Get busy while wife’s on ice to stay warmer

Thomas Ponder

Official finds low risk of lead poisoning at schoolyard

A local health official is reassured the risk of lead poisoning for students at Weston School is "very low".

Dr. Lisa Richards, medical officer of health with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, visited the school's grounds on Friday. She said the playground is covered either with sod, concrete or pea gravel.

"I didn't see a lot of exposed soil. So, I believe that the risk to the students and the public at large is very low as a result of the lead levels that were documented a decade ago," she said in an interview.

On Thursday, it was revealed that 2007 and 2008 soil test results in several Winnipeg neighbourhoods previously found to have elevated areas of lead were not disclosed to the public by the former NDP government. At a number of locations, including Weston School, as well as in Point Douglas, Minto and Wolseley, lead concentrations in soil exceeded national guidelines.

A measure of hope a decade after senseless death, injustice

I’m a few hundred kilometres from the farm near Biggar, Sask. — the place where 22-year old Colten Boushie from Cree Red Pheasant First Nation was shot and killed by farmer Gerald Stanley precisely 10 years ago.

“You need to remind people about the 10-year anniversary,” a nearby, rural school principal tells me at the education conference I just finished speaking at.

“That death is a wound that continues to bleed in all of us,” a principal from Regina adds. “I hear about it from our students all the time.”

On Aug. 9, 2016, Boushie’s death entered the Canadian consciousness, representing what then-Saskatoon mayor Charlie Clark declared “a defining moment for this community and this country.”

Bookman brings roving kiosk of literary treasures to fringe

Every superhero has a true identity: Superman is Clark Kent, Captain Canuck is Tom Evans and Wonder Woman is Diana Prince.

In Winnipeg — on university campuses, at craft markets and at flea markets — the Bookman is John Thompson.

Each July since the mid-1990s, the denim-clad seller has peddled perused pages to fringe festival goers in the Exchange District, setting up his bookshop — a movable feast of literary diversion — on the periphery of Old Market Square. Inside his shelved kiosk, the Bookman offers a broad selection that encourages expansive search and sudden summertime discovery. He takes credit, debit and cash.

While the annual theatre festival’s core curriculum is centred on its paperback program — containing snapshots from 160 indoor theatre productions — fringe veterans understand the value of having other reading options available in their back pocket for prolonged sidewalk waits.

Indigenous theatre founder gets nod for prestigious prize

For her work as the founding artistic director of Oshkagoojin Indigenous Theatre for Youth, Winnipeg’s Nova Courchene has been named the recipient of one of Manitoba theatre’s highest honours for emerging arts leaders.

Since 2023, the Cherry Karpyshin Arts Management Prize has been given out by Prairie Theatre Exchange to early-career or aspiring arts managers. Named for PTE’s longtime general manager, for whom the company’s mainstage is also named, the Cherry Prize is accompanied by professional supports and a $2,500 cash award.

Meaning “new moon” in Anishinaabemowin, Oshkagoojin runs a variety of initiatives in Winnipeg, including the teen-focused Rising Voices, the middle years Growing Voices, and the early years Young Voices programs. Through storytelling, movement, narrative games and guided play, the Young Voices program introduces Indigenous children aged five through nine to the fundamentals of collaborative and co-operative theatre with a curriculum devised through a cultural lens.

“As I continue to grow Oshkagoojin Indigenous Theatre for Youth, I look forward to strengthening the organization’s capacity, sustainability, and national reach so that more Indigenous young people can access theatre, cultural learning, and artistic leadership opportunities in their own communities,” says Courchene in a release. “I believe that when Indigenous youth are empowered to tell their stories, entire communities benefit, and I am excited to continue building these pathways for future generations.