It’s never too late to express your true self

Neighbours concerned shed used as home on city land

An unassuming tiny home suddenly appeared one day in August, tucked between a park and community garden in St. James.

Winnipeg’s challenge: preparing for weather extremes

A new United Nations report warns the world will exceed the 1.5 C Paris limit by 2030.

Winnipeg’s string of extreme weather events in recent years — this summer’s intense rainstorms that caused flash flooding, basement damage, power outages, prolonged heat waves, last summer’s wildfires, and the freakish October 2019 wet snowstorm — underscores the urgent need for stronger emergency plans and climate resilience in the face of the UN’s new report.

As the city enters an unknown era from increwasing extreme weather events, it must also confront this haunting truth or face future unprepared consequences.

Winnipeg faces persistent challenges, including limited library hours during the summer (they could act as cooling places for the most vulnerable), and gaps in public and active transportation which make it harder for many residents to reach essential services.

Who has been invited to the table?

Last Friday, I spoke at Booth University College’s inaugural Honour and Hope Harvest Dinner in support of Shelter U. I had been asked to speak about the power of art in the community, a subject I have spent much of my professional life thinking about — as a museum director, writer and teacher, and now through my consulting work with Civic Muse.

What continues to interest me is not simply what museums, universities and other public institutions do, but whether their work actually matters — whether they make a difference in the lives of the people and communities around them.

Preparing for the evening brought me back to an even more fundamental question: Who has been invited in?

One of my museum mentors used to remind me that institutions often begin the conversation about public engagement too late. Before engagement comes the welcome, and before the welcome comes the invitation. We can create extraordinary buildings, exhibitions and programs and say that everyone is welcome. But unless people believe that these places are also meant for them, many will never cross the threshold.

Safety upgrades completed at Whiteshell park falls where brothers drowned

Safety improvements have been completed at Sturgeon Falls in Whiteshell Provincial Park, where two brothers from Winnipeg drowned in July, the province announced Friday.

The Sturgeon Falls trail was closed for upgrades after Maximo Au Ramirez, 10, and Aaron Au Ramirez, 13, disappeared in the fast-moving rapids. Their bodies were recovered days later.

The trail and viewing areas have reopened. Viewing areas are now fenced to prevent people from walking onto hazardous slippery rocks. Signs were installed to warn visitors of drowning hazards.

A new portage gives canoeists and kayakers access to and from safe shoreline areas adjacent to the falls, the province said.

Province putting $8M into safe space for Thompson Indigenous women and families

An $8-million provincial investment in the Mino’Ayaawag Ikwewag Northern Lodge in Thompson fulfils the NDP’s 2023 election promise to establish three new 24-7 safe spaces for Indigenous women and their families in that city, Winnipeg and Brandon.

The lodge is expected to be up and running in 2028, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine, who is also responsible for women and gender equity, said at a news conference in Winnipeg. It builds on a 2025 investment of $3.5 million to establish a first-of-its-kind 24-7 safe space for Indigenous women and their children in Winnipeg, and a 2024 investment of $500,000 to support the creation of Franny’s Place, a new 24-7 safe space in Brandon.

The Mino’Ayaawag Ikwewag (Anishinaabemowin for “all women doing well”) Northern Lodge will operate as a community of care, offering culturally grounded supports that help individuals and families heal, stabilize and rebuild lives at risk of violence.

It will include 10 short-term private studio suites, a communal kitchen and living area, counselling and program space, laundry facilities and a dedicated child-minding area with Indigenous cultural teaching and play-based learning. Residents will have access to trauma-informed supports, cultural programming, parenting supports, peer support and supported connections to housing, health, education, employment and legal services.

Prairie sculptor Joe Fafard pays tribute to revered Dutch master

Vincent van Gogh has been inspiring artists for close to 150 years. For sculptor Joe Fafard, the Dutch master’s life and art have been objects of fascination for many of his 75 years.

So much so that Fafard’s latest Winnipeg exhibition, The Essential Joe Fafard — Van Gogh and Other Inspirations, which opened Friday at Mayberry Fine Art, includes several sculptures of van Gogh, who began painting in 1881 but lived a short, turbulent life, fraught with mental illness, before committing suicide in 1890 at the age of 37.

“Starting about 1983, I started doing portraits of van Gogh,” Fafard says in a phone conversation from his home near Regina.

“Essentially, people used his life, his career and his anguish as sort of a stereotype of an artist’s blueprint for artistic endeavour. I became quite fascinated to see that he was the Christ and other artists were the apostles.”