Free verse YA novel has lightness, scope

Climate change threatens events we wait for all year

This week, owing to extreme heat and a wild storm with tree-snapping winds, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet had to cancel its full run of Ballet in the Park, a much-loved annual tradition at which people from all over Manitoba can enjoy world-class art in the verdant Assiniboine Park.

Two weeks prior, Rainbow Stage, another jewel of a Winnipeg summer, had to cancel the closing matinee of Jesus Christ Superstar owing to heat and humidity.

And at the beginning of July, Winnipeg Folk Festival attendees baked under scorching temperatures — 47 C with the humidex — to enjoy not just the discovery of music, but the community that has formed in Birds Hill Park on the second weekend of July for over 50 years.

This doesn’t feel great. I do not begrudge cancellations — they are absolutely the correct call for the health and safety of performers and patrons — but I can’t be the only one feeling some existential dread about our summers, and the things that make them special, in the face of a changing climate.

As wildfire season rages, new book explores the frontlines of battling Canadian blazes

Mother Nature’s talking but we haven’t been listening, according to Jesse Winter, author of Wild Fire: Dispatches from a Country Ablaze, a book, released earlier this summer detailing Canada’s wildfire woes.

Currently, almost 1,000 wildfires across Northwestern Ontario, British Columbia, the Prairies, Northwest Territories and eastern provinces are burning in Canada. Forest fires also continue to wreak havoc in France, Spain and other European countries, and in the U.S. states of Oregon, California, Florida and Texas. While 2023 still rates as the world’s worst wildfire season, 2026 is hot on its heels.

Winter, a Vancouver-based, award-winning climate disaster photojournalist, spent more than two years on Wild Fire, his first book. In-depth research included working with firefighting crews and environmentalists as well as talking to researchers, politicians and evacuees. He says we need to rethink our views on wildfires or be prepared to watch more land go up in flames.

Canada, Winter writes, is “a country almost perfectly designed to burn.” At least 70 per cent of boreal forests, which cover one-third of the country, are stuffed with highly flammable spruce, fir, pine and tamarack trees as well as aspen, poplar and birch. With a wealth of available fuel, it’s no surprise, he writes, that an area twice the size of Vancouver Island burns every summer in Canada.

Culture minister’s pledge sends officials on hunt for money to fix Islamic centre after apparent hate crime

Government officials were left scrambling Friday to explain why the province is paying for repairs at a mosque recently targeted in a potential hate crime after a $1 million security enhancement fund was fully allocated in June.

Brown goes down, so do Blue

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers suffered one of their most embarrassing and inexcusable losses in recent memory on Thursday night.

A one-win B.C. Lions team — featuring a rookie quarterback making his first career start, a rookie running back making his first career start and two backup offensive lineman in action — somehow, someway dealt the Blue and Gold a 35-19 defeat in front of 31,509 disgruntled fans at Princess Auto Stadium.

The Bombers, now 1-4 on home turf this season, have dropped back-to-back games to fall to 4-4. The Lions improved to 2-5.

“Shit wasn’t good enough. Offence, defence, special teams. Wasn’t good enough,” said defensive end Willie Jefferson.

On eve of Folklorama, Ghana pavilion scrambles to replace stolen outfits

Volunteers from Folklorama’s Ghana pavilion scrambled to replace cultural costumes for about 40 young dancers after the outfits were stolen in Winnipeg days before the annual festival begins.

Two plastic storage bins containing the costumes, to be worn by children and teenagers, were taken from the trunk of a parked car on Banning Street, near Notre Dame Avenue in the West End, likely late Wednesday or early Thursday.

“I felt sad that this has happened. I felt completely devastated for the mother who had them in her car,” said pavilion co-ordinator Abigail Larson. “The initial feeling of sadness changed to, ‘OK, how do we make this a positive?’”

The costumes belong to the Ghana Union of Manitoba Dancers, whose members have rehearsed for months for Folklorama, which begins Sunday.