Last week (July 11-14), youth between the ages of 10 to 14 had their first experience with the first ever Rec Angling Day Camp, hosted with a partnership between Swan Valley Sport Fishing Enhancement and the Elbert Chartrand Friendship Centre. The first of the five weeks saw youth cast their rods into Red Deer River, with future weeks taking them to Wellman Lake and the Red Road Compass Land-Based Learning site along the Swan River. Cohen Bulycz stands by the shoreside, waiting for a bite on his line.

Activities in the area included pancake breakfasts in Minitonas and Benito, baseball and slo-pitch, live music, a car show, a picnic-in-the-park at Swan River Legion Park, fireworks and plenty more fun for all.

Festival du Spikageur was the latest event in the sophomore season of the Munro Smashball League, which features a volleyball-variant backyard game called Spikeball. Pictured here, participants compete by returning the ball bounced onto the ground-level net instead of over a vertical net.

Swan River celebrated National Indigenous Day on Tuesday (June 21) with dancing, music and more, including a sunrise ceremony at the Elbert Chartrand Friendship Centre and activities for SVSD students throughout the day at the
Veterans Community Hall.

The Swan Valley Cheetahs Gymnastics Club presented an outdoor spring showcase outside of their gym on Thursday (June 23), along with a fundraising barbecue to raise money for roof repairs.

The U15 Royals of Swan Valley Youth Baseball kept the Swan River Legion Park busy on Saturday (June 18) and Sunday (June 19) with their regional playoffs, competing against two teams from Dauphin and one team from Ste. Rose.

The Swan River Kinsmen Club brought back their ever-popular Lobsterfest after a two-year hiatus, with a sold-out crowd packing the hall of the Swan Valley Historical Museum on Saturday (June 11) enjoying a great surf ‘n’ turf meal, followed by the charity auction and live band.

The baseball field at Minitonas School was busy on Monday evening (June 6) as the children and families of Minitonas Minor Ball kept the bats swinging and the balls flying. Children aged four to nine were welcome, split into two age-appropriate sessions.

The SVRSS can celebrate one more silver medallist among their student body, as Grade 12 student Ben Riehl finished in second place in Electronics (Secondary), during the 24th annual Skills Manitoba Competition, which took place for the secondary school competition virtually on April 12, with results posted late last month.
“I had to reverse engineer a circuit, provided to us,” said Riehl. “You get a kit provided from Skills and you had to place it in this thing called a breadboard. Then, you have to assemble a circuit with all the components. I did an LED volume metre.”
After signing up for the competition, Skills Manitoba sent out all materials, a project list and description as well as a workbook with electronics theory questions for students to complete.
Riehl learned many of the skills required of the requested tasks from the electrical program at the SVRSS as well as his own hobbies and self-guided learning.
“I was expecting at minimum a bronze medal, but I’m quite surprised and pleased that I got silver,” Riehl added.
While Riehl was the only reported representation from the SVRSS this year, recent SVRSS graduate Hailey Burghart received gold in the Electrical Installation (Post-Secondary) category, representing Assiniboine Community College.