Houses in Swan River where some of the area’s most vulnerable persons resided have been emptied and boarded up, beginning with the ‘White House’ on the corner of Seventh Avenue South and First Street South that was closed on Nov. 23, followed by a home on Duncan Crescent that was closed on Nov. 30.
The closure of the White House followed an investigation under the provincial legislation Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act, which allows several confidential complaints to trigger an investigation and permit relevant authorities to enter the property.
“In response to a confidential complain, Manitoba Justice Public Safety Officers visited the residence accompanied by representatives of the Swan Valley Fire Department and Public Health,” said a Manitoba government spokesperson. “Based on the conditions observed, and as a result of numerous safety and health violations, it was determined that the residence was uninhabitable and required to be closed down immediately. Given the significant safety concerns, Public Health issued a health hazard order and residents were given some time to pack up their things, but were told they had to leave almost immediately.”
At the time of the investigation, eight individuals appeared to reside in the home, but there were at least 15 occupants there at the time of the inspection and everyone was asked to leave due to the conditions observed.
Swan Valley Fire Department acting Fire Chief Darren Fedorchuk attended the property as part of the investigation, and also issued an order to close under the provisions of the provincial Fire Prevention and Emergency Response Act.
If the property owner chooses to improve the property to a reasonable standard, both Manitoba Justice and the Office of the Fire Commissioner will have to be satisfied by inspection.
“Because of the life safety issues in (the house), we had to close it and board it up,” said Fedorchuk. “If the owner of the property wanted to appeal, they would appeal to the Fire Commissioner.”
While Fedorchuk couldn’t explain specific details, he did outline the life safety hazards with lack of smoke detectors, egress issues with blocked doors and lack of exit windows in some bedrooms, electrical issues, among other issues.
“There were some general fire safety things where we’d be looking at fatalities (in a serious fire emergency),” he said.
Fedorchuk also explained that the property was also tested according to a commercial standard because it was being operated as a rental property, despite being zoned and built as residential. He explaind this is common when it comes to rental properties.
Fedorchuk also noted that while the property did violate some of the Town’s bylaws, many of the infractions coincided with existing provincial legislation and were incidental to the investigation and actions taken.
The home on the south end of Duncan Crescent was boarded up under an order from Manitoba Public Health, and Fedorchuk said he was asked to board it up because people continued to enter the property after being evicted.
“We initially got the rerport that (the house) had no water or heat, and that automatically triggers an occupancy issue,” said Fedorchuk, noting that there have been some other developments going on with it since, but isn’t aware of all the details.
For more details on some of the people that have been affected by these evictions, see next week’s edition of the Star and Times.

The Temple Baptist Church was the site of the annual Carol Festival this past weekend (Dec. 3), with many different entertainment groups performing in front of the Swan River faithful...

The Dauphin Clippers senior girls volleyball team entered the Manitoba High School Athletic Conference AAA Volleyball Provincials as the third seed and that is exactly where they finished, capturing the bronze medal on their home court, Saturday.

Dauphin opened the tournament in the power pool, with the other top four teams. When all was said and done, the Clippers came out in fourth place, losing to Westgate (25-14, 14-25 and 12-15), Neelin (16-25 and 18-25) and Linden Christian (25-23, 22-25 and 6-15).

All four teams earned automatic berths into the quarterfinals.

That is when Dauphin faced Balmoral Hall, earning a 25-20 and 26-24 victory.

In the semifinals, the Clippers again faced Linden Christian, losing, 18-25 and 21-25.

In the bronze medal game, Dauphin defeated Westgate, 17-25, 25-22 and 15-13.

Clippers coach Chris Wolfenden was proud of his team and what they accomplished on their home court.

After losing the first set, Wolfenden told his team to just have fun.

“And they just rallied around that. It didn’t matter where we were in the match. They were dancing on the bench and they kept it light, which meant they were loose in the match and they were able to play free. And they played freely and did awesome. So I’m proud of them, for sure,” he said.

In the final two sets, the Clippers stepped up their blocking game, scoring several points off blocks.

Check this week's Dauphin Herald for the full story!

Dauphin Fire Department has been less busy so far in 2023 compared to the same period last year and fire chief Cam Abrey is okay with that.

Between Jan. 1 to Oct 31, the department responded to 201 calls compared to 206 during the same period last year, Abrey told Dauphin city councillors at their regular meeting, Nov. 27.

“So only a 2.4 per cent decrease in calls. But any downward trend is always a good trend in emergency services,” he said.

False alarms continue to account for the largest volume of calls at 37 per cent, Abrey said, followed by motor vehicle collisions at 18 per cent.

In total, 3,628 hours were spent at calls with responses to the Rural Municipality of Dauphin accounting for 19 per cent of those hours and city responses accounting for 80 per cent. The final one per cent of time was spent offering aid to neighbouring departments in the Riding Mountain Mutual Aid District.

In addition 1,854 hours were dedicated to training during regular Wednesday evening training sessions, Thursday evening classes and Manitoba Emergency Services College sponsored weekend seminars.

“We continue our firefighting level one and two class held each Thursday evening for members of the Riding Mountain Mutual Aid District,” Abrey said. “We have several members from Dauphin, as well as members from Gilbert Plains, Ochre River and Ste. Rose fire departments attending this weekly training here.”

Looking back at the year so far, Abrey said among the workshops the department has hosted was Incident Command 200 training.

“It’s an excellent training opportunity for personnel that are likely to assume a supervisory position within the incident command system,” he said. “And we believe in that, training our members for the potential of assuming that role of command.”

A vehicle extrication seminar, an advanced fire dynamics program, a Pumps Basic seminar, a Pumps Advanced seminar and an emergency vehicle driving skills seminar were also offered throughout the year.

Recently, the department hosted an instructor from Alberta, who provided 40 firefighters from across the region information about fires and extrications involving electric vehicles, Abrey added.

“We were the second location that he was instructing in Manitoba, teaching us about the electric vehicle safety regarding extrication and the fires that are associated with the lithium ion batteries,” he said. “He uses a combination of classroom theory and he actually has a cutaway vehicle of a Tesla which shows where the access for extrication is possible, the location of the batteries and what our methods of control and attack may be.”

Finally, Abrey updated council on the status of the new pumper truck, which has been ordered from Fort Garry Fire Trucks. A recent meeting with the manufacturer resulted in some changes which might affect the $828,447.90 purchase price. Abrey told councillors the emergency lighting system has been upgraded, while some equipment has been eliminated to allow for additional storage in the cabinets.

“We are currently waiting on the pricing adjustments from Fort Garry Fire Trucks and we will advise once those changes are there and how that will affect our original pricing,” he said.

Abrey added while the new truck was originally slated to replace the department’s 2002 Freightliner pumper, a decision has been made to instead replace the department’s 2011 Spartan pumper, which has been costing the department thousands of dollars to continually repair its emissions control system.

“We do have two years until the delivery of the new pumper to come up with the final decision,” he said.

The Province of Manitoba and the City of Dauphin have once again come to terms with regards to snow clearing on provincially-owned roads in the community.

Mike VanAlstyne, director of Public Works and Operations, said the province approached Dauphin with a lump sum offer of $50,000 to provide winter maintenance on the urban highway system after several years with no agreement in place. The streets in question include Main Street, Second Avenue Northwest and First Avenue Northeast.

“The Province approach us a few months ago to start discussions about it and they were able to offer, or come up with a new calculation for how much municipalities should get,” VanAlstyne said, adding city council approved the deal at its Nov. 27 regular meeting. “We felt that this was more fair than previous offers had been. And we know that we can provide probably a better level of service than they can at the moment, just with their staff levels and some challenges they’re facing.”

VanAlstyne added the winter maintenance will still take a team approach with plenty of communication between the two levels of government.

“The Manitoba government has offered to continue the sanding and salting services, so the ice control stuff, and we’re going to take on more of the plowing. We’re just able to prioritize it better than they can with their set levels of service,” VanAlstyne said. “Their set levels of service is lower than they probably should be, and where they would want them to be from a community of our size, but they have to follow their policies. So this is where the opportunity is there for us to recover most of our costs and to provide everyone with a better level of service.”

The end result should be easier passage on some of the main routes in the heart of the city, VanAlstyne added.

“The hope is that we can provide everyone with a better level of service than the previous few years,” he said, adding it is still unclear whether the $50,000 sum will fully cover the costs. “We’ll have to wait and see, I guess it depends on the winter. Right now, financially, we’re enjoying the warm weather and the lack of snow, but that could turn around quick on us. We’ll have to see how it plays out.”

VanAlstyne added that putting the provincially-owned roads back into the snow clearing mix should not adversely affect the level of service in other parts of the city.

“I don’t think it will be too bad. Our priority routes and our emergency routes and school routes will all still remain a priority, as well as our sidewalks and whatnot around the schools. We plan to address everything the same as we have,” he said. “The residential streets might see a 12-hour delay compared to where they used to be, but I don’t think it’s going to be a burden on the community. If those main arteries are opened up, we should see a lot of relief.”

Dauphin Lake is facing a health crisis, but it just might make it through the challenging time with a little help from its friends.

A group, Friends of Dauphin Lake, has been formed to address health and vitality issues facing the water body with an eye to ensuring its future as a residential area and tourist destination.

The immediate problem, says group member and long-time advocate Bill Griffin, is weed overgrowth threatening the future of the lake’s south basin.

“The lake is dying and way back when I was chairman of the Lake Advisory Board in the 1990s, I said the south end of the lake will be a marsh within 25 to 30 years and everybody laughed at me,” Griffin said. “We’ve had weeds the last three, four, five years and then this year they just went nuts with low water, high temperatures, lots of new sediment in front of the Dauphin Beach area this year. You couldn’t use a boat, you couldn’t get out with a boat, couldn’t water-ski, you couldn’t whatever.”

Griffin added the weed beds present in recreational areas are more than inconvenient, they are a safety concern.

Read the full story in this week's Dauphin Herald. 

Thousands of kilograms of fresh, frozen and packaged perishable grocery items – including deli products and fruit and veggies – had to be disposed of after an equipment failure at the local Co-op grocery store.

Sometime after 7 p.m. Monday (Nov. 27) after the store shut down for the evening, the store’s main compressor providing cooling for freezers and display cabinets went down.

Find out more in this week’s issue.

CALLING ALL COOKS!

We at the Dauphin Herald want YOU to submit your awesome holiday recipes so we can share them with everyone in the Parkland this holiday season! We're looking for anything from desserts to sides to drinks and more!

Email yours to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and it could end up in our Christmas Special Section in December!

Deadline is Thursday December 7th!

Christmas can be a financially stressful time of year as many people struggle to just to provide the basic necessities, never mind the added expenses of the holiday season. The Pas Family Resource Centre (TPFRC) is raising funds for their annual Christmas Hamper Drive, which helps those in need to have a magical Christmas too.
“Christmas is a joyous occasion for many and also a very difficult time for others, particularly those who find themselves struggling to make financial ends meet, which can contribute to holistic unwellness,” said TPFRC Executive Director Renee Kastrukoff. “The cost of groceries, rents, gasoline, utilities and many other basic essentials in life are at an all-time high. The rising costs of living are not being matched by rising incomes and this creates financial hardship for many, including families whose income earners work at lower paying jobs.

The field of trades is being more recognized than ever before, as more students enroll in trade related fields. University College of the North (UCN) has been a leader when it comes to providing education and training in the field of trades, and recently one of their instructors was nominated for an Apprenticeship Manitoba Awards of Distinction Instructor the Year.
Emile Paradis has spent many years working in trades from an early age and holds a few different tickets in various sectors of the trades.
“I started working in trades at a really early age,” said UCN Instructor Emile Paradis. “I worked at a welding fabricating shop close to my home community in Ste. Rose, where I grew up. I left home at 18 years old and went north, where I began working in the mining industry. I ended up going into the apprenticeship program when I was 19 years old, and then four years later I became a Red Seal Journeyman Millwright.