Whose story is being told? How perspectives shape our understanding

Please review each article prior to use: grade-level applicability and curricular alignment might not be obvious from the headline alone.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Students arrive for first day of classes Wednesday at Glenelm School.
No Subscription Required

Anxiety, hope as children return to school

Maggie Macintosh 6 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Anxiety, hope as children return to school

Maggie Macintosh 6 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 8, 2021

On one side of the chain-link fence separating Glenelm School from the street, nervous elementary students fidgeted with their masks and bulky backpacks on the playground as they waited to meet new teachers and friends in lines.

On the other side, parents on the sidewalk — among them, Joisy Fernandez — peeked through the grey diamonds with anxieties of their own.

"I wish I could go in there and just stand next to her and say, ‘It will be OK,’" said Fernandez, who dropped off her daughter Natalie for the first day of Grade 5 on Wednesday morning. "As tough as it is on us, we have to show them that (a safe school year) is possible."

Glenelm, a K-6 building at 96 Carmen Ave., has kept its pandemic policy for drop-offs intact this year to prevent congestion on the playground. Parents are discouraged from entering both the Winnipeg school's grounds and building.

Read
Wednesday, Sep. 8, 2021
Photos by Daniel Crump / Winnipeg Free Press Pajack Obeing is a mentee in the Raising New Voices mentorship program, which aims to provide opportunities for emerging artists from communities typically underrepresented in the arts world.
No Subscription Required

Magnificent mentorship program

Julia-Simone Rutgers 7 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Magnificent mentorship program

Julia-Simone Rutgers 7 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 7, 2021

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.

Read
Tuesday, Sep. 7, 2021
ALEX LUPUL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A variety of Winnipeg Police jackets are also on display.
No Subscription Required

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

Brenda Suderman 8 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

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

Brenda Suderman 8 minute read Sunday, Sep. 5, 2021

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.

Read
Sunday, Sep. 5, 2021
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The maze-like halls of expansive production office
No Subscription Required

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

Julia-Simone Rutgers 12 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

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

Julia-Simone Rutgers 12 minute read Thursday, Sep. 2, 2021

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.

Read
Thursday, Sep. 2, 2021
Front row, from left: Tobi and Craig Geekie, Back row, from left:, Morgan, Noah and Conor Geekie. (Alex Lupul / Winnipeg Free Press)
No Subscription Required

Athletic excellence in the genes of Geekie family

Mike Sawatzky 10 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Athletic excellence in the genes of Geekie family

Mike Sawatzky 10 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 1, 2021

STRATHCLAIR — It's a hot day in August and the Geekie brothers are home together for a change.

That doesn't happen much anymore.

Morgan, the eldest, has packed a lot into summer. After playing 36 games for the Carolina Hurricanes last season, the 23-year-old centre was chosen by the Seattle Kraken in the NHL expansion draft.

Less than two weeks later, he married his high-school sweetheart, Emma Coulter.

Read
Wednesday, Sep. 1, 2021
MIKE SUDOMA / Winnipeg Free Press Manitoba opera singer Rhonda Head performs at Assiniboine Park; she will be at the Fall Fair on Friday.
No Subscription Required

Cree singer Rhonda Head stumbled into classical music, then made it her own

Alan Small 6 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Cree singer Rhonda Head stumbled into classical music, then made it her own

Alan Small 6 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 1, 2021

Singer Rhonda Head has travelled a long and winding road to get her voice heard.

Her classically trained vocals have received worldwide recognition after she received two bronze medals from the Global Music Awards, an online competition that specializes in classical and jazz artists and composers.

Head, who hails from Opaskwayak Cree Nation, near The Pas, earned the acclaim for two Cree language songs, Kisahkihitin I Love You, which was in the contemporary classical category, and 500 Years, which received honours among protest songs.

She began taking singing lessons in 1987, after she graduated from high school at the University of Winnipeg Collegiate and moved to Toronto to study fashion. She found, almost by chance, that singing suited her better.

Read
Wednesday, Sep. 1, 2021
JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS People take part in a Red River Echoes community meeting at Vimy Ridge Park to discuss renaming the Wolseley neighbourhood in Winnipeg on Sunday.
No Subscription Required

Group engages community on renaming Wolseley neighbourhood

Malak Abas 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Group engages community on renaming Wolseley neighbourhood

Malak Abas 4 minute read Monday, Aug. 30, 2021

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.

Read
Monday, Aug. 30, 2021
Supplied photos The cabin all closed up for the winter, way back in the fall of 1944.
No Subscription Required

Swimming with local history

Laurie Mustard 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Swimming with local history

Laurie Mustard 4 minute read Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021

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.

Read
Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Craig Block, which has gone up for sale, housed perhaps the first Black union in North America, the Order of Sleeping Car Porters.
No Subscription Required

Craig Block link to city’s Black history

Cody Sellar 4 minute read Preview
No Subscription Required

Craig Block link to city’s Black history

Cody Sellar 4 minute read Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021

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.

Read
Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES NDP Hydro Critic Adrien Sala: “It is taking far longer than anyone expected it to.

‘Ignominious anniversary’ of Hydro’s stalled broadband deal

Martin Cash 1 minute read Preview

‘Ignominious anniversary’ of Hydro’s stalled broadband deal

Martin Cash 1 minute read Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021

A year after Manitoba Hydro stopped taking on new contracts for broadband network access, and three months after Xplornet won the bid to manage that network, critics are complaining the continuing moratorium has left would-be customers in the lurch.

Adrien Sala, NDP critic for Hydro, is calling on the Progressive Conservative government to end the stop sell order and disclose the revenue losses suffered from the disruption.

“It is taking far longer than anyone expected it to and it is creating further and further delays for a lot of ISPs (Internet service providers), school divisions and regional health authorities that have asked for service upgrades,” Sala said.

A spokesperson for Reg Helwer, minister of central services, confirmed that the Xplornet agreement has yet to be finalized but is expected to be soon.

Read
Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021