Craft ministry crochets scarves, tuques, more for vulnerable Winnipeggers

It’s a sunny summer’s day with barely a cloud in the sky but Winnipeg’s bitter winter is already on the minds of the folks gathered in the small library at Epiphany Lutheran Church (200 Dalhousie Dr.).

Every first and third Wednesday of the month, armed with needles and hooks, they knit and crochet for two hours, transforming “oodles of yarn” into scarves, tuques and headbands, to be distributed to the city’s most vulnerable residents.

The church’s volunteer craft ministry was resurrected in early 2023 by Lynnette Stamler, a retired nursing academic who returned to Manitoba after a 27-year career abroad.

“The group had started several years ago when a few ladies got together to make prayer shawls which they gifted to individuals in need. Then during the COVID-19 pandemic it went the way of all good things,” Stamler explains.

Teen urges premier to reject data centre, ‘put people and the environment first’

A 17-year-old who started a petition against the construction of an AI data centre northwest of Winnipeg has made a personal appeal to the premier to stop it.

Leona Gollub emailed Premier Wab Kinew to voice her concern about the environmental impact of a 5.5-megawatt AI data centre that’s being built on Brookside Boulevard in the Centreport industrial area in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, northwest of Winnipeg.

She said she worries about the noise and light pollution that would be emitted by the facility, and the massive amount of electricity it will require that could instead power people’s homes.

The premier, who recently rejected a data centre in Île dês Chênes, southeast of Winnipeg, thanked her for her concern in an email but did not go beyond that.

Vaping: a clear and present danger

The numbers are startling. According to a recent Free Press story, nearly one-fifth (18.4 per cent) of Manitoba teens in grades 7 to 12 reported using ‘vapes’, known more formally as e-cigarettes, within the month prior to answering a Health Canada survey in 2023-24.

Roughing it (less): Handy items for novice campers to make the great outdoors tolerable

I hate camping.

I loathe the very idea of leaving the comfort and safety of home to sleep in a random field, where not only will I be exposed to the elements, but will also be at the mercy of all manner of creatures, from ursine to canine to insectan.

I do not want to hike up a hill just to share one outdoor tap with 12 others, standing alongside them as I brush my teeth.

I do not want to queue for 15 minutes, then part with a $2 coin to wedge myself into a shower stall just to stand under a piddly stream of lukewarm water while trying my best to swiftly soap up and sponge off lest I irk the rapidly growing line of campers outside.

Feasibility study planned for arena on former Kapyong Barracks site

A First Nations development group is hoping to pull in prospective sports teams with plans to build an arena in south Winnipeg.

The Treaty One Development Corp. is exploring the feasibility of a 6,000-person arena in Naawi-Oodena, the former Kapyong Barracks site, on the southeast side at Taylor Avenue and Kenaston Boulevard.

The hope is to give aspiring athletes a large space to practice, and possibly even bring a junior or professional sports team to Winnipeg, said chief development officer Cody Mercer, who listed the Western Hockey League or National Lacrosse League as examples.

“Not just working for Treaty One, but also in our membership of the seven communities, there’s a ton of athletes, and really we see that when they’re getting to that higher level of hockey or anything like that, they’re having to move away,” he said. “We thought this is an idea that we can try to bring (in) a team.”

Inside Saskatchewan’s Cigar Lake mine, a ’boutique’ operation with abundant uranium

CIGAR LAKE, SASK. - Cessa Fern's day begins with being squished into a metal cage with 19 others, and dropped to a depth greater than the height of New York’s Empire State Building into a dark world of rock walls, pipes and wires.

It's where uranium is mined and fears are faced.

The radiation student technician had reservations about the job before taking her first trip down the elevator.

"I was like, 'No way am I going to work in the mine,'" Fern recalled in an interview.

Businesses report ongoing struggle amid reduced walk-by traffic 1 year into Graham Avenue transit corridor rework

Layoffs, squeezed profits, reduced hours and a downsizing have plagued Graham Avenue businesses in the year since buses were removed from the former Winnipeg Transit strip.

A convenience store along the road doubled its footprint two years ago. Now, it’s operating in half the space: a wall was built in the middle of the shop last month, creating room for a new tenant.

Across the street, bong seller Aluminum Sound has laid off two staff. It’s one of at least two companies to lessen its employee count following the Transit overhaul.

“You could fire a cannon down Graham Avenue a lot of the time and not have to worry about any casualties,” said Aimee Peake, owner of Bison Books.

In America 250 years later, Thomas Jefferson's elegant phrases remain hollow

In the 16th and 17th centuries, countries and territories such as the Netherlands and Portugal boldly declared their independence from Spain. But 250 years ago, on July 4, 1776, the American Declaration of Independence — marked in the U.S. by the semiquincentennial celebrations — was the first time an overseas colony (the 13 colonies, in this case) had set out in an official document its reasons for breaking away from its mother country.

Because the Declaration ultimately gave birth to the United States, it is considered one of the greatest of historical treatises. Thomas Jefferson, its primary author, later explained that his main aim was “not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of … but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject; in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.”

He did so brilliantly, creating, in theory at least, an enlightened argument for American independence based on the political, economic, social and philosophical thinking of the era.

Influenced by such philosophers as John Locke and Montesquieu, Jefferson, then 33 years old, a lawyer, landowner, Virginia politician and a delegate to the Second Continental Congress which met in Philadelphia, passionately believed in natural law — that all human beings were born free and equal and that no king or ruler could abolish these rights. It was a key point he made in the Declaration’s well-known preamble.

‘Forward guidance’ on Canadian climate targets

At last, some honesty in Canadian climate policy

Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke the truth last week about where greenhouse gas emissions were going in Canada: up, not down. This is the first time any prime minister has stated the reality of the country’s emissions trajectory. Until now, it’s all been about putting a positive gloss on far-off reduction goals and unrealistic ambitions.

The prime minister’s second instalment of “forward guidance”, as he calls it, focused on what’s ahead on energy and climate. It was a refreshing and overdue pivot in crafting a more realistic and durable climate policy for the country.

Here’s what he said: “I want to be clear on this point. The changes we have made will mean that our emissions will be higher in the next few years than they were projected to be under the previous government’s plan. But in my judgment, that plan was not sustainable over the long term.”

Environnement et communauté

“Il y en a plusieurs des entreprises qui font du greenwashing, ils se peinturent dans le développement durable, l’affichent sur le site web: Écologique! Nous, on l’est pour vrai,” c’est ce qu’affirme Éric Gosselin, directeur général de Sun Certified. La Liberté l’a rencontré dans l’atelier de sa compagnie, un vaste espace de travail garni de matériaux en bois, de maquettes et de murs de maisons.

Cette société de construction de logements a des méthodes bien particulières, notamment pour l’isolation des maisons. Les travailleurs utilisent des matériaux organiques pour créer une épaisse couche d’isolation à base de papier et de carton. “La première chose qu’on fait, c’est utiliser des matières organiques, alors du bois et de la fibre cellulosique. Et il y en a beaucoup dans l’enveloppe du bâtiment, pour renforcer l’isolation,” explique Éric Gosselin.

La compagnie privilégie les matériaux renouvelables, ce qui la démarque des autres sociétés dans le domaine. “Pour l’isolation, quand on utilise du bois, c’est renouvelable. On pourra toujours planter d’autres arbres et ça va repousser. Chez les constructeurs standards, c’est de la mousse ou du rockwool, fait à base de pétrole ou de minéraux.”

Cette volonté d’accorder plus d’importance à l’environnement dans le domaine de l’habitation, c’est ce qui a mené à la création de Sun Certified.

While the rest of us sleep in …

There is something a little unfair about waking up early on a statutory holiday.

The alarm goes off. You briefly forget what day it is. Then it hits you. Everyone else is sleeping in, planning a barbecue, packing the kids into the car for a trip to the beach or deciding whether they should mow the lawn today or put it off until tomorrow.

You, on the other hand, are putting on a uniform and trying to convince yourself coffee really can solve anything.

If you’ve ever worked retail, health care, emergency services, hospitality, public transit, utilities, manufacturing, airports, long-term care, broadcasting, customer service or any of the countless jobs that keep our communities running, you know exactly what I mean.

The dream of the ’90s is alive in summertime

This is a ’90s summer, from someone who was five in 1990 and 14 in 1999:

Bikes. Scraped knees. Playing mermaids. Running through sprinklers. Going outside in the morning and returning when the streetlights came on. Staying awake at sleepovers until the streetlights went off again. Hydrating not via garden hose, but by spraying water directly into your mouth with one of those translucent green plastic waterguns. Chasing down a Dickie Dee bike.

Thunderstorms, streaking the sky with lightning. Watches and warnings in white text on the red, green and blue Environment Canada weather channel.

Wading pools. Hot plastic swing seats. The feeling of flight, metal chains snapping you to earth. Chalking out impossibly long hopscotch grids on the sidewalk. Daytime TV. Scandalous talk shows. Carrie and Austin. Bringing in groceries from the car wearing any shoes but yours.

Chief justice’s last act ‘revolutionary’ step forward

Weeks before being nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal rendered one of the most remarkable decisions in this province’s history.

You may not have heard about it, but it was a big one — and not just in the financial sense but in a change-the-face-of-this-province kind of way.

In October 2022, three First Nations chiefs joined with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and launched a proposed class-action lawsuit seeking $2.1 billion in damages for three decades of harms by child and family services agencies run by the provincial and federal governments.

Joyal presided over the case in one of his last duties as Manitoba’s top judge.

Gem Studio puts new shine on handmade experience

In recent weeks, some restaurant-goers headed to a Winnipeg eatery have found themselves looking at jewels and charms before ordering their meals.

The Gem Studio opened at the end of May in the same Corydon Avenue building as Kevin’s Bistro and Stella’s Cafe. Occasionally, patrons of the joint restaurants pick the wrong door and walk into the new business — which offers customers a hands-on jewelry-making experience guided by professional silversmiths.

Their mistake turns into a marketing opportunity, according to Dylan Forest, studio manager. “Everybody kind of takes a … discount code or coupon and says they’ll come back later when they have some time with their friends or family,” he said.

Forest hopes they do. It’s the franchise’s first Gem Studio location in Western Canada.

Countdown is on for Camp Arnes

The anticipation of leaving for summer camp grows as Kyla Gearo walks her kids through a list of everything they’ll need in preparation for their five-day adventure.

As each day passes, her kids grow increasingly more excited as the reality of getting to go to Camp Arnes sets in — a reality Gearo didn’t think was possible before help from the Sunshine Fund.

With the help of Free Press readers, the Sunshine Fund has been able to send children to camps across Manitoba and northwestern Ontario for 46 summers and sent 681 kids to camp in 2025.

“I wouldn’t have been able to afford it without it, that’s for sure,” said Gearo.

Letter-opener enthusiast’s collection truly a cut above

Madame Daubreuil. On the 10th hole. With a letter opener.

In the 1923 Agatha Christie novel The Murder on the Links, town resident Paul Renauld turns up dead on a golf course in Merlinville-sur-Mer, France. Fictional detective Hercule Poirot, who is visiting the region, assigns himself to the case. After a number of false leads, the Belgian sleuth ultimately discovers that the victim’s son’s girlfriend fatally stabbed Renauld in the back with an ornate-looking letter opener so her lover would inherit his father’s fortune.

Steve Judge, a former Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service captain who actively collects vintage letter openers, isn’t overly surprised to hear his collectible-of-choice played a prominent role in a murder-mystery tome. (A letter opener also once served as the lethal weapon in the Inspector Morse TV series, as well as in a Season 10 episode of Midsomer Murders.)

“The blades on letter openers are generally quite dull, but if you go to thrift stores, you’ll find they’re usually kept with things like knives and other sharp objects, so I get the association,” says Judge, seated at his dining room table, which is blanketed with dozens of selections from his hoard, some of which are close to a century old.

More cans off city streets, more money in pockets

Empty beer cans on the street may be litter, but to some they provide income to afford basic necessities.

“It pays for stuff that we need, something to eat, something to drink and other stuff like personal hygiene,” said Darius Campbell, who picks up the empty cans and returns them to the Northern Hotel on Main Street each day.

As of July 1, Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries changed guidelines on its container deposit program. Deposits are paid — and refunds given — for cans of coolers, cocktails, ciders, sodas and seltzers containing alcohol that are returned to vendors. It’s worth 10 cents for a regular bottle, up to $40 for a keg over 19 litres.

“That’s more money in our pocket than it being littered on the ground all over the city,” said Campbell, who lives in the West End.

Manitoba-shot Netflix series sets beloved Ingalls clan in the actual Prairies

Perhaps it should not have been a significant surprise that Manitoba was chosen as the location for a new iteration of the much-beloved TV series Little House on the Prairie.

Much of the southern part of the province is, after all, authentic Prairie, visually unspoiled by power lines and paved roads.

And there is enough of it to portray a frontier wilderness that matches the source material: a series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, set in and around Independence, Kan., in the 1860s. (Manitoba also famously doubled for Kansas in the movie Capote, the Oscar-winning story of Truman Capote’s investigation of a 1959 quadruple homicide on a Kansas farm, culminating in the publication of his book In Cold Blood.)

Perhaps it was more of a surprise that the material would inspire a new interpretation landing on the streaming service Netflix.