Medical drama puts local actor in perilous position

B.C. declares state of emergency over wildfires

VANCOUVER - British Columbia's public safety minister has declared a provincial state of emergency over the growing wildfire threat to prepare for potential mass evacuations and help secure accommodation that might be needed by evacuees.

Mike Farnworth said he made the decision based on information from officials that weather conditions will lead to more severe fire behaviour and the potential for more evacuations.

"In a briefing last night, I received word that we'll be facing a few days of very difficult weather in the Interior," Farnworth said in a statement.

The state of emergency goes into effect on Wednesday and gives government agencies, the fire commissioner and the RCMP the authority to take whatever action they deem is necessary to fight the wildfires and protect people and communities.

Winnipeg novelist's latest offering a riveting fictional account of missionaries' plight

In 1955, five American missionary couples set out to evangelize the Waorani, an Indigenous people group of the Ecuadorian rainforest that had never had contact with the outside world. They dubbed their mission “Operation Auca.”

After a few months of airdropping gifts, the five men — Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Nate Saint, Ed McCully and Roger Youderian — opted to set up camp on a beach near a Waorani settlement. Just a few days later, they were all speared to death. Thanks to the swift arrival of a Life magazine photographer, the brutal conclusion to Operation Auca became global news.

In her new novel, Five Wives, Winnipeg writer Joan Thomas tells this story again.

“In the missionaries’ memoirs, ‘God’s leading’ explains almost every impulse,” Thomas writes in a postscript. “I set out to peer behind that, to explore in human terms actions that astonished me.”

Medical drama puts local actor in perilous position

Befitting the star of the new made-in-Manitoba drama series SkyMed, Winnipeg-born actress Morgan Holmstrom is taking flight.

Literally. Our phone interview precedes a trip to Glasgow where she is taking on her latest gig.

But we’re here to talk SkyMed, a medical drama set mostly in northern Manitoba, and which was shot mostly in southern Manitoba through much of 2021-22. The series premières Sunday evening on CBC at 9 p.m. and streams on CBC Gem.

“Our show’s creator, Julie (Puckrin), says it’s Top Gun meets Grey’s Anatomy,” Holmstrom says by way of describing the series, which follows a group of young nurses and pilots flying air ambulances in the remote North, where help is thousands of kilometres away.

Say What?! Sports guys travel to new destination

Say What?! is an email conversation between sports editor Steve Lyons and sports columnist Paul Wiecek. Look for us regularly but intermittently on the Free Press website.

Steve Lyons: Heya. How you doing? How’s 2020 treating you so far?

Few things to get us started:

Walkout creates chaos at St. James Smitty’s

Gordon Sharpe wanted to eat a meal at the St. James Smitty’s Wednesday, but he got a helping of bad news instead.

He saw several workers walk out of the restaurant, at 1017 St. James St.

“(The waiter) came back about 10 minutes later and stood over the table, looking a little distraught and said, ‘I’m quitting right now and so is everybody else,’” Sharpe said. “He said, ‘This is my last time serving you,’ and he was quite choked up.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, adding that the managers scrambled to serve patrons.

The long and winding road

As theatre goes, it sent a strong message.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, standing in front of microphones and television cameras, holding up his Indigenous status card and saying that he didn’t feel Canada should have “a race-based form of identification in this country, but that is a reality,” adding that it was time to abolish the Indian Act.

“I think it’s time to abolish the Indian Act, get rid of the Indian Act, move past the Indian Act, and it needs to be done with First Nations people and First Nations governments, of course. I think it’s long overdue that we have a relationship with Indigenous Peoples in Canada that reflects who we are as Canadians today,” he said.

The Indian Act — the name alone suggests how out-dated and out of place the law has become. Originally dating from 1876, the law was put in place to “amend and consolidate the laws respecting Indians” and gave the Minister of the Interior the responsibility to “control and management of the reserves, lands, moneys and property of Indians in Canada.”