This winter has been one for the books, when it came to warmer than average temperatures in December and very little snow. Winter may be catching up, but the lack of snow on the ground in tri-community has put a major Trappers’ Festival event on the backburner for this year. This year the Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival (NMTF) board of directors had the difficult decision to cancel this year’s World Championship Dog Sled Races due to a lack of snow.
“Since 1948, the World Championship Dog Sled Races have only been cancelled for a day or two, due to warming weather resulting in the trail melting,” said Kinsmen Dog Race Chair Mike Roberts. “The races have not been cancelled in their entirety, other than in 2021, as a result of the pandemic. The race's start times have, in some years, been pushed back due to extreme cold temperatures. This is done in consultation with the mushers, for the safety of the dogs and mushers.

When a child gets sick or has a traumatic birth, people in the community step up to show support in a variety of ways. Last year, baby Theo Derry was born premature and faced some uncertain odds in the days ahead.
“My great-grandson Theo was such a premature baby that when he was born, he was only 23 weeks and four days,” said Theo’s Great-Grandmother Julie Bell. “If he had been at 22 weeks, they wouldn’t have even likely tried to save him. He just was passed that time and the wonderful staff at St. Boniface Hospital saved his life.”
Theo’s mother Breanna Mault, was fortunate to have her family there to support her and her children during this turn of events.
“My daughter, Jennifer, and I took care of the three other children that Breanna has, while she and Theo’s father stayed in Winnipeg at the Ronald McDonald House,” said Bell. “The Ronald McDonald House was a complete saviour to them at that time. We travelled back and forth to Winnipeg for quite some time.”
Theo’s family began to see progress in his development, which was very promising and gave them all hope for a positive outcome. Theo has progressed immensely but still is working on muscle development.
“One of the things that gave us hope in the beginning, is that Theo took to eating the special formula from the start,” said Bell. “Within the first month, he was able to eliminate properly, which meant that some of his organs had already started developing properly. He is doing really well with most things but isn’t sitting up on his own yet, because now he is starting to develop muscles. Theo is just a little slower at crawling because of muscle development.
“Theo is showing promising signs and he is a responsive baby. He has had one laser surgery to correct his peripheral vision, which they say can improve as he grows.”
As a result of Theo needing to be in close contact with medical professionals and therapy services, Breanna and her children have had to move to Winnipeg to ensure they have consistent access to care. The move has come with some challenges, as it keeps Breanna from having her mother and grandmother close by for support.
“Breanna has another son, before Theo, that was born premature, so she knows a lot about the exercises that need to be done to help him develop those muscles,” said Bell.
“She needs to be here in the city where she has those supports close by and access to the doctors. Breanna and her children have since moved to Winnipeg because Theo still needs some care and services that are much more accessible in the city. Theo is now just over a year old as of Jan. 2, and weighs about 15 lbs.. He’s eating well and has specialists that he has to see regularly to check on his development. His brother and sister just love Theo and being with him.”
Bell is in awe of how the medical field has progressed, especially when it comes to the care and treatment of premature babies. In a short span of time, there has been so much progress in this field and thanks to that innovation, it has helped babies like Theo reach their targeted goals for development.
“It’s just amazing the amount of innovation and improvement they have done in the health and science field over the last few years,” said Bell. “Theo should not have survived with the kinds of odds he was facing, but it’s amazing how far he has come along.
“He’s a very content baby and has the biggest grin you’ve ever seen. Theo likes to be in his swing, and once his neck muscles are a little stronger, they will put him in a special chair to give him support and continue that muscle growth. He spends a lot of time on the floor doing special exercises to build those muscles.”
Bell, her daughter, granddaughter and family are truly moved by the generosity and caring of the people in Valley during their time of need. People showed incredible support through donations which helped the family out during all of Theo’s medical needs.
“There are times where it’s difficult for Breanna to be out there with the three kids, but we are all so grateful to the people of the Swan Valley,” said Bell. “Some money was raised through the GoFundMe page and we had jars up in the community, which also brought in more donations to help out. Two local service clubs, the Lions and the Kinsmen, also donated.
“I can’t say enough about the people in the Valley; they’re just amazing. It not only helped in that first month but helped carry through afterwards. Breanna is still unable to work as she is providing the care that Theo needs. She still has some time left on her maternity leave, but that will be running out soon and she will have to look at other options.”

Last weekend the Swan Valley U9 Minor Hockey teams hosted their annual Swan River Legion Branch No. 39 tournament, playing out of both the Swan River Centennial Arena and the Minitonas and District Arena. The Swan Valley Broncos come out the A-side champs against the Roblin Stars while the Swan Valley Colts and the Swan Valley Mustangs face off for the C-side title with the Colts emerging victorious...

The Dauphin Kings have started the new year red hot, having won six games in a row to move to within three points of second place.

Newcomer Ashton Paul paid immediate dividends in his first game, scoring the game winner on a power play with less than two minutes remaining in a 4-2 win over the Swan Valley Stampeders, Jan. 16 in Dauphin.

Then, after scoring in regulation, Paul netted the winner in the shootout, lifting the Kings to a 4-3 win over the MGEU West Division-leading Virden Oil Capitals, Friday in Virden.

On Saturday in Dauphin, Madden Murray scored twice including the game winner just 2:44 into the game as the Kings beat the Niverville Nighthawks, 6-0, with Cole Sheffield making 28 saves for his third shutout in the new year.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley said the team is positive and working hard during the current win streak.

“I don’t think we’ve had any better back-to-back efforts. The game in Virden was outstanding. The puck pressure, our forecheck, our back pressure coming back in the D zone, guys are on their toes and they’re working hard. The dressing room is really good right now,” he said.

The game against Swan Valley saw Dauphin outshoot the Stampeders, 69-33.

“We had the puck a lot. A lot of shots at the net. And that’s what we’re starting to do is we’re driving the net. We’re getting second shots, we’re going low to high, we’re getting some pucks through from the point. Yeah, we put a lot of pucks through on the net,” Hedley said, adding the Kings used their speed to create a lot of opportunities against Virden on Friday.

Hedley thinks the struggles the team experienced in December may be attributed to the Christmas break.

“Maybe with the Christmas break, guys were thinking about Christmas. The focus, the attention to detail wasn’t there. You just see the difference now,” he said. “In December, some of our players, they didn’t know if we had the team. We were trying to get better. But when that doubt enters the room it’s tough and you really have to battle hard. And it takes a special group to battle through it. The group we have in the room now, they believe in each other, they work for each other and go to war. That’s the difference.”

As well as they are playing now, Hedley would like to see things tighten up in the defensive zone.

“Sometimes we break down and give up real good chances. Sheff made some good saves when he had to tonight. In tight, there were a couple guys all alone a couple times. We’ve just got to clean up the D zone a little bit,” he said. “I really like our neutral zone right now. We’re controlling team’s speed, we’re getting pressure on the forecheck and we’re making some smart reads. But the D zone is going to have to get a little bit cleaner and getting tougher on pucks.”

Dauphin trails the second-place OCN Blizzard by three points with four games in hand.

The Kings are in Swan Valley tonight at 7 p.m.

On Friday, they host the Blizzard at 7:30 p.m., while Saturday is Ukrainian Night with the Steinbach Pistons in town for a 7:30 p.m. game.

Kings court: For the second straight week, Kings goalie Cole Sheffield was named one of the Original 16 Stars of the Week, after posting a 3-0 record with a .1.62 GAA and .950 save percentage . . . The British Columbia Hockey League announced over the weekend that five teams from Alberta - the Blackfaulds Bulldogs, Brooks Bandits, Okotoks Oilers, Sherwood Park Crusaders and Spruce Grove Saints - will join that league next season. As a result, the Alberta Junior Hockey League cancelled this weekend’s games involving those teams.

The local maker community is a close-knit group, one that continually supports each other year round. They can often be seen offering their products at various local markets or in select shops in the area.

A sudden medical emergency involving her four-year-old son would have resulted in Jenna Scheller, owner-operator of Hippie Mama Gifts, having to close her shop during one of the most important weeks of the year for any business, the week before Christmas.

But a group of 10 local makers, led by Brianne Lytwyn of B and C Boutique and Cynthia Dawidowich of Welcome Home Cleaning Service, offered to run the shop, while Scheller tended to her son.

Upon hearing about Scheller’s son, Lytwyn reached out to other local makers, all of whom have their products for sale in Hippie Mama Gifts, located at 119 Main Street North, next door to CIBC.

Lytwyn said Scheller initially resisted the offer.

“She told me multiple times not to do this, because she knows we’re all busy and didn’t want this much given to her. But we pushed back and forced ourselves onto her to help out,” she said. “We had all the makers pick up shifts. We had the help of Cynthia. She made sure we could get in the shop and she cleaned it up for us. And we all just picked up our shifts and learned the store. It was a great time. Every maker that I talked to loved it. It was some of the best times. The customers were amazing and the shop is so friendly and opening and so safe and warm and friendly. It just felt really good.”

Scheller continued to work from home in order to keep the shelves stocked with her products, while the makers manned the shop during the week.

Amy Thompson of Amy Rae Maker also helped in the shop and said the week went well, adding it was a learning experience.

“It was a lot of fun just to be in the shop and see that side of the business and how much work that Jenna puts in. We were joking, it took four of us in one day to do what Jenna does on her own. So it was really neat to see the other side of the business that you don’t necessarily see and all the work that she puts into it,” she said. “It was very eye opening how much goes into that side, behind the scenes.”

While they did it to help a friend in need, it also gave the makers a chance to give back to Scheller because of the support she has given them by selling their products in her shop.

“We’ve become friends through our businesses and it’s kind of like a little family that we have going on. So there’s no question that we wouldn’t help anybody who needs it,” Thompson said.

As a business owner, Scheller is well aware of how important the Christmas season is for businesses, big or small, and how heavily they rely on and are impacted by sales at that time of year.

“These sales not only sustain most of us through the slower January and February months, but also allow us the ability to upgrade, update and expand our businesses in the new year,” she said.

When she thought she would have to close the shop the week before Christmas while tending to her son, Scheller was “crushed.”

But less than 24 hours later, Lytwyn reached out to Scheller and explained about the group of makers and what they had planned.

“I can’t say I believed in the term ‘Christmas miracle’ until these amazing humans banded together and made one happen. These ladies and gentlemen not only kept the shop open through the week before Christmas, they greeted customers with a smile, kept a log book, let me know what I needed to create that evening and even left little encouraging notes,” Scheller said. “I have no words to express how much their actions meant to me. My only hope is our little maker community continues to work together, promote each other and grow stronger with each passing year.”

No one was happier than Stephen Jaddock when he learned the morning of Jan. 18 that all buses in Mountain View School Division were running.

For the previous six school days, the MVSD superintendent/CEO was dealing with the after effects of a snow storm which, for the most part, stalled the division’s transportation program from Jan. 10 to 18. Buses were back on the road in Winnipegosis and Ethelbert, Jan. 17.

“Even in the transportation department, they’ve been hard pressed to remember if we went that many school days in a row. When you look at it, that’s a week plus a day of school. And having them spread out is one thing, but when they come at the heels of each other it’s just a cumulative effect,”

Jaddock said, adding such a long stretch without bus students in class puts a strain on the entire system.

“Usually, if you have one day or even two days where you can’t get students in, we could bounce back from that, we could work around it, get extra time on the days that the kids are in. But it’s just when there was that many in a row we just can’t make it up. It’s just gone.”

In particular, the Provincial Grade 12 English Language Arts exam was supposed to have been written during that time.

Fortunately, Jaddock said, the province has contingencies for such situations and students will be able to write a makeup exam in the future.

“It seems like every year, if we want to attract a snowstorm, it’s when we start that exam,” he said.

Throughout the extended cancellation parents were understanding with the division not receiving any significant calls or complaints. In fact, most of the concern expressed came from staff, Jaddock said.

“Our principals worried about students not having the contact time,” he said.

To help mitigate those effects, the division has taken a lesson learned during the COVID pandemic and is encouraging students to check on what lessons they are missing via an online learning platform such as Teams or ClassDojo.

“We ask that classroom teachers keep those software programs viable and have students sign up. So that when something like a prolonged absence due to buses not running, or just even one no bus day, those students can check in can see what their assignment is and can get some work done,” Jaddock said, adding throughout the period schools remained open for staff and in town students.

The division’s transportation department is guided by a policy which, among other things, outlines conditions which trigger bus cancellations.

But, Jaddock added, there is obviously more that goes into making the decision.

“All types of input that we gather on a daily basis. So it’s not just a cut and dry this is when buses run, this is when buses don’t run,” he said, adding in the case of this extended stoppage, input from the bus drivers was a major consideration.

The big problem was not the highways, but the feeder roads which were all plugged and high winds, which caused extremely poor visibility, Jaddock said,

“That made it very difficult and risky for us to send a bus out that might get halfway down the road and then hit a drift and then not be able to move.” he said. So that’s what we were basing those decisions on and more coming from the field of bus drivers who’ve been out there, who live out in the country and are saying ‘everything is snowed in. I can’t even see the road’.”

What it boils down to is safety, Jaddock said, and the well-being of students is at the centre of any decision to cancel buses.

“Believe me if we can get the buses running we want to err on that side, but we also have to err on the side of safety. We could have a bus full of students that is blocked or stuck or gone into a ditch or can’t see the road, that type of thing. So we want to make sure that we mitigate those dangers, as well,” he said. “We have to remember that we’re responsible for those students.”

Beyond extreme weather events, the division also has a temperature threshold which will trigger a transportation shutdown. But with that threshold set at -45C, temperature did not play a role in this latest round of cancellations.

“We are working and schools are working hard to make sure that students are caught up and able to get their learning done. But it was just a big sigh of relief this morning when all the buses were running,” Jaddock said.

Ask just about anyone responsible for staffing at any business - small, medium or large - and you are likely to hear of many difficulties in filling vacancies.

An inadequate workforce is a problem in most jurisdictions, including here in the Parkland, but a group of area municipalities have banded together to help address the problem in the area.

The City of Dauphin, RM of Dauphin, Grandview Municipality, Municipality of Gilbert Plains, Mossey River Municipality, Municipality of Ste Rose and Municipality of Roblin each provided $3,500 in seed money to run a one-year pilot project aimed at recruiting skilled workers and matching them directly with employment in the area.

Immigrate Parkland has been two years in the making, said Martijn van Luijn, City of Dauphin Economic Development manager and chair of the Parkland Immigration Committee, and with Saturday’s launch has set a goal of recruiting 40 to 50 workers in the first year.

“We have adopted terms of reference, have had monthly meetings, developed a new brand . . . and together with our partners, we’ve been working to build this project and to get it to launch today. So we’re ready for the next step and to start recruitment of skilled workers and bring them to the Parkland,” he said, adding the project has been supported from the beginning through strategic partnerships with Regional Connections, Rural Manitoba Economic Development Corporation and the Parkland Chamber of Commerce.

The Parkland Chamber of Commerce has been selected as the agency which will oversee Immigrate Parkland to ensure transparency and fairness in the process.

“We want every community to be part of this and for every community, every welding shop, every farm, every little mom and pop store to be able to tie into this program,” van Luijn said. “And to be able to have impartiality, the chamber of commerce actually popped up as the best agency for us to execute this program. We want to start slowly and build it up correctly and do it correctly. We’re looking forward to working with everyone in the future and we hope that in due time we can welcome many new families to our region.”

Forecasts predict the trend of labour shortages in all sectors will continue unless more skilled foreign workers are attracted to fill vacant positions. On hand for Saturday’s launch of Immigrate Parkland, Manitoba’s Minister of Labour and Immigration, Malaya Marcelino, said the Province is intrigued by the possibilities the program presents in addressing those challenges.

“(The Province of Manitoba is) just really excited that this is happening,” Marcelino said. “I hope that you are going to be able to go forward with a lot of success with this and that’s going to inspire other communities around you to say ‘wow, look what’s happenning in this region. Let’s try to replicate that’.”

Acknowledging the time and effort that was put into getting the project to this point, Marcelino said Immigrate Parkland is poised for success.

“Newcomers need their families in order to be successful. We know that newcomers need a welcoming community in order to be successful and we know that newcomers need jobs and jobs preferably in their field of study and in their experience,” she said. “When we have that kind of set up of their family, a welcoming community and jobs that they can actually succeed in, then it’s going to be a very, very good initiative and that we’re going to be seeing a lot of the things that we’re hoping for together as a community. I want to thank all of you for all the work that you put in and know that as a province we’re here to support you in this important endeavour and we’re here with you the whole way. As a new Immigration minister this actually means a lot to me as an immigrant myself. I came to this country as a young child with my parents and I know what it means to be able to come to a welcoming community and to be able to thrive and succeed and contribute to that economy and to that community. We’re going to be here for you when you need us.”

More about the program, and information needed to apply can be found at immigrateparkland.ca.

Talk about being committed to a community. After a six-month delay in their plans to open a retail cannabis store in Roblin, Adam and Dylan Carritt of Prairie Trichomes are finally ready to go.

The store, located on 2nd Avenue NW right next door to the 50 & Over Club Drop-In Centre, is set to hold its grand opening Saturday, Feb. 3.

Check out the rest of the story in this week’s Review.

A new but very familiar face has taken over the reins of the Roblin Agricultural Society.

At its annual general meeting held Thursday (Jan. 18), long-time member Dean Chescu was elected president with Ellen Arnott stepping down after five years at the helm.

Find out more in this week’s issue.

The 2024 bonspiel season got underway Jan. 11 with 16 rinks battling it out in this year’s version of the Roblin Farmers’ Bonspiel.

With four events this year, the ‘spiel saw some rinks playing four games on the final day, Saturday, making for some very tired curlers after the finals.

Read all about it in this week’s Review.