Ogopogo copyright given to B.C. Indigenous nations

VERNON, B.C. - The legal rights to the legendary creature in a British Columbia lake have been transferred to an alliance of Indigenous nations who say the Ogopogo has always been part of their spiritual teachings.

Council members in the Okanagan city of Vernon voted unanimously to transfer the Ogopogo copyright it has held for 65 years to the eight-member Okanagan Nation Alliance.

Ogopogo means spirit of the lake in the alliance's Syilx language.

"It just makes sense," Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming said in an interview. "The story comes from the Okanagan Syilx people and it makes sense for them to hold the copyright and not the City of Vernon."

Greenhouse sprouts in inner-city neighbourhood

AN inner-city greenhouse will soon burst with plants and people, and tackle food insecurity and unemployment.

The Spence Neighbourhood Association unveiled its community greenhouse at 689 Maryland St. Wednesday.

“In our neighbourhood, food access is a big issue,” said Mandalyn Unger, a co-ordinator with the non-profit.

The group regularlys accepts input from locals about their vision for the neighbourhood.

A novel to weave Filipino roots into her sons’ future

In Primrose Madayag Knazan’s first novel, food is the gateway to a fuller understanding of self. It’s a narrative arc that’s played out many times in real life for the Winnipeg playwright.

Lessons in Fusion follows 16-year-old food blogger Sarah as she embarks on a virtual cooking competition that pushes her to explore her Filipino heritage. It’s an eye-opening journey for the main character, who was raised emphatically Jewish.

Like Sarah, Madayag Knazan is Jewish and also re-connected with her Filipino roots later in life.

“I grew up at a time when my parents were basically told, ‘You can’t speak Filipino to your daughter anymore because she’s not going to be smart, she’s not going to succeed’,” says Madayag Knazan, whose family immigrated to Winnipeg from the Philippines in 1974. “I lost that tie to my culture and I’ve been fighting to get that back since then.”

For a quarter-century, McNally Robinson's Grant Park location has tapped into local book lover's desires

Twenty-five years ago this week, the staff of McNally Robinson were frantically preparing, bounding about their Grant Park store, a 20,000-square-foot behemoth that had yet to welcome its first customer.

The grand opening was near, and so was Margaret Atwood.

Atwood, if not the country’s most famous author then at least its second or third, was in Winnipeg to promote her latest book, Alias Grace, and to lend her authoritative support to what was to become the country’s largest independent bookstore, with a reading and book signing. A large crowd was anticipated.

There was a wild push to get ready for Oct. 15: staff were shifted from the company’s smaller locations, shipments were arriving in rapid succession. Shelves still had to be set up when Atwood arrived a few hours early to discuss the details of her reading, where she would be joined by a local literary icon, Carol Shields.

City’s oldest halal shop a community cornerstone

To step into Manitoba’s longest-running halal store is to feel all your senses go off at once.

Colourful spices lining the shelves, hookahs of every size and variety, signage above each aisle in English and Arabic, the smell of warm samosas. On a small television a video of Muslim worshippers in Mecca with prayers overlaid plays, above one of the store’s tightly-packed lanes.

At the heart of it all, 70-year-old owner Yusuf Abdulrehman is somehow the most vibrant aspect of the store.

Seemingly unable to stop moving, he paces through the aisles of the Halal Meat Centre, located at 206 Maryland St., fixing products just so, talking to suppliers on speaker phone, but always stopping to greet customers, many he knows by name. It’s no wonder that many in Winnipeg’s Muslim community fondly refer to the store as simply “Yusuf’s.”

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.

Listening after decades of hearing

It seemed that all of Canada glowed orange, in act or in mind. On the streets of Winnipeg, a sea of people marched in orange shirts, carrying orange signs. On social media, people shared text posts on orange backgrounds, urging more attention to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action.

Even city buses — though not orange — marked the day on their digital signs.

If you'd come to me 10 years ago and told me this week would happen, I wouldn't have believed you. If you'd told me that on the last day of September 2021, everything from a cocktail bar to a Botox clinic would close to remember the children and survivors of residential schools, I would have said you were telling me about a dream.

Not the kind we seek to create, but the kind that disintegrates upon waking.

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.

Manitobans take to streets in name of truth, reconciliation

A sea of orange flooded downtown Winnipeg, as thousands of Manitobans came together to honour residential school survivors, mourn those lost to the system, and mark the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

On Thursday morning, outside the towering Canadian Museum for Human Rights, a historic sight: crowds of people in orange shirts honouring a group of Sixties Scoop, residential school and day school survivors gathered on the steps.

"We went there as beautiful children; we wake up every day with these memories,” Gerry Shingoose — herself a residential school survivor — called into a megaphone, looking out at the growing crowd.

"Today is such a beautiful day to honour each one of us."

Portraits of survivors, tales of strength

Since 2013, Sept. 30 has been known as Orange Shirt Day — to honour the children who survived Indian residential schools and to remember those who did not return home.

It is also now the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which asks all Canadians to reflect upon relationships with Indigenous people, remember the harms of the past, and focus on ways to commit to healthy and positive growth throughout all communities today.

Here are six inspiring stories of Manitoba survivors of the residential school, day school, and child welfare systems:

Toy industry grapples with supply chain issues ahead of busy holiday shopping season

Ahead of the release of the Paw Patrol movie this summer, Toys “R” Us Canada and toy maker Spin Master Corp. did something rarely seen before in the toy industry.

They air freighted Liberty toys — the latest member of the animated search and rescue team — from China to Canada to get the new pup on store shelves in time for the film’s premiere.

“We really wanted to have Liberty available for our customers when the movie came out,” said Katrina Fyfle, Toys “R” Us Canada brand manager. "She was one that we put on an airplane in partnership with the vendor.”

The unusual step underscores the enduring difficulty of operating amid a pandemic and its related labour shortages, escalating material prices, rising shipping costs and lengthy delays.

Bright orange safety shirts now beacon of hope, thanks to young designer

Isaiah Binns, who graduated last spring from Elmwood High School, arrives at the downtown headquarters of Richlu Industries, the manufacturer of Tough Duck workwear, to see the logo he helped create for a line of the company’s reflective safety clothing ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Renewed museum showcases history of former municipality with wealth of artifacts

Writer Brenda Suderman continues her tour of Winnipeg’s community museums with a stop at St. Vital Museum, 600 St. Mary’s Rd., operated since 1985 by the St. Vital Historical Society. Closed during the past 18 months due to the global pandemic, the doors to this former historic firehall, police station and municipal office are open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday. Call 204-255-2864 for more information. Admission is free but donations are welcome.

• • •

An onstage curiosity for years, Jimmy Moore’s shovel fiddle now attracts interest without a string plucked or a note played.

“He was very creative,” recalled daughter Myrna Moore of the former St. Vital resident of Métis heritage who died in 1991.

Lake Winnipeg loaded with hidden treasures

“Let’s walk to a Lake Winnipeg island!” I exclaimed to Margie. “Forget about Mont-Saint-Michel over in France!”

Folks usually boat or wade the kilometer to Manitoba’s Elk Island but, with low water, I heard you can walk on a mostly dry sandbar.

Elk Island is a nine square-kilometer provincial park west of broad Traverse Bay and north of Sandy Bay, least known of Lake Winnipeg’s east-side beach communities. The Cree name is Misse Ministik, meaning big island. The park is designated for natural wilderness with no development, amenities or, apparently, elk.

We first found Sandy Bay last year, surprisingly discovering two red tractors with trailers - sitting in the lake. Are farmers prepping for the next flood? Growing watermelons?

At 50, the WAG is embracing a spirit of reconciliation and reinvention

Paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Group of Seven artists such as L.L. FitzGerald were among the famous paintings on display when the Winnipeg Art Gallery opened its doors 50 years ago today.

Grand works all, but it was a few sculptures by Inuit artists that were also on display that caught the eye of Princess Margaret, who gave the gallery its grand unveiling on Sept. 25, 1971, during her royal visit to the city, the Free Press reported then.

Perhaps the princess was onto something. Half a century later, works by Indigenous artists are no longer mere curiosities that add variety to exhibitions showcasing the old masters.

Indigenous art at the WAG has become the showcase.

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.”

Winnipeg School Division to review all its schools named after people

Manitoba’s largest school board is reviewing all of its K-12 building titles to determine whether the namesakes and their respective legacies are in line with modern-day morals.

Last week, Jamie Dumont, vice-chairwoman of the board of trustees in the Winnipeg School Division, introduced a motion to undertake an evaluation of all schools named after people and research each historical figure’s resumé.

“We operate, as a school division, under a number of values and, in many cases, we are very much a leader in diversity, equity, inclusion and Indigenous education — so I think it’s important that, as a board, we ensure that our schools and our buildings don’t contradict these values,” Dumont said during a virtual board meeting Sept. 13.

The review will identify whether any buildings are named after individuals with a history of actions that are discriminatory or not in accordance with WSD values, namely: inclusiveness, diversity, reconciliation, and respect for the rights and human dignity of others, or both.

Shoal Lake 40 toasts clean water

SHOAL LAKE 40 FIRST NATION – As he raised his glass, Chief Vernon Redsky looked at the water and a memory came rushing back. It reminded him of when he was a kid, he said, and the water in Shoal Lake was crystal-clear like that, back when he and his friends would splash along the shore, drinking from the lake when they got thirsty.

So he thought about that as he clinked his glass against two others, and took a sip. A toast, to the first officially safe tap drinking water in Shoal Lake 40: on Wednesday, after 24 years, the Treaty Three First Nation’s boil water advisory officially ended.

“It’s surreal to be at this moment,” Redsky said at a ceremony to celebrate the achievement, as well as the opening of the community’s new school.

One day earlier, a government official in Kenora, Ont., had officially approved the latest test results from Shoal Lake 40’s new water treatment plant, which started pumping this summer. That night, Redsky couldn’t sleep; he called a former chief to talk about the long road they had travelled to get to this point.

Flags of Treaty One, the Dakota and Métis fly at city hall

Drumbeats reverberated as four Indigenous leaders rode horseback past the brick-walled restaurants on King Street: it was the beginning of a ceremony to recognize the place of Indigenous people in Winnipeg.

On Wednesday morning, the flags of Treaty One First Nations, the Dakota and the Métis were hoisted at city hall. They'll be there permanently, alongside the flags of Canada, Manitoba and Winnipeg.

"It'll make our people proud that their flag will be flying at city hall," said Sagkeeng First Nation Chief Derrick Henderson. "That is so significant."

Chiefs, representatives of various Indigenous groups and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman spoke at the flag-raising event. Ribbon skirts, headdresses and face masks were abundant among the crowd.

Immigrant, newcomer communities seek to get out the vote

When Roselyn Advincula pictures an election, she pictures a party.

In her home country of the Philippines, candidates bring in celebrity endorsements and crowd-rousing chants to inspire the electorate. Living near a polling station, she remembers sharing hellos and leaflets with the jubilant crowds walking past her door to vote.

Advincula, 39, and her husband moved to Canada 13 years ago, but just got their citizenship in March. The couple will vote for the first time in the 2021 federal election, and are looking forward to bringing the familiar atmosphere to their "second home."

"It's a mixed emotion for me, it brought back memories and excitement," Advincula said at a voting campaign event Thursday in Winnipeg's Central Park.

Magnificent mentorship program

Sitting on a piano bench at the back of the St. Norbert Arts Centre gallery space Thursday, up-and-coming musician Tomiwa Omolayo is wearing rose-coloured glasses — literally.

It’s the same pair of tinted shades (accented by a rolled-up mustard-yellow toque) the self-proclaimed optimist wore for his first live show since the COVID-19 pandemic: a performance on the GerryFest 2021 stage.

“I was nervous because I wasn’t sure if the music would connect,” Omolayo said, thinking back to the August 13 show on a breezy outdoor stage at the arts centre. “I’m trying to make something that’s different, something that’s fresh.”

The Lagos-born 23-year-old is an Afrofusion artist who launched his career blending a variety of musical genres with the classic sounds of afrobeats in 2018, after moving from Nigeria to Winnipeg for school just a few years before.