Hand-drawn 1884 map captures Winnipeg at moment when frontier hadn’t fully given way to a metropolis

At first glance, the map is still. Ink on paper, streets drawn neatly in place, buildings rendered by a careful hand. Look more closely and it begins to loosen. Step into the image, between the lines, and immerse yourself in a city of movement.

For celluloid champion, nothing beats spooling up vintage film format to ‘purr’ on a projector

Behold the power of the press.

In 2013, the Killarney Guide published an article about Elyas Tesfaye, a professional agriculturist who had moved to the Killarney-Turtle Mountain region for his job.

The story centred around Tesfaye’s volunteer duties at a local seniors’ complex.

Specifically, how he commonly entertained residents by screening decades-old documentaries from his personal collection of 16-millimetre films, a movie-playback format he became enamoured with while growing up in his native Ethiopia.

How high is the Red River today? Check this graph.

Water levels in Winnipeg are measured in “feet James,” the level above the normal winter ice level as measured at a gauge on the Red River east of James Avenue in the Exchange District, just downstream of The Forks where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet.

Drumroll, please: School of Rock celebrates 10-year mark

It’s been a decade of treble and bass at the School of Rock and the music academy on Corydon Avenue is gearing up to celebrate the major milestone with an all-ages anniversary show.

After 10 years of teaching Winnipeggers, both young and old, the art of rock ’n’ roll, the school is preparing to drum up even more excitement as it marches towards another decade of helping people play music together.

The program — which takes place May 16 at Sidestage, 700 Osborne St. — features live music performed by the talented artists and bands from the school. Ticket prices are donation-based, with all proceeds going toward supporting the school house band’s upcoming Canada Fest tour in Regina.

The school has been welcoming children as young as four, as well as youthful grown-ups in their 60s, to group and individual classes since opening its doors in 2016.

MHCA president to retire at year end

The Manitoba Heavy Construction Association’s longest-running president and CEO will retire at the end of the year.

Chris Lorenc has led the association for over 35 years, and it grew from 73 members to over 420 under his leadership. He will retire effective Dec. 31.

“Serving the MHCA, the industry it represents, and the opportunity it has provided to work with government and stakeholder organizations in Manitoba and across Canada, has been the greatest privilege of my professional life,” Lorenc said in a press release Friday.

Lorenc served as a city councillor from 1983 to 1992.

Actor/writer Vardalos offers readers a little sugar

In honour of the local debut of Tiny Beautiful Things — her stage adaptation of the popular Dear Sugar advice column — Winnipeg actress/writer Nia Vardalos agreed to take on the role of agony aunt for readers of the Free Press Applause newsletter.

Below, the My Big Fat Greek Wedding star tackles some tough questions in the empathetic style of Wild author Cheryl Strayed, who collected her originally anonymous columns in the 2012 book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar.

Prairie Theatre Exchange presents Tiny Beautiful Things, directed by Ann Hodges and starring Laura Olafson as Sugar, to April 19.

Pluck, persistence have already paid off for Chickadee band leader

They talk about accidents of history and opportunities in crisis.

A memorable example of both from music: in 1928, an obscure French Romani musician named Django Reinhardt scorched his hand in a caravan fire, leaving two of his fretting fingers useless.

Doctors said Reinhardt’s days as a musician were over. Instead, he put away his banjo and reached for the guitar more often, focusing on single-note lines rather than full-fingered chords.

This is the mythical origin story of gypsy jazz — pioneering not just a new genre but the guitar as a proud lead instrument.

Festival celebrates the brilliance of baroque music

Nolan Kehler doesn’t easily let on that he’s a little “senza fiato” right now — music speak for “out of breath.”

The young but seasoned tenor and Classic 107 radio personality articulates himself accordingly: his polished pitches for the Winnipeg Baroque Festival arc almost musically, without ums, uhs or swallowed consonants.

But as a key organizer, alongside local choral group Dead of Winter, for a festival that packs more than 10 concerts into a couple of weeks, he admits it’s been a whirlwind recently.

“Certainly a busy few weeks here for me personally. But it’s truly joyful work to be able to interact with patrons who come again and again to these concerts,” he says.

Sweet, salty advice and plenty of drama in Prairie Theatre Exchange's Tiny Beautiful Things

As today’s internet burns, with the American president typing out annihilative intentions into a propagandist app he’s dubbed the Truth, it’s easy to feel like a helpless fruit fly caught in a world wide web of lies. We consume alternating doses of negative reality and “harmless” gobbledegook to placate our worst fears.

Strapped onto this hellish seesaw, our friends and neighbours acknowledge that they could use a bit of helpful advice and support, with an estimated 20 per cent of Canadians experiencing mental health or substance use issues in a given year.

Under these circumstances, millions have begun to seek help by explaining their predicaments to large language model chatbots, a growing trend that’s led to discomfort, fear and stress amongst AI skeptics and clinicians alike.

Playwright Nia Vardalos’s Tiny Beautiful Things dials back the doomsday clock, focusing on an online advice columnist’s rise to prominence at the tail-end of an epoch of internet exploration known as the blog era, a period when the URL ruled and websites such as The Rumpus healthily covered the digital terrain.

Running out of storage space for your files? Here’s how to find more — affordably

Alex Whitfield is always drowning in files. Between the podcast he hosts and the clients who come through his Oshawa, Ont., recording studio, he routinely blows through all the space he has on hard drives and cloud storage platforms.

"We are regularly dealing with hour-long 4K videos, which are super time-intensive and really big files, so finding the best storage service has been a bane of my existence," he said.

Whitfield is not alone. As cellphone cameras continue to improve, the itch to post on social media grows, and cloud storage proliferates, even those not in the content creation business are running out of space for all their files.

Experts say getting a handle on it all can be time consuming and costly but there are several ways to reduce the headaches and fees while ensuring your memories or hard work don't disappear when your computer or phone winds up on the fritz.

What's Up: Fine art fair, Burt tours, art auction/cupcake party, MCO concert

Winnipeg Fine Art FairRed River Exhibition Park, 3977 Portage AveFriday to Sunday, various timesTickets: $10.50 daily; $15.75 weekend pass available onlineNow in its third year, the biggest art show in the province returns this weekend.

The juried art show and sale features 77 local artists showing works across a variety of styles, including watercolour and acrylic paintings, fibre art and photography.

Artists include Megan Elowen, whose needle-felted wool paintings invite touch; Manitoba-based Métis photographer Jason Lee, showing his dramatic Canadian landscapes; and Carla Rademaker, who uses clocks, keys, cogs and gears in her steampunk pieces.

All art on display is available to buy with all proceeds going to the artists.

Studies reveal inequalities in music-biz leadership roles

Nelly Furtado, Joni Mitchell, Begonia and Tate McRae — the most visible honorees and notable winners at this year’s Juno Awards seemed to be mostly women.

But look into the annual awards categories that celebrate key decision-makers behind the scenes and a less female-centric image of the Canadian music industry’s favoured leaders emerges.

For years, categories such as Engineer of the Year, Producer of the Year and the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, which often celebrates music managers and executives, have skewed toward male recipients, and this year wasn’t much different.

Before anyone makes strong accusations against the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and its hundreds of Juno jurors, it’s worth noting the number of studies that reflect macro gender disparities within the music industry.

Projection device guides playful excursion of discovery

When Hélène Langevin looks back at her childhood, her memory often travels downstairs.

The basement of her grandmother’s house in Trois Rivières, Que., is where the Montreal-based choreographer first practised the time-honoured tradition of snooping for inspiration.

Inside steam chests and armoires, she found finely preserved wedding dresses, tutus, top hats and canes — just a few of the narrative materials necessary for transformation, disguise and devised theatrical escape.

A few years ago, with the pandemic shuttering theatres across the country, Langevin returned to those early experiments in self-discovery and forgivable mischief.

Home gardeners have new way to share bumper crops

Planning a prolific pumpkin patch? A new free online resource lets Winnipeggers list vegetables they’re planning to grow this summer that they will either sell, barter or give away in the fall.