Northern reflections

Online fundraiser for ‘polite, modest farmer’ facing firearms charges sending message, neighbour says

Thousands of dollars have been raised to help cover the legal fees of a Manitoba man charged after he allegedly fired a gun at thieves during a theft on his farm in August.

‘A new future’: city dentist Cholakis donates $2M to school of dental hygiene

Dental hygienist training in Manitoba is getting a big boost, after a major gift from a local dentist.

On Thursday, the dental hygiene school at the University of Manitoba’s Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry unveiled a new $2-million donation from Dr. Ernest Cholakis. It’s the largest gift the program has ever received, and in honour of the funding, the school will be named the Cholakis School of Dental Hygiene.

The gift was unveiled at a ceremony Thursday morning at the U of M’s Brodie Centre in the Health Sciences Centre complex. The benefactor and other dignitaries, including Premier Wab Kinew, were in attendance, as well as the three-year program’s current students.

Cholakis, who graduated from the U of M’s dentistry school in 1982, had high praise for the dental hygiene profession.

Unusual, impressionistic documentary explores colonization through an intimate lens

A powerful fusion of the personal and political, this documentary looks at Indigenous issues across the circumpolar North, embodied through the life and work of Inuk activist and human rights lawyer Aaju Peter.

Screening at the Dave Barber Cinematheque as part of the Human Rights Through Film program sponsored by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the doc (in English, Inuktitut, Danish and Kalaallisut, with English subtitles) is intimate, affecting and illuminating.

Directed by Danish filmmaker Lin Alluna, Twice Colonized is — according to the opening credits — “lived by” Peter. Attempting to break down the conventional (and often colonialist) relationship of observer and observed, this is an unusual documentary. Peter has collaborated closely as a writer and producer on the project, and at one key point, the film crew enters into her personal story.

Some viewers might remember the now 63-year-old Peter from 2016’s Angry Inuk (which Twice Colonized producer Althea Arnaaquq-Baril also worked on). She’s still angry here, with good reason.

Winnipeg author relies on typewriter collection to punch out manuscripts

Local author Michael Clark has not only taken the words “keep at it” to heart, but repeated them so often that last year, his daughter, 29, suggested the pair get matching tattoos bearing the mantra before her wedding.

The words are inked to appear as though they were punched onto his forearm by a typewriter.

Clark has a thing for typewriters. The award-winning crime fiction author figures he has 50 or more stashed in various nooks and crannies of his St. Vital home.

“There’s a joke in the typewriter community: if you leave four typewriters in your car unlocked, when you come back there’ll be three more,” the 57-year-old says with a laugh.

Federal Court awards OCN $27M, 62 years after construction of hydro dam

The Federal Court has ordered Ottawa pay Opaskwayak Cree Nation $27 million over damages suffered due to the construction of the Grand Rapids hydro dam in the 1960s.

In a decision dated Sept. 3, Federal Court Justice Sébastien Grammond says the federal government had a fiduciary duty to protect the community from the impacts of the dam.

“When the Crown exercises a discretionary power over an Indigenous interest, it has a fiduciary duty and it must exercise the discretion in the best interests of the Indigenous group,” the ruling said. “Canada breached its fiduciary duty to OCN because it approved the (project) without ensuring that the impacts of the Grand Rapids dam on OCN’s traditional way of life were mitigated or compensated.”

The First Nation took the federal government to court in February over impacts on the community after the dam, located about 145 kilometres southeast of Opaskwayak Cree Nation, was installed on the Saskatchewan River in 1964. The case was heard over 14 days in a judge-alone trial in Winnipeg.