnipeg Police investigation into thefts and illicit drug sales connected to the house.

“The residence has a reputation within the neighbourhood as being a location where individuals habitually attend for the purpose of purchasing and/or consuming controlled substances,” reads a statement of claim filed by the province’s director of civil forfeiture in the Court of King’s Bench last week.

“For several years, the residence has been associated with criminal activity, violence, and disorder, resulting in numerous police attendances and complaints from members of the surrounding community.”