Rich, restless survival novel a stellar sanctuary

Manitoba students able to opt out of classes with sensitive lessons on sex, drug use

Manitoba’s premier pledges to continue allowing parents to pull their kids from health class if content — be it related to human sexuality, substance use or otherwise — clashes with personal beliefs.

Wab Kinew said Tuesday the government’s overhaul of phys-ed and health curriculum in Manitoba schools won’t impact the ability for parents to opt-out of a lesson and deliver material as they see fit.

“As a parent, you are your child’s first and most important teacher and that will always be the case,” Kinew said, surrounded by hundreds of teenagers on the football field outside Kelvin High School during an announcement Tuesday.

More than 100 schools are taking part in a voluntary pilot project this fall. It’s the first systematic review of this curriculum in decades. The changes to kindergarten-to-Grade 12 courses will be mandated to all schools in September 2028.

North and east to Hudson Bay: Port Nelson

Who in Canada doesn’t like the beaver? It’s a Canadian symbol that represents hard work and ingenuity and using the resources around you to build up what you need.

Revealing statements by Trump about courts

Analyzing the utterances of U.S. President Donald Trump may seem like the ultimate sort of mug’s game — they are varied, contradictory, rambling, pugilistic, sometimes wheedling and the list goes on.

Oilers stymie Jets again

Were this a game that actually counted in the standings, the reaction from Winnipeg Jets head coach Scott Arniel probably wouldn’t have been nearly as composed.

The video evidence suggests the Edmonton Oilers had at least four players on the ice during a line change that turned into a two-on-one rush that finished with Zack Hyman setting up Viljami Marjala for a goal at 1:26 of overtime.

That left the Jets on the receiving end of a 2-1 overtime loss to sit with a pre-season record of 1-1-1.

“It was a pretty good jump,” said Arniel, who was more concerned about the shot from defenceman Dylan Samberg that helped spring the Oilers on the odd-man rush. “I’m not real keen on the slapper missing the net and going all the way down. I’m more concerned about that. It is what it is. Tough one for (Jets goaltender) Dom (DiVincentiis), because he was fantastic.”

Rich, restless survival novel a stellar sanctuary

Set in a landscape inspired by southern New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock and its surroundings, Andrew Krivak’s third novel The Bear relates the tale of “[t]he last two… a girl and her father.” At first glance this scenario seems particularly apt for these restless days of pandemic and climate crisis, yet the story itself feels, in many ways, like sanctuary.

Combining graceful prose, woodscraft know-how and appreciation of flora and fauna, Krivak immerses readers in a world known and not known where the days are full: depending on the season, the two fish, bow hunt, dry apples and sew skins into clothing, the father always carefully teaching his daughter to master these survival skills and many more.

He also teaches her to read from “tales recounted in old words of an old time on old pieces of paper.” While she becomes an adept reader, the girl prefers her father’s stories, which often involve “a long journey taken, a triumph of great strength, or a treasure lost and found… Always they ended back in the small house, safe and warm around the hearth fire.”

When the girl begins asking about the mother she can’t recall, her father confides, “even after all these years, years in which I’ve had you to think about every minute of every day, I still… miss her and wish she were here.” Though her father knows loneliness, the girl is largely unacquainted with it.