Saskatchewan lays charges in wildfires while 1,000 more flee in Manitoba

Prairie wildfires developed on two fronts Friday, as 1,000 more Manitoba residents were forced to flee their homes and Saskatchewan RCMP charged two people with starting blazes.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe told a news conference that one charge relates to starting a fire near La Ronge, which has forced 7,000 people from the area.

“The RCMP have informed us that they have now charged a couple of individuals,” Moe said.

An 18-year-old woman from Montreal Lake Cree Nation and a 36-year-old man from Pelican Narrows each face one count of arson, said RCMP.

‘Pray for rain’: wildfire races toward Flin Flon

Premier Wab Kinew urged Manitobans to remain calm Friday, a pivotal day in the war on wildfires in which shifting winds sent flames bearing down on Flin Flon, more people had to be evacuated from more communities and desperately needed resources were promised by the United States.

“Keep calm and carry on,” Kinew told an afternoon news conference at the legislature.

He said the threat to Flin Flon, about 830 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, had become so severe that the mayor, council and the few others who remained after a citywide evacuation order issued Wednesday afternoon had no choice but to leave Friday.

“We had our health-care workers leave this morning… the only folks remaining on the ground are the firefighters and folks in the office of the fire commissioner and RCMP who are there to battle the blaze,” Kinew said.

Floods kill at least 111 as northern Nigeria battles climate change, dry spells and heavy rainfall

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Torrents of predawn rain unleashed flooding that killed at least 111 people in a market town where northern Nigerian farmers sell their wares to traders from the south, officials said Friday, predicting the death toll would grow.

The Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency did not immediately say how much rain fell after midnight Thursday in the town of Mokwa in the state of Niger more than 180 miles (300 kilometers) west of Abuja, the capital of Africa's most populous nation.

Communities in northern Nigeria have been experiencing prolonged dry spells worsened by climate change and excessive rainfall that leads to severe flooding during the brief wet season.

In videos and photos on social media, floodwaters covered neighborhoods and homes were submerged, with their roofs barely visible above the brown colored waters. Waist-deep in water, residents tried to salvage what they could, or rescue others.

Demonstrators demand overpass at dangerous Carberry intersection

CARBERRY — More than 150 people stood near the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 5 to denounce the preferred option for a redesign of the intersection in response to a collision two years ago that killed 17 people.

They carried signs that read “safety not shortcuts,” and “how many more accidents before they listen.” The group opposes a U-turn option, which is called an RCUT.

Jordan Dickson, 31, one of the organizers, said the RCUT model isn’t safe for the farmers and truckers who live in the area.

“There’s hundreds, if not thousands of trucks … plus all the other everyday passenger traffic coming through here,” she said.

How many mosquitos are buzzing around Winnipeg? Check our interactive map.

Heading outdoors? Need repellent? Find out with our interactive map showing the number mosquitoes caught in traps around the city.

Biking to the Viking (statue) a great way to burn off tasty local treats

GIMLI — There are many things I enjoy about travel: learning about different cultures, seeing historic sites, experiencing varieties of natural beauty and meeting people from around the world, to list just a few.

Heavy hearts, happy hearts

The marchers arrive at St. John's Park at almost exactly the minute predicted. They arrive in a great orange wave, all wearing shirts the same colour. They arrive led by the drum, and the riders on horseback, and the tendrils of smudge that curl over Main Street, cleansing the path to the park where the powwow is underway.

"Are we all going to fit into the park, guys?" one young woman gasps, laughing as she surveys the scene.

In a way they do, in a way they don't. For hours, the people flow into the park from all directions. They flow by the hundreds, and then the thousands. They flow until the fields show less green than orange, until lines for the porta-potties stretch into the dozens, until the whole park is alive with laughter and conversation.

The crowd looks like Manitoba. It contains faces of all ages, all races. Most of the people here are Indigenous, but on this day they are joined in solidarity by people of all nations; a movement, generations in the making, to call for a way forward, to call for action on reconciliation, to call for justice for Indigenous people.

WAG's angular architecture combines form, function in a building both timeless and of its time

Asked to talk about the Winnipeg Art Gallery building, Stephen Borys pauses for a moment.

“If I had to describe it in one word, it would be ‘timeless,’” says Borys, current director and CEO of the WAG.

Over the course of the Qaumajuq project, Borys found himself looking at photographs of the original WAG structure, designed by Hong Kong-born Canadian architect Gustavo da Roza, from its 1971 opening right up to the present.

“It’s one of Canada’s significant late modernist buildings,” Borys states. “But you look at these photos, and other than the make of cars and the way people dress, it’s hard to put a date on. And that is something that speaks not just of great architecture. It has a resonance beyond a style or a period.”

Custom-crafted dog kennels more plush than penal

SELKIRK — One of late, standup comedian George Carlin’s best-loved shticks revolved around how, as a kid, his parents would command him to his bedroom for hours on end whenever he misbehaved. That never seemed like much of a punishment, he’d explain in his trademark, wry tone, given that’s where all his “stuff” was, the punch line being if his mom and dad really wanted to teach him a lesson, they would have banished him to their room, instead.

Carlin’s bit came to mind recently during an interview with Matt and Kaelyn Proutt, owners of M+K Wood Co., a Selkirk-based enterprise that turns out hand-crafted, wooden dog kennels that, at first glance, could easily be mistaken for a fashionable end table or armoire.

Three years ago, the married couple brought home Callie, a Labrador-English bulldog mix. They purchased a conventional, wire crate during her puppy phase, which they placed her inside as a form of discipline if she nabbed something from a dinner plate or destroyed a throw pillow. Except after they replaced her metal lair with one Matt fashioned out of spruce wood, which Kaelyn subsequently stained to match their living room decor, they discovered it no longer served its intended, penal purpose.

“Originally, the kennel was for when she was naughty. But because she seemed to enjoy the new one so much, we had to start leaving the door open all the time, so she could go inside whenever she felt like it,” Kaelyn says with a chuckle, seated next to Matt on a couch steps away from their pooch’s hideaway.

Winnipeg teen representing Canada at World Amateur Long Drive Championship

A Winnipeg teen known for her prowess on the tee box will be launching bombs on behalf of Canada next month in Chicago.

Hannah Penner, 18, will don the red and white as part of a contingent of 20 golfers set to represent the nation at the 2021 World Amateur Long Drive Championship, set for Sept. 11-19.

She's headed to the Windy City but doesn't require a strong breeze at her back to routinely crush the ball well over 250 yards or, occasionally, eclipse the 300-yard mark.

Penner, one of four women in the group, said she's thrilled about the chance to compete against others with the same unique skillset.

Charleswood residents fume over destroyed trees

Frustrated residents are calling on the city and province to get to the root of the problem that led to the destruction of nearly two dozen mature trees in Charleswood on the weekend.

Early Saturday morning, a building moving company began to move a display home near the corner of Roblin Boulevard and Scotswood Drive. The home was too wide to clear mature trees along Roblin’s median.

When Winnipeg Police Service officers arrived to provide a previously scheduled escort for the movers at about 7 a.m. they discovered 17 trees had been cut down, allegedly by the driver of the vehicle hauling the house, police spokesman Const. Rob Carver said.

“Immediately, upon determining that the trees had been cut and linking it to this move, the move was halted and, ultimately, the driver (was) arrested,” said Carver.

Réal explorateur

RÉAL Bérard est l’un des rares explorateurs des temps modernes à partir à l’assaut des rivières capricieuses armé de son canoë, de papier et d’un crayon.

Réal Bérard est en effet le premier à avoir entrepris de cartographier pour le gouvernement puis par passion l’ensemble des rivières manitobaines.

Depuis 1961 le cartographe parcourt ainsi des kilomètres de rivières et des jours durant, pour les dessiner et les décrire dans les moindres détails afin de créer des cartes uniques en leur genre.

“Après avoir fait les Beaux-arts de Montréal j’ai travaillé pour le ministère des ressources naturelles et je patrouillais sur les rivières jusqu’au jour où j’ai voulu intégrer mon art à mon travail de tous les jours en dessinant et peignant ce que je voyais.”