Good is the enemy of cynicism

Good news, everyone — 2025 wasn’t all bad!

Yes, plenty of horrific events transpired at home and abroad over the past 12 months — environmental disasters, humanitarian crises, economic uncertainty, political unrest, war.

But there were also many, many moments of human compassion.

If the goal of journalism is to shine a light on darkness, news organizations also need to cast a spotlight on lightness. Otherwise, we’re only telling one side of an exceedingly bleak story.

Good news isn’t fluff. It’s a grounding force and an important tool for combatting news avoidance and negative news fatigue — growing issues that are compounding the crisis of misinformation online, according to the latest digital news report from the Reuters Institute.

With 2025 in the rear-view, we’re taking stock of some of the nice stories and positive humanity covered by Free Press reporters during the last year.

Furry friends and environmental wins

Few things raise the spirit like a good animal story — whether the subject is a housepet or Manitoba’s apex predator.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back Brady Oliveira spent the off-season, as he often does, rescuing dogs in Bali with girlfriend Alex Blumberg. Oliveira also works closely with animal rescue organizations in Manitoba.

Flin Flon residents Harley and Judy Eagle stayed behind to care for pets when the northern Manitoba city was forced to evacuate in May due to encroaching wildfires. The couple fed 70 cats, dogs, frogs, birds, fish and turtles daily for a month until their owners were able to return home.

Polar bears generated several smile-inducing stories this year. Tripod, a three-legged Hudson Bay denizen, has been defying the odds since arriving in the region with a missing hind paw in 2021. To the delight of residents, she was seen with a cub for the first time last summer.

Another mother bear made headlines for a rare case of ursine adoption in December, after she was spotted near Churchill with an extra, orphaned cub in tow.

Generosity comes naturally for polar bears, according to a University of Manitoba study. The expert hunters are an important source of food security for other arctic species because they often share their leftovers with scavengers — making polar bear survival all the more important.

Some good news for the North? Government and Indigenous leaders took an important step toward protecting the Seal River Watershed in March. The pristine 50,000-square-kilometre ecosystem is on track to become Canada’s largest Indigenous-led conservation area.

Community care

There were many heartwarming examples of neighbours helping neighbours last year.

Avid Winnipeg walker Jared Brown raised $22,000 for CancerCare Manitoba during his grassroots walkathon in March, surpassing his goal of $1,800 by leaps and bounds.

And nine-year-old River Heights resident Annie MacDonald and her friends raised more than $3,000 for the foundation through their neighbourhood coffee stand, which was open throughout the fall once a week for 25 minutes before the school bell rang.

Neither fire nor ice could curb community spirit. Instead, storms and natural disasters often brought out the best in Manitobans.

In the wake of the deadly Lac du Bonnet wildfire, a group of out-of-town volunteers spent days helping clean up debris while searching for precious belongings.

Individuals and organizations in Winnipeg rallied to support evacuees and animals from First Nations and rural communities displaced by the devastating 2025 wildfire season.

During last month’s blizzard, people across the city took up shovels and to help dig out neighbours, stuck motorists and even an ambulance. A caravan of cycling Santa Clauses also braved the wind and cold to deliver gifts and supplies to unhoused Winnipeggers.

Those looking for a regular dose of kindness can turn to Aaron Epp’s volunteer column, the most recent of which featured a home baker who has dedicated her retirement to cooking for families of sick children at Ronald McDonald House.

Civic pride

Sometimes it takes an outsider to remind Winnipeggers how wonderful home is.

Hollywood actors John Travolta, Jon Hamm and the cast of Sticks and Stones (Paul Walter Hauser, Blake Anderson, Johnny Pemberton and Christopher Mintz-Plasse) immersed themselves in local restaurants, wrestling rings and small-town movie theatres while filming in Manitoba last year. The latter group posted glowing reviews of their Winnipeg experience on social media, wintry weather included.

The city got to bond over major sporting events twice last year. Winnipeg Jets fans once again turned downtown into a celebratory sea of white during the team’s exciting playoff run last spring. And despite the Blue Bombers’ semifinal loss, supporters hosted a heck of a city-wide tailgate party during the 2025 Grey Cup.

Downtown Winnipeg entered a new era of urban development last year. True North broke ground on the redevelopment of Portage Place and Portage and Main reopened in June, allowing pedestrians to cross the city’s most iconic intersection for the first time in 46 years. Hundreds of people showed up to strut during the momentous occasion; and four months later, traffic data showed virtually no impact to commuting motorists.

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