The OCN Storm were invited to present to Oscar Lathlin Collegiate youth about the challenges as Indigenous student athletes last week.
Chavez Constant, Captain of the OCN Storm acknowledged the peer pressure and obstacles he faced as an Indigenous hockey player, when sharing his story with the studnets.
“We had Chavez Constant, Blaine Dorion, Harlan Jacobson, Hutton Foster, Rowan Fenner, who took the time to speak to our Indigenous youth,” teacher Savannah Henderson commented.
In addition to speaking at the school, the OCN Storm also hosted a youth sport evening camp at the Gordon Lathlin Memorial Centre. The camp saw 15 youth come to participate. the event was made possible through support from OLC, OCN and M30 Goalie.

On February 28th Owen Dawe and Jann Brooks were joined by Arlo and Jo to discuss their identities as two-spirited youth in the north. This was the first podcast that was launched under Young Voices of The North, an initiative funded through Say Yes! to Kids grant.
Since that first podcast episode, the youth involved have dropped three more episodes - Education and Career Opportunities; Newcomers; and Songs We Each Picked. The podcast variety is reflective of the young people that are invovled in the project itself. Currently actively invovled in the project are Dawe, Arlo Fenner, Namirembe Afatswo and Eniola Atoyebi. Joining the youth is Rev. Brooks, who has provided support and guidance but emphasizes that the podcast goal is to be youth led.

Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) is being recognized in the tourism sector by having two nominations for the Manitoba Indigenous Tourism Awards this year. Jade Richards, Assistant General Manager for the Kikiwak Inn was nominated for the Outstanding Staff Person Award and OCN was nominated for the Leading the Way in Business Development Award.
Richards worked her way up to her current position at the Kikiwak Inn. All of her experiences through different positions, combined with her education proved to be a real asset.
“I started working with the Kikiwak Inn in July 2019,” said Richards. “It was actually my first job when I first started working in 2003. I started off as a busser, and then later moved up as a server. Sue Johnston was my supervisor and was a great. I learned a lot from her. I worked on and off as a server for quite a long time until I got an office job. I later went back to school for my Business Administration at UCN, went back to an office job and seen the position at the Kikiwak Inn posted, so I took a chance.

Amongst all the budget meetings, the Town of the Pas Council has also been busy managing day-to-day operations and projects for the community. At almost every meeting, a by-law is discussed and reviewed amongst council to see if there are any changes or revisions that need to be made.
“With regards to by-laws, our council is looking into a lot of them to see if there are questions that come up with regards to how they impact people in the community and if the by-law still makes sense today,” said Town of The Pas Mayor Andre Murphy. “We’ve been looking at some of the by-laws to see why they were put into place and if it’s still relevant to today.”

Ever wonder what the Dauphin Herald online papers look like? Ever thought about switching from your paper copy to an online edition? 

Now is your chance to check it out and see how you like it with the Dauphin Herald's Total Market Coverage for March 2023.

Read below, enjoy!

The SVRSS Tigers made history on Sunday, winning their first ever Westman High School Hockey League Championship Title. The team took the Neepawa Tigers in two games for the title. See the full story on B2...

The Dauphin Kings are set to face the Swan Valley Stampeders in a rematch of last year’s Manitoba Junior Hockey League quarterfinal series, which the Kings won in six games.

Dauphin ended the season with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Winkler Flyers, Saturday in Winkler. That came on the heels of a 6-2 victory over the Winnipeg Freeze, last Monday in Winnipeg.

The Kings dressed APs Marco Bodnarski, Havryil Simchuk and Madden Murray, while Roan Coe made his MJHL debut on the blueline.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley said it was a tough environment in front of a large crowd, noting the Flyers dressed their full lineup.

“I thought all our kids played real well. Roan Coe was good on the back ende, as was Marco Bodnarski. Simchuk and Murray all played very well,” he said, adding the Kings only dressed four 20-year-olds, including goaltender Dmytro Kubritskyi, who made 49 saves in the loss. “Like I said, it was a tough enviroment to play in and they responded really well. They didn’t look out of place at all and fit right in,” Hedley added.

Dauphin finishes the season in fourth place in the MGEU West Division with a 32-21-3-2 record. Their 69 points were two back of third-place Virden and three behind second-place OCN.

The Kings will now prepare to face the 36-16-5-1 Stampeders in the quarterfinals.

Dauphin won the season series, winning four of the six games. Five of the six contests were decided by one goal, with the Kings winning three times in overtime. The only game not decided by a goal was a 3-00 Swan Valley victory in the first game between the two teams, Sept. 23.

Hedley expects a long, tough series between the two rivals.

“I’m expecting a real battle. Obviously, they’re well coached and have a good hockey club. We just have to make sure we bring our A game,” he said. “Hopefully, everybody is healthy and 100 per cent and we get four lines rolling. I think we stack up very well against them.”

Hedley knows goaltending will be key to any team’s success and with Swan Valley’s Kobe Grant winning the Top Goaltender Award this season, the Kings will have to find ways to get to him.

“The biggest thing is second shots. Taking his eyes away as you can by sitting in front of him. We have to get to the paint. We have to get to the net. We have to make it difficult for him to see pucks,” Hedley said. “Do as much as we can to create traffic in front of him.”

The schedule for the series can be found below!

MGEU WEST – (1) Swan Valley Stampeders vs (4) Dauphin Kings
***If necessary

A new brewing company calling Dauphin home will be opening soon.

Obsolete Brewing Co., will operate out of the former Acklands building at 26 2nd Ave. NW.

The idea sprang from the minds of Ryan Vanderheyden, Steven Sobering and Kevin Steinbachs.

“Really, we just talked about it over the course of having beers, really,” said Vanderheyden. “We just talked about how it would be nice if Dauphin had a brewery. And then, at that time, we weren’t thinking about creating one. Then a couple of months down the road, we saw a building available. We went into the building, said, ‘this would be a great place for our brewery,’ and then we started it from there.”

According to Sobering, Vanderheyden is passionate about micro-brewing and beer making in general and already has ties to some micro-breweries in the province.

Sobering has an eye towards tourism and feels a brewery would help attract tourists to the area.

The group found a small batch brewing system and brewed a lot of beer in case they had to brew their product themselves.

“We brewed a lot of beer. It was pretty good. During COVID time, we weren’t able to get together with a lot of people, so we had some small tastings and they went over really well,” Vanderheyden said. “And then we just went through all the steps of finding the right equipment that would fit our size of company that we were going for. And finding everybody to be part of the team that we would need to hire to fit out the building.”

Advertising through the Internet, the group hired Marco Bardelli, a brewer from Brazil, who moved to Dauphin with his wife and two children not long ago.

“He’s replaced us for the brewing, which is probably beneficial to everybody involved. He’s a great brewer that has 12 years of craft brewing experience that will help us out starting up,” Vanderheyden said, adding Bardelli was able to correct some of the things the ownership group was doing. “We didn’t even know what we were doing wrong,” Sobering said.

“Even the equipment fit out, after ordering all our equipment, he did confirm we made the right choices in the size of equipment. But after going through the initial set up, he produced a massive list, like, ‘okay, now you also need this.’ I don’t even think we knew enough to know what we needed. It would have been a real trial and error, whereas now, we can hit the ground running, which is going to be a big benefit.”

The group purchased the lot right next door where Kelleher Ford used to be located and they plan to use that for parking, as well as a patio area, where patrons can sit.

The group, Vanderheyden said, envisions their area of the city as a craft district. The brewery is across the street from a bakery and meat shop, it is within walking distance of the Watson Art Centre and Vermillion Park.

“So people can walk in this area. So we hope we can encourage people to park in our area, come in, have a beer, go shopping at Prairie Supply Co., get some baking goods, a steak for the weekend and they can go home,” he said. “So we’re hoping to create a walking culture in the downtown here, where people can shop and see all the things that we have down here.”

Planning for the brewery began in 2020.

“We incorporated in November 2020,” Vanderheyden said.

Using their small brewing system, Bardelli has already manufactured more than 20 beer recipes. Because it is a small system, the beer does not last because of the tastings the group does.

“I think we have five or six at any given time for tastings. We’ve been touring people through here constantly, just different groups,” Sobering said.

The plan is to have a core line of six to eight different beer recipes, with as many as 20 available for tastings.

“We shifted the business model to be a tourist brewery. We can have a multitude of beers, so that everytime you come here, there will be something new to experience,” Sobering said, adding this will allow them to source local ingredients. There are also plans to produce non-alcoholic beers. “Our brewer makes kombucha, home-made lemonades, gingerale, the list actually goes on,” Vanderheyden said.

“We want the space not to feel like a lounge for people just to come to drink. We want it to be like a family friendly space, so kids can come and get that craft soda. They actually get to experience the new sodas, as well. And their parents can have a beer.”

They also plan to serve coffee.

Currently, the group is waiting for an electrical panel to be constructed. Once they receive that, there will be a bit of a process to get licensed at the provincial level.

“But we do hope to be manufacturing by April or May and maybe a grand opening by June,” Vanderheyden said.

Sobering said the production side of the business will be completed fast, so they can make beer in cans and kegs.

“So we can supply the liquor stores to sell over the counter or kegs in restaurants. But the tasting room will take a little longer, because it’s a different type of occupancy,” he said.

While there will be a learning curve when it comes to distribution, the plan is to provide their product in as many liquor stores as they can, while providing kegs to restaurants.

“And then selling out of the taproom. The best way to get the beer will be to come to the taproom. It will be the freshest. It will be the most variety,” Vanderheyden said.

Short-term there will not be many staff working at the brewery, but as the company grows, so too, will the number of staff needed.

Sobering noted all three partners in the brewery are community-minded.

“We’re all very invested in Dauphin’s prosperity and want to make Dauphin and great place to live. We want to attract some of those visitors, just that little extra step to come to Dauphin,” he said. “If we can sell our beer throughout the province and bring those revenues back here, we can just keep putting it back into the business and back into the community and keep adding more amenities. I think that was one thing all three of us are very committed to.”

Sobering has not heard any negativity around the project, adding people are positive about it.

“People are really excited about it,” he said. “I definitely think it’s going to be a real asset. It might mark a point in time where it’s before-and-after. We kind of want to see ourselves as what we do for Dauphin and this part of the city is what Lakehouse did for Clear Lake when they upgraded. Sometimes it just takes that catalyst, that first step to create that snowball effect. And we’re really hopeful that it’s going to be a hit.”

These are uniquely challenging times when it comes to agricultural markets, says Mike Jubinville.

Jubinville, a senior market analyst with MarketsFarms, provided some of his insight to those attending Dauphin Agricultural Society’s Farm Outlook 2023, Mar. 9.

Cheaper choices, the weather and the needs of China as it emerges from it’s “draconian” COVID restrictions are just a few of the things producers will have to keep in mind when marketing their crops this year, he said.

“I do find it’s a really unusual time right now where central bank policy around the world is creating a scenario of high inflation and we’re combating it with rising interest rates and other economic influences,” Jubinville said. “But this has all happened at the same time where actually the supply of our grains and oil seeds are relatively tight.”

We should also expect to see a lower Canadian dollar value in the coming year as we head into a recession of unknown depth or duration, he said.

Still influencing markets, he added, is the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

“Obviously this conflict with Russia is ongoing and it continues to grind along and I suspect it probably gets worse before it gets better,” Jubinville said. “This is creating an anxiety in the world for food users globally recognizing how significant this Black Sea region, which is responsible for 30 per cent of all the wheat exports in the world transversing through Black Sea, is and there is an anxiety of securing food supply.”

Get the full story in this week's Total Market Coverage Dauphin Herald!

The San Clara/Boggy Creek Métis Local held its annual Langan Lake Fish Derby Sunday, March 12 with a decent number of anglers out to vie for the first prize of $1,000 for the longest fish, $300 for the second longest fish; and the third prize of $50 for the shortest catch of the day.

There was also a 50/50 draw which was won by Heather Bouvier who picked up $482.50. Some 200 people turned out for the afternoon with 187 holes sold.

Find out who took home the prizes in this week's Review.