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In pictures: Pride parade in downtown Winnipeg

This year’s LBGTTQ+ Pride parade took place Sunday in downtown Winnipeg. About 10,000 individuals and over 160 groups registered to walk in the parade, while many thousands more celebrated while standing or sitting along the parade route, which snaked from Memorial Boulevard down Portage Avenue and Main Street to The Forks.

Premier Heather Stefanson walked in the parade along with some of her caucus, as did NDP Leader Wab Kinew and Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont and their respective caucuses.

Here are some pictures from the parade.

Songwriter blooms after 60

One fateful day in 2008 let Karen Hammarstrand know it was time to hang up her lab coat and pick up her guitar.

The moment that has guided the Winnipegger’s venture into songwriting and performing feels as if it happened just yesterday.

“One day — I mean, it’s so weird — but I woke up and I had this song in my head. It had lyrics and music and I thought, ‘Wow, I should do something about that,’” says the former scientist, who specialized in zoology and anthropology before taking what she had sung into a tape recorder to the Manitoba Independent Songwriters Circle, a monthly hang held in the Exchange District at the time.

“It was just so exciting and that was it. There was no turning back.”

Local lawyer vying for pinball supremacy at world championships

This weekend, Freddy’s Pinball Paradise in Echzell, Germany, is hosting the International Flipper Pinball Association World Pinball Championship, an annual get-together that draws pinball wizards from every corner of the globe.

Among the registered participants is Winnipegger Jack Tadman, a married father of three who is currently ranked as the No. 3 pinballer in Canada, and the 80th best of his kind on the planet. Tadman, a lawyer in his “real life,” hopes to improve on his 2019 showing, when he placed 12th out of a field of 64 at an equivalent competition staged in Milan, Italy.

Typically, Tadman’s wife Leanne would be there to cheer him on. The couple has three-year-old twins, mind you, so she wasn’t able to make the trip this time around, he mentioned during an interview at The Forks, days before he was due to hop on a flight to Europe. That doesn’t mean she and the kids won’t be with him in spirit.

“Like any other major event, you get butterflies, especially during the playoffs, so what I started doing to settle myself down was take a few minutes beforehand, to look at pictures of our family,” said Tadman, 41, dressed in jeans and a black hoodie emblazoned with the crest of District 82, a pinball arcade situated in De Pere, Wis.

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.

Zero feet James is the baseline winter ice level on the Red River at James Avenue. This is the baseline for measuring river levels in Winnipeg.

In the summer, the St. Andrews Lock and Dam regulates water levels to try to maintain 6.5 feet James.

The walkway elevation at The Forks is 8.5 feet James. It was placed at this elevation on the expectation the walkway would sit above the river most of the summer.

Listen: Niigaan and the Lone Ranger podcast

Listen to the latest episode of Niigaan and the Lone Ranger.

A lot more give than take

Trainer Marvin Buffalo of Day Star First Nation in Saskatchewan, and his wife Deb, won the first stakes race of the season at Assiniboia Downs with their Spitten Kitten on Tuesday night, creating a perfect segue into National Indigenous History Month, as if it were scripted.

Six-time leading trainer Tom Gardipy, Jr. from Beardy’s Cree Nation in Saskatchewan followed the same script, scoring a hat trick to move into a tie at the top of the trainer standings with Wendy Anderson and Lise Pruitt with four wins a piece. Gardipy teamed up with jockey Ronald Ali for his three wins, while Buffalo hired underrated jockey Sven Balroop to boot their big winner home.

A former champion apprentice in Trinidad, the 28-year-old Balroop won 11 races at Century Mile in Edmonton last year, but oddly couldn’t get noticed there. We’ve only seen him ride 15 horses here, and he’s looked dynamite on anything that had a chance — and some that didn’t. Balroop has won two races so far at the meeting, both for the Buffalos. Catch him on the odds board before he gets hot.

Marvin and Deb are already at that temperature. They’ve won two of three starts since arriving from Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Ariz., including the One and Only Overnight Stakes with Spitten Kitten, a three-year-old filly they bought for $2,500 as a yearling. Deb picked her out.

Manitobans offered prizes to take better care of their health

Manitoba physicians are encouraging people to take one simple step to improve their health this month, and offering prizes for people who pledge to catch up on routine screenings, eat healthier and get active.

Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Michael Boroditsky said many people put their health on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic as immunizations, disease screening and physical activity fell by the wayside over the past three years.

“This is a top concern for doctors,” Boroditsky said during an announcement at the Sport Manitoba Fitness Centre in downtown Winnipeg.

“With the worst of the pandemic behind us, hopefully, and summer just around the corner, now is a great time to focus on getting healthy, and it can start with one simple step.”

City to close parking loophole after losing $77K

Free Sunday and holiday parking, which has been offered without being publicized since November at several city-owned lots and the Millennium Library Parkade, looks set to be eliminated soon.

A new city staff report calls for multiple amendments to the parking bylaw, including the removal of that free parking, pending council approval.

“This is (a) correction. It’s sort of a bylaw mistake right now and we’re taking a step to correct it… It’s not really industry standard to offer it free on Sundays,” said Dan Locke, a policy analyst with the Winnipeg Parking Authority, in an interview.

Locke said the parking has been offered free on Sundays and holidays ever since a bylaw error was discovered in November, which had unintentionally allowed free use of the city lots on those days.

Year-round cultivation, co-ordination and creativity behind Assiniboine Park's summer splendour

The grass in the park glistens an electric almost-impossible-to-believe-your-eyes green.

A cloud of blush petals sway against the luminous blue sky; in the English Garden the Rosybloom crabapple tree is in full splendour.

Flowerbeds are ablaze with colour: pink-kissed petals of dianthus; sunrise lantanas; white pentas, and lavender salvia flash brightly against the rich loam.

Weeks of warmer weather coupled with soft, spring rain have done their job: life is once again blossoming in the Assiniboine Park Conservancy.

Research project digging in to reasons young adults don’t want to stay in Manitoba

Symone Bartley might drive an hour to Toronto or Canada’s Wonderland in nearby Vaughan for the weekend.

She can trek Algonquin Provincial Park on Sunday and make the two-hour drive home to Barrie by evening to wind down for the start of another work week as a paralegal.

“I packed up and I left,” said Bartley, 24. “Ontario has… more schooling, more cities… more job opportunities.”

She swapped Manitoba for its eastern next-door neighbour in 2018, for post-secondary education.

MLAs promote Riverton Rifle for Hockey Hall of Fame

The Riverton Rifle is hoping Manitoba politicians will give him another shot at being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Reggie Leach, the former Philadelphia Flyer great who was born in Riverton and is a member of the Berens River First Nation, is hoping to net hockey’s greatest honour with an assist from the Manitoba Legislative Assembly.

In an unanimous vote on Thursday, the final sitting day for the assembly before October’s election, politicians from all three parties passed a resolution that because “the achievements and contributions of Reggie Leach deserve formal recognition and appreciation from the government and the people of Manitoba.”

The resolution, a private members’ resolution by NDP MLA Ian Bushie, also stated because of “the outstanding achievements and contributions of Reggie Leach to the sport of ice hockey, as well as his significant impact on the community and province of Manitoba and commend him as a worthy candidate for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame”.

Councillor criticized for calling users ‘drugged-out zombies’

City council’s most senior member has again sparked outrage, telling constituents Winnipeg needs more policing “due to all the drugged-out zombies” on its streets.

In a social media exchange this week, Coun. Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan, first elected in 2006) also said he disagrees with drug harm reduction and safe needle distribution sites, because “providing clean needles is only enabling” such behaviour.

He stood by his comments in an interview Wednesday.

Dr. Susan Cuvelier, who runs a hepatitis clinic at the Mount Carmel Clinic, doesn’t live in in Browaty’s ward but was offended by the online messages, nonetheless.

Search for teen suspended after body found

The search for a missing Fort Richmond teen was suspended after his family said police had found a body.

Winnipeg police contacted Sethumi Gunathilaka Wednesday morning to notify her that a body had been found, and it may be that of her brother Inuka Gunathilaka, she told the Free Press.

Inuka, 15, has been missing since May 24.

The family is awaiting forensic identification of the body and has suspended the search, she said.

The case of the mysterious veterinarian

Winnipeg veterinarian Philipp Schott has let the cat out of the bag — he has plenty of stories to share.

Since 2019, the German-born Schott, who heads up the team at the Birchwood Animal Hospital in St. James, has published three novels and three books of non-fiction.

His latest book, Six Ostriches, was published May 23, and is the second in his Dr. Bannerman series of veterinary mysteries set in the fictional Manitoba town of New Selfoss. Schott launches Six Ostriches tonight at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, where he’ll be joined in conversation by former Free Press columnist Doug Speirs.

While he has dabbled in writing since his youth, the 57-year-old Schott opted to follow his parents’ advice and focus on finding a profession.

St. James Assiniboia School Division superintendent no longer ‘acting’

Trustees in the St. James-Assiniboia School Division have chosen a new permanent leader to oversee operations across 26 schools in Winnipeg.

Jenness Moffatt has been appointed superintendent of the division in which approximately 8,300 public school students are enrolled. She has been working under an “acting superintendent” title throughout 2022-23.

“Jenness is a proven leader with over two decades of experience in the division. She also played a critical role in assisting the board navigate the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Cheryl Smukowich, chairwoman of SJASD’s board of trustees, in a news release.

Board members officially selected Moffatt, a career educator, during a special board meeting last week after a formal search for candidates and interview process.

Trash in and around encampments along Red River piling up in east Exchange

Along Waterfront Drive, garbage from abandoned encampments and current residents has grown into a mess that creeps in from all angles, washing up on the riverbank and spilling onto the bike trail and sidewalk opposite condos and apartments lining the street.

Why knot? say two local entrepreneurs to spicing up the salty classic

Pretzels see a resurgence since COVID, blared a headline in a food-industry magazine.

The accompanying article reported pretzel sales had been on a steady decline from 2016 to 2019, but that demand for the salty treats rebounded at the onset of the pandemic, referred to in the piece as the “stockpiling period.” (Kraft Dinner! Toilet paper!!)

Pretzel sales remained strong in 2022 and again during the first quarter of 2023. A separate story attributed this fact to companies doing their utmost to provide consumers with new and innovative flavours of pretzels, similar to how one has long been able to choose between umpteen varieties of potato chips.

“Flavours continue to drive growth, and flavours like southwest style, garden vegetable, sea salt and Parmesan garlic all hit the market,” the article went on.

First mayor fast friends with city’s anti-Métis elite

AS hosts of the One Great History podcast, Sabrina Janke and Alex Judge love exploring Winnipeg’s past. With Winnipeg’s sesquicentennial approaching, the two have produced a podcast series that explores the city’s colourful history. The series is presented through the lens of 15 historical figures, focusing on critical events surrounding their lives and their impact on Winnipeg. The series will conclude Nov. 9, the day when Winnipeg became a city 150 years ago. Summaries from each podcast will be republished in the Free Press. The podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and through the One Great History website — onegreathistory.wordpress.com

Winnipeg’s first mayor was, put politely, something of a scoundrel.

Put less politely, Francis Evans Cornish was a belligerent bigoted drunk.

Cornish arrived in Winnipeg in 1872 from London, Ont., in the aftermath of the Red River Resistance and amid the Wolseley Expedition’s Reign of Terror. In short order, Cornish had found friends among Winnipeg’s notoriously anti-Métis elite and joined them in a federal election riot in November 1872. Three newspapers had their offices ransacked, a poll book was burned and boisterous speeches were given along Main Street on overturned carts. Lt.-Gov. Alexander Morris later identified Cornish as one of the main agitators in the riots in a letter to Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, though nothing was done in response. Business, it would seem, would carry on as usual.