Seeing how the other half rides in Amsterdam

Seeing how the other half rides in Amsterdam

A confession: I haven’t been on my bike in two summers. This isn’t my first long breakup with a bicycle. From the ages of 13 to 31, I didn’t go anywhere near a bike following a pretty significant wipeout that left me with an arm studded with bloody pebbles and a contusion at the top of my pelvis.

Pars a plenty in The Pas

North of Lake Winnipegosis, just on the Manitoba side of the Saskatchewan border, lies The Pas.

The town is one of the oldest of Manitoba’s northern communities and was once a thriving pulp and paper town. Most of the community is still in good shape, although showing its age.

Across the river is the impressive Opaskwayak Cree Nation, with its new mall and impressive hotel and casino. VIA Rail services these communities which makes for a nice mid-week or long-weekend getaway without the stress of driving.

If you do take the train, throw your sticks onto the platform. There are many activities to take in while you are there, and one of those activities is golf.

Northern First Nation calls for voluntary ban of moose hunting as numbers dwindle

A northern Manitoba First Nation is calling for a voluntary closure of moose hunting in its traditional territory to protect the declining population and respond to what it sees is a lack of provincial intervention.

On Friday, Misipawistik Cree Nation issued a plea urging hunters to abstain from harvesting moose in provincial Game Hunting Area 10 — a 10,000-square-kilometre region of boreal forest north of Grand Rapids. The request applies to this year’s moose-hunting seasons, which open Monday.

According to the province’s 2025 aerial big-game survey, an estimated 281 moose reside in the area, roughly 60 of which are bull moose. That’s down from an estimated 346 moose in 2013, which the survey describes as a “relatively stable population” over the past decade.

This year, 124 licences and 62 bull moose tags were made available in the region during Manitoba’s annual hunting draw.

Experts say small companions play huge role in well-being as we age

My mother-in-law will turn 89 this year and she’s in love. In her rural home — where she’s lived for more than 60 years — her new roommate, a kitten named Pepper, has brought sheer joy to her world.

She regales my partner with play-by-plays of Pepper’s antics and activities. She repeatedly expresses how happy she is since Pepper moved in. She can’t imagine her world without him. They’re inseparable.

With the huge role tiny Pepper now plays in her life, calls to our home are less frequent, as she immerses herself in playing with Pepper, cleaning up after him and just delighting in his every move. Pepper has given her a renewed sense of happiness and purpose, keeping her mind on the present and free of worry.

And though a kitten is an unusual choice for a senior, experts agree that a pet of any age will benefit immensely from someone regularly being at home with them, the same way my mother-in-law’s quality of life has been enhanced by Pepper’s presence.

Siloam Mission, WFPS discussing on-site paramedic to reduce staggering number of emergency calls

Winnipeg’s fire-paramedic service and its largest homeless-serving organization are discussing what it would look like to station at least one paramedic at Siloam Mission, as emergency calls to the downtown facility surge.

The ongoing discussions come as Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews were dispatched 1,771 times during the first eight months of the year to the two adjacent Siloam properties at 303 Stanley St. and 300 Princess St.

WFPS said most of the calls were related to overdoses or other consequences of substance use, with the total nearly double the 854 calls recorded over the same period last year. By comparison, there were 831 calls during the same span in 2024, and 591 in 2023.

“The number of emergency calls isn’t sustainable for us as a service, but it’s certainly not sustainable for them as an agency trying to provide services,” WFPS chief Ryan Sneath told the Free Press. “And they recognize that they’re impacting emergency services, not them specifically, but the site in a significant way.”