New Free Press cookbook to spice up your kitchen

Volunteer helps keep Nellie McClung’s legacy alive

Growing up with ties to the community of Manitou, Gillian Potvin has found great inspiration in the traces of Nellie McClung’s legacy.

The 39-year-old has spent nearly a decade channelling that inspiration back into the community by being a key part of the Nellie McClung Museum of Canada’s marketing and events planning since it opened at 55 Main St., in the southern Manitoba town in 2017.

Utilizing her skills in marketing and digital design for the museum is her way of thanking the woman who fought for the rights she has today and continuing her legacy.

“She helped women to be identified as persons and that’s huge,” she said of the woman born in 1873 and considered one of Canada’s most prominent suffragists. “It’s easy to take for granted some of these rights we now have as women, but there would have been a big fight back in the day to change the things that have always been.”

An ambassador, a petition and 213,000 signatures

You have to admit, they have a point.

As of 7 a.m. on Monday, 209,909 Canadians had signed it. By 9:41 a.m., that number had reached 211,846. By 10:54 a.m., 213,124. And there are months left to sign.

It is an electronic petition to have the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, ousted and sent back to Trump’s America.

The reasons? Well, ambassadors are meant to represent the national positions of their governments and you could argue that Hoekstra is doing exactly that: his blunt pronouncements on things such as Canadian sovereignty sound very much like the words of one Donald Trump, President of the United States.

Two-time cancer survivor trades blows with angry Lake Winnipeg in epic 12-hour fundraising swim

After 12 hours of wind, waves and a painful shoulder, Jonathon Fenton has finished what he started, making it across Lake Winnipeg.

The 62-year-old two-time cancer survivor completed the roughly 26-kilometre swim Sunday, a year after shoulder problems forced him to stop 16 kilometres into his first attempt.

The swim was the second year of Fenton’s Jonny’s Big Swim fundraiser, which supports the Alberta Cancer Foundation, CancerCare Manitoba Foundation and Health Sciences Centre Foundation.

He raised roughly $48,000 this year, bringing the two-year total to about $90,000.

TV that waxes poetic, vacations hard, reminisces

The summer TV drawer is nearly empty, but here is a varied platter of viewing suggestions to amuse through to September, including: travelling with an epic poem, a group vacation, an anniversary reflection on the Tragically Hip (sob), a missing-child crime thriller and the return of a fictional talk-show host.

● Richard E. Grant’s Very Modern Odyssey

Documentary series streaming on CBC Gem

Sidestepping the argumentative hubbub about a new translation of Homer’s epic poem vs. old, and whose biceps Matt Damon wears in Christopher Nolan’s big-screen The Odyssey, consider this luscious travelogue, hosted by Richard E. Grant (Withnail and I). Beauty is beauty.

New Free Press cookbook to spice up your kitchen

JOIN food, arts and culture reporter Eva Wasney for the launch of Homemade: Recipes and Stories from Winnipeg and Beyond Sept. 15, at McNally Robinson Booksellers.