Your forecast
Mainly sunny, with local smoke. High 25 C. UV index 8 or very high.
What’s happening today
The Red River Ex is back with carnival rides and games galore, as well as a plethora of food trucks slinging all manner of fairground faves, kicking off today at 5 p.m. at Red River Exhibition Park, 3977 Portage Ave., West Gate, off Festival Drive.
The Red River Ex opens Friday and runs for 10 days. (Nic Adam / Free Press files)
Winnipeg quartet VVonder — prefixed by two Vs but pronounced with a single W — has spent the last three years finishing its followup to 2022’s Now and Again, and launches its sophomore album Stumble On tonight at 8:30 p.m. at Blue Note Park.
VVonder releases its new album Friday at Blue Note Park. (Supplied)
Today’s must-read
For a once-proud retail giant — built on a fur-trading empire so far-reaching it was known simply as The Company — it was an unceremonious end.
In March, after years of hemorrhaging at the bottom line, the Hudson’s Bay Company announced it would begin liquidating its stores across the country, with the doomsday clock striking zero on June 1.
Shoppers driven by nostalgia and bargains flocked to stores for all things striped red, green, yellow and blue, the now iconic colour pattern of the three-and-a-half-century-old institution.
Savvier hunters, however, are still waiting on the sidelines and eyeing bigger prizes — HBC’s private collection of 1,700 art pieces, 2,700 artifacts and even the company’s Royal Charter are all slated for auction to help pay off creditors. Conrad Sweatman has the story.
Michelle Rydz, archivist with Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, lays out a 1921 map that shows the disposition of land in Manitoba. (Mike Deal / Free Press)
On the bright side
It’s been a while since Ryan Straschnitzki looked at the world from a different perspective.
The former Humboldt Broncos hockey player has been using a wheelchair since 2018, when he was paralyzed from the chest down in a bus crash in rural Saskatchewan that killed 16 people and injured 13 others.
On Thursday, he demonstrated an exoskeleton that allowed him to walk along a 12-metre track in Calgary. “I forgot how tall I was. I’m usually sitting really low, so I don’t see people above their heads. Now being here, I get to see everybody’s head. It’s cool,” Straschnitzki said while standing in the wearable device. The Canadian Press reports.
Former Humboldt Bronco Ryan Straschnitzki walks using a new exoskeleton in Calgary on Thursday. (Bill Graveland / The Canadian Press)
On this date
On June 13, 1967: The Winnipeg Free Press reported that detailed proposals for the western portion of Metro Winnipeg’s $100-million inner perimeter highway, which would include a high-speed freeway across the Assiniboine River just west of Sturgeon Creek, were made public. In Tampa, Fla., police clashed with rioters for a second straight night; the unrest was sparked by the shooting death by police of a Black 19-year-old man. Read the rest of this day’s paper here. Search our archives for more here.
Today’s front page
Get the full story: Read today’s e-edition of the Free Press.
|
