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Centennial Arena in Swan River is facing some issues in keeping the ice surface cold.
The arena was built in 1968, what they are experiencing with the age is a loss of brine which is used to go through the lines under the cement floor and keep the floor cold enough to freeze the ice surface.
As long as they can keep the brine levels up and make ice they’re okay. If it gets worse and they can’t create ice, they will have to look into other facilities for their hockey teams to use.
They don’t have a solution to the problem yet. They want more professional help to look into the problem before they figure out a solution.
Swan River Mayor, Lance Jacobsen, hopes they can make it through the hockey season before they need to fix the problem.
They might have to wait until April or May to get the ice removed so they can do investigations to find out where things are going wrong.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Whitmore School received a 2 thousand dollar donation from the Dauphin Lions Club.
On Wednesday, the club gave the cheque in support of the schools’ fundraising efforts to build a new playground.
Principal Jensen says the school is so appreciative of the Lions Club for their donation. Saying "the Lions Club has been wonderful." They support the school with pancake breakfasts and "for them to even come forward with this is just great!"
She says the community support has been excellent. They still have a ways to go. As of now, they've raised $85,000 of their goal of $100,000 for a spring installation.
They have the goal of wanting to put something in the spring.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Three great bands are performing in Dauphin next week during the Big Band Dance Night.
Taylor Schmidt says you won’t want to miss The Albums. It’s the Brandon Community Jazz Band.
“The members that make up this ensemble is a little ridiculous. In that I’m going down the list of their players, and you have either university professors, or you have musicians that have their masters in jazz performance, or you have current teachers in the school system. The makeup of this band is just outstanding.”
He also says you won’t want to miss the local group Grace and the Wielers.
“It has been working hard in getting a big set together. It takes them a little more time to put a good 45 minute set together because they are students still, they are kids. They’ve been working really hard and enjoying getting their music together for the Big Band Dance, and I think they are going to sound great.”
You can hear The Albums, Grace and the Wielers and the Dauphin Community Jazz Band on Saturday the 26th at the Watson Art Centre.
Tickets for the event are 20 dollars and can be bought at the WAC, Dauphin Music, and by getting in contact with someone in the DRCSS Band Room.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Dauphin’s Countryfest is bringing Paul Brandt’s The Journey Tour to Dauphin, February 10th.
Rob Woloschuk, general manager for Countryfest, says it’s not very often that a large concert like this where four large bands come to Dauphin, especially when they sell out all over Canada.
These shows do well for the community because it keeps the buildings, hotels, and restaurants busy.
The Brandon show is sold out but the one at Credit Union Place still has tickets available.
They can be bought at www.countryfest.ca, go to the Countryfest office, or even call that office at 1-800-361-7300.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
A long period of very cold wind chills is expected to stick around for a few days.
Environment Canada has issued an extreme cold warning for the Parkland.
Bitterly cold wind chill values in the -40 to -45 range are expected tonight and tomorrow as frigid Arctic air cascades down from the north.
The cold weather is expected to stay through the weekend.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
A Swan River doctor has been censured and fined more than 97-hundred dollars for failing to properly care for a 62 year old woman in a personal care home.
Doctor Fayez Fouad Fahim Gouda was cited for failing to respond to what was an urgent medical situation, displaying a lack of judgment and failing to conduct himself in a professional manner.
He was on duty in the Emergency Department, which included on-call responsivities for the personal care home, in August of 2016.
The woman suffered from several chronic illnesses, with multiple sclerosis and diabetes being particularly significant.
She became ill with diarrhea for several days leading up to August 8th. Her care was generally being managed by her family physician.
The penalties brought down against Doctor Gouda come after an investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba.
The college says the doctor's actions were ``egregious'' when he failed to act on a request to have the chronically ill woman admitted to hospital when her condition began to slip.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
This morning, Vermillion Growers and Dauphin signed the agreement to build a new greenhouse.
Mayor Dowhan says this will create jobs and grow the population,
“It’s difficult in rural Manitoba, not only to grow your population but to sustain it. This is a great industry for Dauphin, it’ll bring people in, not only to Dauphin but the region.”
Mark Kohan, CFO for Vermillion Growers, is excited about this project,
“We’re providing growth in the community, a healthy product, and also a healthy environment. We’re very excited to get to use the latest technologies to begin the construction process and get our facility up and running.”
Maria Deschauer, managing director for Vermillion Growers, says the greenhouse will change the agricultural landscape of Manitoba because of how technologically advanced it is.
Deschauer adds, that this will help offset the number of imported tomatoes.
“Canadians import about 90% of the table tomatoes that we consume, so Vermillion Growers will be offsetting that directly, with production right here in Dauphin."
The next task for Vermillion Growers is permitting and then sometime in the spring, construction will begin with the goal of completion around October or November this year.
In the agreement, Vermillion Growers has agreed to pay the full cost of constructing, maintaining, repairing, and operating the greenhouse.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Failure is crucial to your success. That's the message Mick Lautt wants to get across to everyone in the Parkland.
Lautt spoke this morning at the Chamber of Commerce Breakfast series.
He doesn’t recommend people failing that often unless it’s in a controlled manner and you learn from it.
“We want people to, first of all, have the courage to take risks. But we want them to do it in a thoughtful way, in a controlled way. So the consequences of failing are not big, but the results of failing is that we’re learning. So as long as we’re continually learning and bringing in that knowledge to our next initiative, then failure is a good thing."
He says failure can be a stepping stone to your success.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Here's an exciting rescue story:
On Sunday the 13th at around 6:45 pm, RCMP were notified of an overdue pilot. A 71-year-old male from Ashern, had left that morning to fly his plane to a camp at Sisib Lake, which is south of Grand Rapids. The pilot never arrived at his destination.
RCMP contacted the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Trenton, Ontario, which then deployed a Hercules search plane to the area. In the early morning hours of January 14, searchers aboard the Hercules located a small fire on Pickerel Lake, west of Sisib Lake. At that time, Canadian Armed Forces Search and Rescue Technicians weren't able to parachute to the site due to poor weather conditions. It was then requested that the RCMP conduct a snowmobile patrol to investigate the fire and locate the pilot.
Grand Rapids RCMP, the Canadian Rangers, and Manitoba Sustainable Development deployed as requested and travelled approximately 45 kilometers by snowmobile to the fire. While en route, the weather cleared and two SAR Techs parachuted to Pickerel Lake just after 6:30 am. They located the pilot, who was in good spirits but suffering from dehydration. The SAR Techs provided medical treatment, and the pilot recovered on site. The pilot advised he landed safely on Pickerel Lake but when he tried to start his plane to leave he encountered mechanical issues which left him stranded.
The RCMP, Canadian Rangers, and Manitoba Sustainable Development arrived at the site at approximately 2:30 pm and assisted the SAR Techs. At approximately 4:30 pm, the SAR Techs and the pilot were picked up by helicopter.
Partnerships were integral to this rescue, and the RCMP thanks all involved for their fast response and invaluable assistance.
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- Contributed by Alec Woolston
At the beginning of January, Dauphin's e-waste bins were moved to Industrial Park. The decision to move the bins came because Industrial Park is where OSS is constructing their new building. You can dispose of old electronics, flourescent lightbulbs and paint into the bins.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Manitoba Sustainable Development is asking for public input on a draft regulation governing water drainage.
Jody Tucker, from the Turtle River Watershed Conservation District, warns wetlands are in trouble if there are no changes to the regulations.
Last June the provincial government passed the Sustainable Watersheds Act, establishing no net loss of wetland benefits and requiring compensation to restore the benefits lost through drainage activities.
According to Tucker, permanent wetlands were basically untouchable. Now that’s no longer the case. Landowners now have a few options like paying, purchasing, or protecting.
“The protect component would allow someone who already owns land that contains an existing wetland or wetlands, to permanently protect the existing wetland with a conservation agreement. And that would be at a ratio of 3:1. So you can protect three acres of existing wetland which would allow you to drain one acre of existing wetlands.” He continues, “So one acre plus three acres equals four acres of existing wetlands before protection. So you protect the three acres and drain the one. So 4-1=3, which means you are still out an acre of wetland that was there before. “
Across Manitoba, 70 percent of wetland habitats have been drained, damaged or destroyed because of agricultural and urban development. The province is losing wetlands at a rate of 5400 acres a year in southwestern Manitoba a year.
Another concern for Tucker is of compensation. “You can pay. In the plain language proposed regulations right now it’s not really entirely clear where the money will go to other than what they call an approved organization.”
The ratio is 2:1 with compensation costs of $6,000 per acre.
The Lake Winnipeg Foundation says there is to monitoring, auditing or evaluation processes included in the regulation to measure its ecological impacts.
“It took ten thousand years to get most of our wetlands to the state they’re in. In the proposed regulations one of the components allows the creation of new wetlands. It sounds good, but, newly created wetlands are actually a net contributor to greenhouse gasses for 80 to 100 years whereas a newly drained wetland is no longer a carbon sink; it becomes a carbon emitter.”
“I understand the need for good farmland. But at the same time, we need a healthy environment to live, and wetlands play a critical role in that. We talk about climate change resiliency and flood mitigation, biodiversity, to name a few. But what they’re proposing is pretty much just the opposite,” Tucker said.
The deadline to voice your concerns is this Saturday. You can email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can also go to the government's website at https://www.gov.mb.ca/sd/consultations/index.html.
Lake Winnipeg Foundation created a template you can copy and paste into an email. Yhe link to their site is found here.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
