In pictures: Norway House evacuation By: Photography by David Lipnowski Posted: 11:53 AM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 4, 2025 Last Modified: 6:01 PM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 4, 2025

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.

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.

Brandon laying groundwork for Arabian championship

BRANDON — It’s time to dish the dirt on what’s about to happen at Brandon’s Keystone Centre.

Hundreds of horses and hundreds more spectators are about to descend on the site for Canada’s National Arabian Championship Aug. 6 to 15, and before that happens, the staging surface has to be perfect.

“We have been working on this day in and day out,” said Devin Epp, sales manager in the Ag Centre at the Keystone Centre.

Since July 24, staff have been working on a 24-hour schedule to build the competition floor. Dirt was hauled into the arena and has since been worked into place with tractors and hand-pushed equipment.

Woman, 23, charged with fatal stabbing outside Portage Place

A 23-year-old woman has been charged with fatally stabbing a woman after they argued outside the entrance of Portage Place mall in the middle of the afternoon Tuesday.