Poignant lead performances anchor tense Aussie horror

Grain latest Port of Churchill shipment

Prairie grain will soon ship out of the Port of Churchill for the first time in at least five years.

Starting Friday, grain will be moved to the northern Manitoba port from The Pas, via the Hudson Bay Railway. Few details were provided Wednesday.

A global agricultural company, based in Canada, will send its grain to international markets via the deep-water port. The first ship should leave Churchill at the end of August or beginning of September, said Chris Avery, president of Arctic Gateway Group, the port’s owner.

Arctic Gateway Group is talking with other companies also looking to ship grain, Avery added.

As the WSO’s concertmaster for 35 years, setting an example is Gwen Hoebig’s forte

Gwen Hoebig doesn’t believe in looking back. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra concertmaster keeps her eyes firmly fixed on the horizon while marking her 35th anniversary in tandem with the WSO’s own diamond jubilee this year.

Out-of-province vendors at Third + Bird market failed to isolate

A raft of out-of-town vendors who had set up booths were booted from a large pop-up market in Winnipeg after it became known that they failed to isolate for 14 days upon arriving in Manitoba.

But the province is allowing the market to proceed throughout the weekend despite Manitoba being in the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cynthia Carr, a Winnipeg epidemiologist, fears the virus may have already spread at the site of the Third + Bird market at Red River Exhibition Place because the vendors had already interacted with people.

"It's indoors, so yes, I'm definitely worried," she said.

Table tennis nationals return to Winnipeg

You’ve played in your basement and watched it from afar during the Olympics but you may never have gotten the opportunity to see the pros do it.

That’s right, the 2026 Canadian Table Tennis Championships will be landing in our very own city for the first time in a decade. From July 17-23, the Manitoba Table Tennis Association (MTTA) will be hosting Canada’s best players at the Duckworth Centre.

And Carlos Cuadra, executive director of MTTA, is encouraging Winnipeggers to come and enjoy the event.

“We were hungry. We definitely wanted to do it,” Cuadra explained. “We want to show Canada that we are capable of doing such events. And who knows, maybe try international events, too.”

Sheriff who died in train collision ‘loved everybody’

Brett Matheson-Maytwayashing was a loving father, hard-working sheriff and proud First Nations man who helped lead traditional ceremonies for a decade, before he died in a collision with a train near Portage la Prairie.

Matheson-Maytwayashing, 27, died in the Tuesday morning crash, which occurred on a rural road west of Portage while he and another member of the sheriff’s service were on their way to attend court in Amaranth, his mother, Alisa Matheson-Maytwayashing, told the Free Press.

It was Matheson-Maytwayashing’s first day back at work after taking time off to participate in a sun dance ceremony in northern Saskatchewan last week, his mother said.

“Brett didn’t judge anybody, he would give people chances,” she said, her voice breaking. “He didn’t care what colour you were, he didn’t care your nationality — Brett just loved everybody.”

More education needed for safer funeral processions, police say

A Winnipeg Police Service traffic official says more education is needed about the rules governing funeral processions.

Insp. Gord Spado of the police service's traffic division said the law doesn't give a funeral procession a "carte blanche right of way," and that drivers in a procession must slow or stop as necessary for safety's sake before proceeding through an intersection.

"We do believe that education is required, as many people do not know the rules around funeral processions," he said Tuesday.

The provincial Highway Traffic Act and a city bylaw regarding required vehicle lighting for funeral processions should likely be changed, he added.