To make these tacos, which way will you cook the bacon?

Cyclists shown Winnipeg’s warmer side

Fundraising cyclists from New Brunswick who had their bikes stolen in Winnipeg got to see a completely different side of the city over the weekend.

Dreaming of a better future

The lingering ghosts of colonialism have long haunted Nova Scotia artist Arjun Lal.

“When I’m thinking of colonial ghosts, it’s these elements of colonial legacy and oppression that maintains a presence in this contemporary world,” says Lal, 34.

He said he most commonly sees this in the fetish community, where colonialism is still often role-played through the oppressor and the oppressed.

Seeing how society’s systems and spaces are still shaped by colonial powers, Lal, whose parents both immigrated from India, questioned what it would be like to break free from these systems and their current form: What would it be like to be a flamingo?

Qualico celebrating 75 years of growth, success since its first development of 13 bungalows in River Heights

The first things staff and visitors see after ascending to the third floor of Qualico’s head office in Winnipeg are two statues — one each for company founders David and Katherine Friesen.

Flanking the doors to the integrated real estate company’s C-suite offices, the bronze sculptures are monuments to the couple and the vision, strength and integrity (as the plaques attached to the wooden pedestals attest) it took to start Qualico in 1951.

But imagine for a moment what it would be like if the sculptures were less reverent and more whimsical. Picture them outfitted with the kind of pull-string voice boxes one finds in a child’s toy. What might they say?

It’s possible one of David Friesen’s phrases would be: “No margin, no mission.”

Anishinaabe Days teepee poles vandalized

An act of vandalism to a teepee at the Treaty One Development Corp’s Anishinaabe Days did not stop the celebrations from continuing over the weekend.

Someone deliberately cut the poles used to erect the site’s teepee before the event began, Treaty One executive director Jason Whitford said Sunday.

The family responsible for overseeing the teepee and its construction at the site, Naawi-Oodena  on Kenaston Boulevard, went to the site on Friday to erect the teepee when they noticed someone had taken a saw and cut all 15 of its poles in half.

“They were stored in a safe place, and they were stored properly as per protocol,” Whitford said. “They were in an area where there was no construction so they were isolated from any activity.”

Visitors from across Canada make Somerset restaurant’s social media challenge a success

There may not be another restaurant in Manitoba that can say it has welcomed visitors from as many communities across the province and beyond as the Somerset Food Bar & Lounge has this summer.

In just over a two week span, visitors from more than 100 towns have come out to the family-owned restaurant tucked away in Somerset, a community of roughly 450 people in the Pembina Valley 130 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

It started as a challenge, “60 Towns in 60 Days,” where the restaurant wanted to document how many different places they could reach, as it often sees people travelling across Canada stop at the restaurant. The goal was also to encourage people to make a drive they normally wouldn’t.

“The more we started sharing, the more people really started getting behind it, and it turned into this really big thing fairly quickly,” said Jay Friesen, restaurant manager.