This year’s Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival’s (NMTF) Queen Trapper is no stranger to the event. Clarissa Burns was crowned as 2023 Queen Trapper and she has been competing in events at the festival since she was a teen. She rarely misses an opportunity to come out to NMTF.
“Although I reside in Prince Albert right now, I am originally from The Pas, so I have been to Trappers’ Festival as far back as I can remember,” said Burns. “I would say roughly 30 years I have been to Trapper's Festival. I have been competing in NMTF since I was a teenager, around 13 and 14 years old, in the Junior Queen Trapper events.

When it comes to participating in King and Queen Trapper at this year’s Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival, it seems like the winners who were crowned were well-seasoned competitors. This year’s King Trapper, Chris Perchaluk, has attended several Trappers’ Festivals over the years and competed, however entering this year was unplanned.
“I’ve attended the Festival pretty much every year I’ve lived here,” said Perchaluk. “I missed a few over the years, but I think it would be fair to say I’ve been to over 25 Festivals.

The Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival (NMFT) has come and gone for another year, and a new Fur Queen has been crowned. The NMFT 2023 Fur Queen is Gloria Ballantyne-Packo, First Princess is Cadence Easter, and Second Princess is Airianna Bignell-Beardy. For Ballantyne-Packo, being crowned NMFT Fur Queen has been a childhood dream come true.
“I had always wanted to run for fur queen when I was younger,” said Ballantyne-Packo. “When Kendara and I were younger, we used to watch the fur queens in the community and it was something we liked to do together as sisters. When I was old enough to sign up, I knew I couldn’t commit to the following year afterwards, because I had plans to relocate. While I was living in Calgary, I felt sad because I felt it would be an opportunity I would never be able to have.

A person never knows when a hobby or interest that they have as a child can become a passion when they get older. Grandview resident Lindsey Morran has been mixing up his time with a few different projects, but lately has been drawn into the world of chainsaw carving.
Morran’s hobby led him to experience the Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival for the first time and compete in the log carving competition hosted by Brody’s No Frills. For Morran, it was a first time for both these events.
“I had never attended the Trappers’ Festival before and I felt that going up to The Pas and entering the log carving competition would be a great experience on both counts,” said Morran. “Last year I won a chainsaw carving competition in Powerview-Pine Falls and this year have been personally invited to compete in one in Beausejour on Canada Day.

A three-game losing skid has the Dauphin Kings on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoff race in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s MGEU West Division.

Dauphin lost both ends of a home-and-home with the Virden Oil Capitals, beginning with a 4-1 setback at Credit Union Place on Friday.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley said Virden outworked his team.

“And it’s something to learn from. But we’re going to be okay,” he said.

On Saturday, Virden carried a 2-0 lead into the third period, when goals from Owen Wareham and Mason Smith 59 seconds apart pulled the Kings even with 3:22 left to play.

But the Oil Capitals ended up netting the winner with 1:11 left and sealed the win with an empty-net marker with 32 ticks left on the clock.

Despite the loss, Hedley liked what he saw from the Kings in that game.

“Basically, the game was decided in about two minutes. I thought we played really well. We did a lot of real good things. We started focusing on the task at hand and every shift guys got better,” he said. “After fighting back and making it 2-2 and then getting scored on with just over a minute left, it was really tough. But I think it’s going to make us stronger. I think we’re going to learn from it and move on from here.”

The Kings have a tough stretch to close out the season and it begins, Wednesday, when they face the Swan Valley Stampeders at 12:30 p.m., where a lot of school children will be in attendance.

The early start will not have an effect on the Kings, however.

“At this time of year, I don’t think it will bother us at all. We practice every day at that time anyway. So we should be fine,” Hedley said.

The Kings will face the Niverville Nighthawks in another home-and-home on the weekend.

Niverville will make the trek north to Dauphin, Friday for a 7:30 p.m. date with the Kings. Then Dauphin will head south, Sunday, for a 3 p.m. game.

With eight games left and the Kings sitting in fifth place, Hedley said they have to start finding points somewhere.

“We need to find a way to get some points,” he said, adding the disappointing thing about Saturday’s loss to Virden was the Kings had a point wrapped up until letting it slip away late. “It’s still right there for us. There’s a couple other teams in our division have real tough schedules, too. So it’s a matter of us focusing. It’s all in our own hands. We don’t have to rely on anybody. We just have to make sure we go out and play and try and get as many points as we can,” he said.

Kings court:

Dauphin sits in fifth place with 57 points. OCN is in first with 63 points, followed by Swan Valley with 62, Virden with 61 and Waywayseecappo with 59. Neepawa is in sixth place with 49 points.

Kings coach and general manager Doug Hedley still needs just one win to surpass Marlin Murray as the winningest coach in Kings history.

Dauphin was one of more than 50 communities across the country to recognize the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine with a candlelight vigil, Friday evening.

After an opening prayer, Ukraine’s national anthem was sung by a local folk singing group.

Various dignitaries spoke to the crowd of about 100 people who braved the cold temperatures to attend and show their support for Ukraine.

Organizer Stephen Jaddock was pleased with the attendance, noting the temperature was crisp even though it had warmed up a few degrees from earlier in the week.

“I was telling the speakers to make sure they were dressed appropriately and be able to handle it,” he said. “And you know what? It went about 45 minutes, so that’s quite the amount of time to be out in this weather. But I’m happy with the turnout.”

Because of the city’s Ukrainian heritage and culture, Jaddock wanted Dauphin to be part of the vigils being held nationwide.

“We wanted to make sure that Dauphin was on the map with the communities across Canada that were doing this, over 50, so I’m very happy that Dauphin was included in that number,” he said.

The recurring theme of the evening was that the war must end as soon as possible.

“We just wanted to say that the war in Ukraine is a terrible thing and that it needs to end. And also that we’re very thankful that families have chosen to come to Dauphin and we’ve been able to help them out with the volunteers and the great people that we have in the community of Dauphin and the Parkland area,” Jaddock said. “It was a great message and I’m pleased that it was able to get out.”

A number of the families that have relocated to Dauphin were in attendance and Jaddock feels events such as this will send a message to them that the community is here to support them.

“We’ve got the Ukrainian culture here. And it was so nice for the City of Dauphin to make sure that the Ukrainian flag was flying today. They made a special effort to make sure that was happening,” he said. “And I know that when the war broke out, the Ukrainian flag was flying in the City of Dauphin for many, many days. So it was so good to see. And again, it just speaks to the support that we have here.”

Like everyone in attendance, Jaddock hopes the war in Ukraine ends soon.

Since the war started one year ago, five million civilians have been forced to leave Ukraine and more than eight million are internally displaced.

After freezing municipal operating grants for seven years, the Manitoba government has announced an increase in the annual basket funding it provides municipalities to help fund their operations.

And while the exact impact of the 28 per cent increase for the City of Dauphin remains to be seen, it is enough to change the conversations elected officials are having around the 2023 financial plan, mayor David Bosiak said, adding he expects the figure to be around $170,000 or $180,000.

“We were forewarned in some of our earliest meetings this year that inflation in particular, but other things were really going to impact our ability to come up with a budget so this is good news absolutely. As we were looking at this year’s budget, very preliminarily so far, costs are up and so we have to find ways to deal with that. So this announcement will certainly help,” Bosiak said. “The unfortunate part is that it probably just makes up for the lack of funding in the last six or seven years, if you calculate cost of living, even averaging at two per cent a year. It’s a nice chunk of change, but it would have been nice to have that in years previous, as well. But I’m not going to scowl and say, ‘bad Province.’ I’m very happy that they made that decision and it’ll be good for us.”

All municipalities will receive a minimum 24 per cent increase in 2023 to address inflationary impacts. With this increase of up to $47 million, the 2023 municipal operating grant will grow to $217 million from $170 million.

It is still early in the city budgetting process, Bosiak said. The capital budget has been thoroughly examined, he added and is all but set.

“It’s the operating budget that we’re still in the process of working on and I know that there were some hard decisions that were going to need to have be made if we weren’t going to consider increasing taxes,” he said. “I can’t speak for the rest of council, but it’s been very clear to us that a tax raise is likely. But now I don’t know if it’s going to be or not, or how much it will be, based on this particular announcement.”

Council is holding a planning session in early March to plot a strategy for the next four years, which will absolutely have budget implications, Bosiak said, adding he is looking forward to the process. There are other things impacting the budget which are out of council’s control such as utilities, fuel and salaries.

“But there’s some very variable costs on some of the projects we’d like to do,” Bosiak said. “And that’s where I’m hopeful that the increases in our fixed costs related to fuel and heating and those other things, that we will have some room to have some very thoughtful discussion on the things that we want to put in this year. And everything’s going to be validated, so it’s based on what the rest of council and administration believe we have to do as a city going forward.”

And the added money from the province will help the new mayor and council to makes ends meet and, hopefully, move forward on some of their plans.

“If we’re really short a lot of money, it’s not the stuff that you have to pay for that goes first, it’s all those good things that need to be trimmed,” Bosiak said, adding he is hopeful the extra dollars will help offset cost increases in areas such as fuel, snow clearing and upcoming negotiations with employee unions.

“Council, the three incumbents, the three new councillors and myself, are now going to be looking forward and saying, ‘okay, so now the province has increased its funding, maybe getting us back to a bit of an even keel, what are those things that we think are truly important for our community?’ And they will likely be in the discussion longer now than if it was a situation where we’re short, we have to raise taxes, we have to cut programs or services and we’re still looking at a deficit. So it’s going to make the decisions maybe a little bit easier, but this isn’t like winning the lottery.”

It may not have been the coldest night of the year, but it wasn’t far off.

However, with windchills of -30C and below, it was enough to have Dauphin’s edition of the Coldest Night of the Year walk cancelled for this year.

So instead, participants gathered in the back hall of the Dauphin Friendship Center for a presentation and enjoyed chili and a bun. Participants are still encouraged to walk whenever they see fit and to post photos and videos online.

As of Saturday evening, the event raised $23,701 or 133 per cent of its $20,000 goal.

This year marks the first time in the event’s seven-year history in Dauphin that the fund-raising goal has been surpassed and donations will still be accepted until Mar. 31.

Proceeds are earmarked for the Food for Thought  program. Next year’s walk will be held, Feb. 24, 2024.

Since age three, Pacey Wall has relied on the Health Science Centre Children’s Hospital due to intestinal failure.

Even after more than 30 surgeries and countless days in hospital, Pacey is a resilient child with a great attitude who greets everyone he meets with a smile and a wave – making him perfect for his new role as 2023 Champion Child for Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Meet the CHF’s Champion Child in this issue.

The Parent Advisory Council (PAC) at Roblin Elementary School is looking for a few good women and men.

“We have 10 members right now but we’re losing five come June so we need to recruit desperately,” said the council’s current and outgoing chair Mary Newton.

Want to know more? Check out this week’s issue.