Winnipeg poet Undi named 11th parliamentary poet laureate

Kent Monkman debuts beaver sculpture in Toronto’s ambitious new waterfront park

TORONTO - Kent Monkman’s first-ever public art installation is dam good.

The celebrated Cree artist’s new permanent sculpture, dubbed “The Colony,” debuts Wednesday in Toronto’s east end.

The 15-foot-high bronze structure features beavers dancing, feasting and celebrating, evoking Indigenous ceremonies.

It highlights the vital role of beavers in the natural, Indigenous and colonial histories of Turtle Island, says a release.

Virgo Rising’s debut LP is visceral, vulnerable

Lauren Wittmann’s apartment was bright and trinket-filled, and Emily Sinclair felt nostalgia for it as soon as she walked through the door.

It was 2018 or so, and as Sinclair, the lead vocalist for Winnipeg indie quartet Virgo Rising, tells it, crossing the transom and kicking off her shoes into a pile of strange soles felt like “bursting into the world” for the very first time.

“I was finally meeting my people,” Sinclair recalls.

A few years later, that same unit came up for rent, and Sinclair moved in, unboxing her possessions and hanging her frames on the hammered nails of prior tenants.

Transit, roads and city council’s priorities

Did any of you happen to notice that the week of Sept. 14 marked an interesting confluence of events in Winnipeg? First up was the mayoral debate on public transit. Second was an announcement that the city would be undertaking a survey to determine whether their citizens’ “transportation needs” are being met.

Man who killed two Indigenous women, was accused of killing third, back in prison less than year after statutory release

A Winnipeg man convicted of killing two First Nations women more than a decade ago — with charges stayed in a third slaying — has been sent back to prison less than a year after he left under conditions.

Parole Board of Canada officials revoked 67-year-old Shawn Lamb’s statutory release after a hearing last week.

“Your actions are not beyond your control, yet you continue to wilfully make poor decisions that place the public at risk,” board member Arun Kundu-Thomsen wrote in a decision released this week.

Lamb gained statutory release — a legislated conditional release most federal inmates automatically qualify for after serving two-thirds of their sentence — in November last year and lived in several Ontario facilities for federal offenders.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: Caution! Avoid shopping (except food and gas) and important decisions until after 3:30 p.m. today. After that, the moon moves from Gemini into Cancer.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

This is a creative day for you. Because you’re the artisan of the zodiac, tap into your talents and make some art or explore one of your many hobbies. However, avoid intense discussions with partners, spouses and friends. Keep things light.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Jets new backup Stevenson ‘stoked’ to be in tandem with Skinner

It didn’t take long to get the dirt on the newest member of the Winnipeg Jets.

Meet Clay Stevenson, who has no problem if you prefer to refer to him by his long-standing nickname of “Mud.”

“You know, Clay is in the mud, and there you go. That’s it, right there,” Stevenson said Wednesday with a laugh. “I got it in juniors when I was playing in Coquitlam, and kind of stuck ever since.”

Stevenson is now hoping to make a name for himself in a city that, quite fittingly, translates to “muddy water” in Cree. The 27-year-old from Alberta was placed on waivers by the Washington Capitals and claimed by the Jets, who were looking to clarify a goaltending situation which was as murky as the Red River.