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:

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.

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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.

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.

Winnipeg Police Museum shines a light on the history of policing in city

Worn for only a few days or weeks, a set of frayed and grimy canvas armbands stored in a back room at the Winnipeg Police Museum bear the weight of more than a century of history.

Originally fastened around a jacket sleeve with a set of snaps or modified with hand stitched elastic, these armbands bear witness to the involvement of special police constables in the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.

“They knew they were going to have all these civilians, so they needed ways to identify them,” museum curator Tammy Skrabek said, pointing to the large plastic bin of armbands stored on a shelf in a large second-floor archives room.

Along with the white armbands, printed with the words Special Police Winnipeg, the museum owns a bin of pinback celluloid buttons also issued to the anti-strike, anti-union volunteers hastily commissioned as police officers during the strike, which saw more than 30,000 workers participate, including most of Winnipeg’s Police Department.

Set of The Porter a testament to the special connection production has with Winnipeg's Black history

On a rainy Friday evening in Winnipeg’s landmark Nutty Club building, camera crews, grips, food services, hair and makeup teams, stand-ins and actors are spinning about in dance-like organized chaos.

The five-storey candy warehouse — first erected in 1905 and still standing in the shadow of active CP and CN rail lines — has been transformed, pulled back to its turn-of-the-20th-century roots as a set for CBC’s upcoming TV drama The Porter. At each stop along the building’s steep wooden staircase, the team behind Canada’s largest Black-led production is hard at work bringing the roaring ‘20s — and an oft-forgotten story of Black liberation and empowerment — to life.

On one floor, cast and crew block their scene movements, listening raptly to directors, speaking in huddles, donning crisp white shirts and suspenders or gowns, preparing for the crack of the clapperboard.

A floor above, the members of the “video village” tuck on their headphones, lean over screens and warn each other not to move, lest the ceilings shake below.

Group engages community on renaming Wolseley neighbourhood

In 1870, Col. Garnet Wolseley led a military expedition into Manitoba to violently overthrow Louis Riel’s provisional government at the Red River Colony. On Sunday afternoon, a group gathered at Vimy Ridge Park to discuss how to push for the renaming of the neighbourhood that bears his name.

Red River Echoes, a Métis collective that first came together with the purpose of “bringing an alternative voice to what Métis people think in Manitoba” after Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand put out an ad with the Winnipeg Free Press in March in support of the Winnipeg Police Service, put together the rendezvous to take questions and comments community members might have around the growing conversation to rename Wolseley.

"With a lot of names being changed right now, we thought it was a good opportunity,” Red River Echoes member Claire Johnston said. “And Wolseley in particular has a really violent and negative association for Métis people, and also all other people of colour in who live in Winnipeg.”

In the months since the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves near a residential school in Kamloops, B.C., calls have been sparked across the country to rename landmarks named after people who had a hand in the colonization of Canada. In Winnipeg, Wolseley isn’t the first instance — calls to rename Bishop Grandin Boulevard due to its namesake’s hand in the residential school system have resulted in consultations and a possible recommendation for its renaming coming to city council this fall.

Longtime attendee of Winnipeg Beach Jewish camp now program and planning director

It’s difficult for Drew McGillawee to pinpoint just one favourite part of his 18 summers at Camp Massad, but his biggest takeaway is that attending camp shaped him into the person he is today.

“Camp is the place that allowed me to be myself and allowed me to come out of my shell,” the 25-year-old Winnipegger said.

“Any job that I’ve had outside of camp is because of all the skills that I gained at camp, and all of my best friends are from my experiences at camp.”

This summer, McGillawee acted as director of planning and programming at the Jewish summer camp in Winnipeg Beach. The job allowed him to help attendees have the same formative experiences that he did.

Swimming with local history

Get the sunscreen, we’re going to Patricia Beach!

In fact, we’re even going to get a history lesson on who Patricia was, and why the beach was named for her.

The story all revolves around a summer cabin that was built at Patricia Beach back about 1944, at that time all privately owned by George and Olive Allen, and which still exists and thrives today on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg.

Gotta’ admit, I knew nothing of the history of Patricia Beach until a few days ago when I received a very interesting e-mail from Catherine Lee, George and Olive’s granddaughter.

Japanese garden an enduring cultural experience

The Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba, 180 McPhillips St., opened to the public in 1987. The centre offers a wide range of programs which are designed to promote and enhance the understanding of Japanese culture. The centre also serves as the site for a beautiful Japanese garden. Built by Yoshimaru Abe who was born in Japan in 1914 and came to Canada with his family in 1927, the garden is an enduring cultural experience.

Prior to building the garden at the centre, visitors to the Japanese Folklorama exhibit in 1971 and in the years following had the opportunity to see a Japanese garden recreated by Abe. Using moss, rocks, and pieces of wood, Abe recreated an authentic Japanese garden on a concrete arena floor.

A gardener is called niwashi in Japanese. Abe was the distinguished niwashi at the Japanese cultural centre’s garden into his 90’s and was followed by Sam Matsuo, who maintained the garden for 10 years. Both Abe and Matsuo were assisted by dedicated volunteers. Today the niwashi is Raymond Normandeau, who has been involved with the centre for several years as well as in the building of the garden at the Japanese Pavilion at Folklorama. Normandeau will oversee an expansion of the garden at the Japanese Cultural Association — which is slated to begin this fall.

Currently, there are two different areas to the garden. The front garden is a long narrow strip on the outside of the building that faces into a concrete parking lot. The inner garden is an enclosed garden accessed by a short bridge and tall wooden gate. “It is not a pure Japanese garden,” says Normandeau. “It is representative of a Japanese garden. We don’t have the stalwarts of Japanese gardens — bamboo, clipped azaleas, and the black pine which is one of the most popular pine species in a Japanese garden.” But many fine elements of Japanese garden design can indeed be found here.

Craig Block link to city’s Black history

Above a fruit seller in a small brick building on Main Street, a group of Black railway porters made history.

The Order of Sleeping Car Porters, formed in Winnipeg in 1917, was North America’s first Black labour union. Five years later, they established offices and a meeting hall on the second storey of the building, the Craig Block, at 795 Main St.

Now, the building has hit the market, without any historical status protections or a bronze plaque to commemorate its history.

History writer Christian Cassidy said he’s seen the building, which recently housed retail store Ma’s Fishing, go up for sale once or twice in the past. Each time, he worries someone will buy it and knock it down. It’s one of last buildings that links Winnipeg to the history of its Black communities.

The show must go on as Selkirk buys theatre

Many in Selkirk thought the credits had rolled for the Garry Theatre, but it appears there’s a sequel.

Landmark Cinemas decided to close it in May and on Wednesday, the City of Selkirk announced it had purchased the theatre for $350,000, plus closing costs.

“What we’ve heard so far is people are very excited and very happy that the city has been able to secure the property,” said Selkirk CAO Duane Nicol.

Nicol said the city will reach out to the community to determine how best to use the building. The city hopes it will become a centre for arts and culture, he said.

Selkirk art crawl centres on city's thriving mural scene

Sometimes a wall is more than just a wall.

It’s a blank canvas. And in recent years, artists in Selkirk have turned several into works of art, highlighting local figures and traditions, using paint to transform bricks and plaster in the downtown into a growing visual history of the city.

Since 2018, nearly 20 murals have emerged, depicting everything from the traditional community round dance to Indigenous and settler women thriving on the Prairie landscape to a grandmother passing on her teachings. Others bring needed attention to the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and to everyone affected, in the past and present, by the Indian Residential School System, those who came home and those who never did, artist Jordan Stranger says.

All these murals will serve as the backdrop for a free public art crawl Sept. 4 and 5, with local vendors and artisans posting up next to them and getting a long-awaited opportunity to share their work with the community, including handmade goods, paintings, crafts, sewing and woodworking pieces, and much more.