Rhyme repository recognizes razed Métis enclave Rooster Town

April was National Poetry Month and despite the fact the annual celebration has come and gone for another year, the literary art form continues to enjoy an everyday presence on Dudley Avenue, near Harrow Street.

Bernie Kruchak is the founder and curator of the Rooster Town Poetry Shed, named for Rooster Town, a Métis settlement that existed close to his and his wife’s present-day home for six decades until residents’ shanties were razed by the city in the late 1950s to pave the way for the Grant Park Shopping Centre and neighbouring Grant Park High School.

The installation, which rests in the Kruchaks’ front yard at 939 Dudley Ave., resembles a little free library. Only, instead of being stocked with books, it is wholly devoted to poetry.

Kruchak, 74, erected the two-metre-tall structure in July 2025. However, its roots date back to 1963, when Kruchak, who is of Ukrainian descent, was a grade-school student in Sioux Lookout, Ont.

Winnipeg-raised pro wrestler Chris Jericho gets call to appear in series with Nick Offerman, Nicole Kidman

Not every pro wrestler can say they’ve shared the ring with Nick Offerman and Nicole Kidman, but Chris Jericho can.

The Winnipeg-raised heavyweight, 55, plays himself in Margo’s Got Money Troubles, a new Apple TV+ comedy-drama from David E. Kelley (Boston Legal), based on the 2024 novel of the same name by American author Rufi Thorpe.

Elle Fanning plays Margo who, as the daughter of an ex-pro wrestler (Offerman) and a Hooters waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer), has always had to be scrappy.

So when Margo gets pregnant after an affair with her college prof, has to drop out of college and finds herself unemployed at 20 with an infant and no job, she readily accepts her estranged dad Jinx’s request to move in in exchange for childcare.

City’s most famous intersection the subject of next Free Press Book Club gathering

The Free Press Book Club and McNally Robinson Booksellers are pleased to welcome Winnipeg authors and podcasters Sabrina Janke and Alex Judge to the next virtual meeting on Tuesday, May 26 at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss their book Portage & Main: How an Iconic Intersection Shaped Winnipeg’s History, Politics, and Urban Life.

Published in November 2025 by Great Plains Press, just months after Portage and Main re-opened to pedestrian crossing, the book chronicles the history of Winnipeg’s most famous intersection through the city’s history — from its humble beginnings that were home to a handful of hotels and stores to the wind-swept junction of two of the city’s biggest streets where locals come to protest, celebrate and mourn.

“(S)omething about Portage and Main pulls us to it. It’s where we go to shout: in joy, in anger, in despair,” they write.

In her review of Portage & Main for the Free Press, Mary Horodyski added “crowds assembled at times as though drawn to the city’s beating heart. Whether shoulder-to-shoulder in celebration of hockey, hand-in-hand for a round dance or gathered together in mourning for the loss of Indigenous women and girls.”

Track runner Davis sporting Maple Leaf again alongside Canadian greats

Living in a world that is predicated on speed, Tyrell Davis has seen just how fast life can change.

The Winnipeg sprinter is in the midst of a whirlwind start to the calendar year that no one, including him, could have predicted, especially when considering how it all started.

Davis sped to Canadian university gold in the men’s 60-metre event at the U Sports championship in March, then swapped his Manitoba Bisons singlet for one with the Maple Leaf, as he represented Canada in Poland and Louisiana for the World Athletics Indoor Championships and World Relay Camp, respectively, in the following weeks.

Now, the 21-year-old is back in Canadian colours as one of the youngest of 29 Canadians in Gaborone, Botswana, for the World Athletics Relays this weekend (May 2-3).

Spring in her step

For Evelyn Hart, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet will always be home.

The legendary prima ballerina and former RWB principal dancer will return to the Centennial Concert Hall stage this week for the 2025/26 season finale, reprising her role as Winter Woman in James Kudelka’s The Four Seasons. (It’s a reunion of sorts; fellow RWB company alumni Alexander Gamayunov, CindyMarie Small and Dmitri Dovgoselets will also be performing in the work.)

“I keep waking up every day, pinching myself, thinking I’m so lucky. It feels, literally, as if I’ve just been transported back in time,” says Hart, 70, who joined the company 50 years ago, in 1976. (And speaking of long-serving alumni, this show is the last in the final season to be programmed by former artistic director André Lewis, who was recently honoured with the title of artistic director emeritus for his half-century at the company, 30 of those years at its helm.)

The Four Seasons, which uses the Vivaldi masterwork of the same name to tell the story of the four seasons in a man’s life, is a special ballet for Hart. It’s the work that got her back onstage after she’d officially hung up her pointe shoes for good in 2006 (Aug. 23, 2006, to be exact, because a ballerina never forgets that date; these days, she performs in soft shoe).

The long shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic creeps into the race for Ohio governor

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Dr. Amy Acton, a Democrat running unopposed in her party's primary for Ohio governor, faces some steep challenges in the coming general election.

She is trying to be the first Democrat in 20 years to win the office in a state that has become dominated by Republicans. Her presumed opponent, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, has national name recognition and a personal fortune that he is plowing into his campaign.

But Acton's most formidable obstacle may be a ghost from her recent past: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Acton, a physician, was Ohio's public health director when the coronavirus hit the United States in early 2020, causing a wave of deaths, anxiety and social disruption. As the government took aggressive action to combat it, Acton became a household name throughout Ohio.

RMTC's Rubaboo: A Métis Cabaret is a musical mélange of jazz, folk, roots

You’ve probably had sirop d’érable and pemmican, but have you tried rubaboo?

A scoop of peas or corn, a dash of flour and onions, bison meat if you have it, a maple syrup garnish — and suddenly you’re cooking with bear grease (which you shouldn’t forget to add, either).

In a pinch, you might substitute grouse for bison meat, and throw in some extra turnip and parsnip plus wild vegetables to thicken your rubaboo stew.

Cooking and fusion metaphors are never far from how we talk about cultural blending, but in Canada, we’ve tended to resist America’s more assimilationist image of the melting pot. Instead, we talk of mosaics, or sometimes salad bowls, to emphasize eclecticism.

Former Fauci adviser indicted for allegedly concealing communications related to COVID-19 research

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci was indicted on federal charges alleging he conspired to hide his communications related to COVID-19 research as the pandemic raged across the country, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Dr. David Morens, 78, is accused of using his private email account to intentionally circumvent public records laws while employed at the National Institutes of Health. The Justice Department alleges that he concealed or destroyed records of discussions related to COVID-19 research grants, including an effort to revive a controversial coronavirus grant.

“These allegations represent a profound abuse of trust at a time when the American people needed it most — during the height of a global pandemic,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement Tuesday. "Government officials have a solemn duty to provide honest, well-grounded facts and advice in service of the public interest — not to advance their own personal or ideological agendas.”

Morens faces charges of conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting, according to a Justice Department news release. If convicted, he could face decades in prison. An attorney for Morens declined to comment.

Recognition five decades later for Manitobans who helped usher Canada onto Olympic stage

It’s been five decades, but the memories remain vivid for a trio of Manitobans that helped the country make volleyball history at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

“I remember the incredible feeling of walking into Olympic Stadium and just the roar (of the crowd),” said Connie Lebrun, now 71 and living in Edmonton, recalling the opening ceremonies.

“That was just like the most incredible feeling, and I still always get chills on my spine when I hear the Canadian anthem.”

Lebrun, Mary Dempster and Claire Lloyd all wore the Maple Leaf at those Games when Canada made its debut in the sport.

Courir New York … avec un inconnu

L’on sait l’amour que porte Robert Tétrault pour les défis.

Un triathlon à pieds nus, le World Marathon Challenge ou encore un semi-marathon dans des bureaux, le Franco-Manitobain a prouvé maintes fois qu’il aimait repousser ses limites.

Dans son combat pour la mise en place d’un dépistage universel du cytomégalovirus (CMV) chez le nouveau-né, le père de famille se rend de province en province pour courir des 527 kilomètres à raison d’un marathon par jour, pendant plusieurs jours.

Alors il paraît peut-être évident de la souligner, mais l’une des raisons pour laquelle Rob Tétrault continue de courir après tout ce temps, et bien c’est qu’il aime ça, la course à pied.

Motherless Day embraces those grieving parental loss

There’s a collage in Katrina Zborowsky’s bedroom that is greater than the sum of its parts. The collection of fragments is tangible evidence that Zborowsky, 32, has successfully navigated yet another Mother’s Day after the loss of her mother Doris, 57, in a cycling accident in September 2020.

Versatile drummer has no regrets he’s always marched to his own beat

Greg Gardner would like to begin by apologizing to one-time Fort Garry resident Lynne Miller in the event her ears were burning earlier this week.

Gardner, a veteran drummer who has solidly kept the beat for everything from punk-rock groups to ’60s tribute acts to chamber orchestras, is seated in a Provencher Avenue café, where he is discussing his first band. The Rellims, which he helped form in 1965 at age 13, consisted of friends from what is now École Viscount Alexander. As for the origin of the Rellims’ odd-sounding moniker, well, that’s always been a bit of a secret, Gardner says with a wink.

“At the time, there was a gal, Lynne Miller, who we were all madly in love with,” he divulges, noting the Rellims were heavily influenced by British Invasion bands like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks. “In honour of Lynne, we called ourselves the Rellims — Miller spelled backwards. I don’t believe she ever knew the truth, but if she reads this, she’ll probably have a good chuckle.”

Gardner, 74, grew up on Bathgate Bay, not far from his present home on North Drive, which he shares with his partner Margaret. His late father was Manitoba Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductee Cliff Gardner. Through his dad — a familiar voice on radio stations such as 680 CJOB and 630 CKRC — he was exposed to music at an early age.