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RCMP is still aggressively investigating the murder of Leah Anderson from Gods Lake Narrows.
It has been six years since Leah Anderson’s severely beaten body was found on a remote snowmobile and walking trail in the community.
Leah died on January 4th, 2013, her body was found 2 days later on the 6th.
She was murdered on her way to a community skating rink.
When Leah was found, she still had her skates with her. The skates and the bag they were in were positively identified as Leah’s by her sisters.
Leah’s clothing and swabs from her body were sent for analysis and came back with a male DNA profile.
More than 270 people were spoken to by police. On July 26, 2017, RCMP arrested a 23-year-old male from the community. The next day, he was released without charges but remains a suspect in this investigation.
The RCMP wants to bring the person responsible for her death to justice.
Police say they will continue working to find justice for Leah, her family, and her community.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Dauphin’s newest fast food restaurant is expected to open in March.
Eric Rochefort, Dairy Queen Franchise Developer, explains what stage the project is in.
“We’ve just begun our lease –holding improvements, so the interior basically. We have equipment scheduled to land in Dauphin at the end of the month, I believe it’s January 28th.”
DQ is looking to hire 50 to 60 people around town for both full and part-time positions.
“We’re going to begin our recruitment process as well, as we build out the store.”
The recruitment process is getting going in the next couple of weeks.
The project was initially expected to open late January or early February but it was delayed for a couple of reasons including weather.
“There were some delays at the beginning of the project from the landlord’s side, and even on our side, there were a few delays. The weather didn’t help, obviously,” Rochefort continued. “We’re probably going to open up with an unpaved parking lot at this point. But we feel that it’s the right thing to do here, to be able to serve our fans in Dauphin.”
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
The City of Dauphin is developing a plan to install rapid charging stations for electric cars.
Steven Sobering says the plan is to have stalls installed by this summer.
“I’m working on the direct current fast chargers, as part of the city’s commitment to sustainability. The city is interested in growing the economy around sustainability and active living, and currently when we look at the greenhouse gas emissions in the province of Manitoba 30 percent of that is from the transportation sector.”
Sobering says their plan will offer stations that would allow charging a vehicle from an empty battery to full in around an hour.
Mayor Dowhan says having these stalls will help with the city’s goal of developing tourism.
“We talk about tourism all the time, but we need to have the infrastructure and the necessary sites and that for people to come. Provincial tourism is what’s happening in the industry right now, and we have a lot of it here.”
The idea is to have the largest rapid charge network in Manitoba that goes from Dauphin to Winnipeg and connect the communities in between.
“Especially with the 2020 Summer Games and the world-class mountain bike trail that we’re building we need this type of devices in our community to attract people. And also along the way, like Neepawa, Portage, etcetera. So they can see Manitoba easily, and there’s not a drawback for people to access our communities,” Dowhan said.
The project is in the research stage, and Steve is pursuing different partners like the province, Manitoba Hydro, and other forward-thinking municipalities to help build a network.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
There has been a group of Manitoba parents advocating for seatbelts on school buses.
This group advocating seatbelts on school buses is nothing new to Bart Michaleski.
In recent memory, there have been accidents bringing significant attention to school buses.
Despite school buses still being fairly safe, there are concerns.
A major concern of Michalski's is if the driver is incapacitated it could be very difficult for the students to get out of the bus.
A major pro to putting seatbelts in school buses is they could be safer when there is a collision with the bus from the side or if there is a rollover.
School bus seats are designed for capacity, so two older kids or 3 small kids can sit on a seat together.
That makes it difficult for school buses to structure where seatbelts can go.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Spending by Indigenous people, businesses and governments in Manitoba totalled more than nine billion dollars in 2016.
The data was compiled in a report from organizations representing chiefs in the north and south that looked at the impact of the Indigenous economy and of urban reserves across the province.
The report says the Indigenous economy also contributed more than two-billion dollars, or almost four percent, to Manitoba's gross domestic product.
M-K-O Grand Chief Garrison Settee says the report validates Indigenous people as important contributors to the province.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Get a head start on your camping plans this upcoming Monday.
Campground reservations are opening in Riding Mountain National Park.
Richard Dupuis says RMNP should be chosen over other campground sites because the park is a special place where you can enjoy nature at its best.
Reservations are available this early in the year because people like to plan their summers ahead of time.
Dupuis encourages all visitors to plan and reserve a campground ahead of time for the best experience.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
MacKenzie Middle School has experienced a flood due to a ruptured heating line.
The heating line ruptured early in the morning on Christmas Eve.
A lot of hot water spewed out of the rupture and did quite a lot of damage in that second-floor classroom. The water made its way down into two classrooms on the main level.
One class was affected very minimally and is in use already, another will hopefully be ready next week and the second-floor classroom will be ready in 1 or 2 weeks. One class has had to temporarily move to a spare classroom while another class is currently in the library.
There is no damage estimate at this time.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
You can now access the Dauphin walk-in clinic on Sundays!
Clinic Manager Benjamin, explains why they decided to operate the clinic seven days a week.
“We work closely with the hospital, and we notice an increase in the number of patients treated at the emergency at the hospital, and we thought it would be a good service for the community to have the walk-in an extra day.”
The clinic is open from 12 to 2 in the afternoon.
“We only started advertising last week, and in the period of Sunday we already had over 20 coming to the clinic, without really knowing. So we really think that it’s going to relieve the ER and be able to treat patients that are non-emergent at the walk-in.”
Opening on Sundays has been in the works for a few months and it did take some time to organize the 30 doctors, but now everything is up and running.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
The average price for a gram of legal recreational marijuana costs almost twice as much as the same amount from an illegal supplier.
Statistics Canada says between October 17th, legalization day, and December 31st, a gram of pot purchased through legal channels sold for nine-dollars and 70 cents on average, while black market cannabis sold for about six-dollars and 51 cents.
The agency also notes the average amount of non-medical cannabis purchased from an illegal supplier was more than double the quantity bought from government-run stores or websites, averaging at about 17.2 grams from illegal suppliers, compared with 8.3 grams from legal outlets.
Those who responded to StatsCannabis said they purchased an average of 4.7 grams when buying at a retail outlet and an average of 9.1 grams when purchasing via mail delivery.
For the Stats Canada report, click here.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Learn to swing dance before you head out to the Big Band Dance Night later this month.
A free dance class is taking place this Friday at the Watson Art Centre running from 7 to 9 in the evening.
Taylor Schmidt says this class can help you get ready to dance to the music performed by groups like the Dauphin Community Jazz Band.
“We’re going to use some of the music that some of the bands are going to be playing so that when you’re at the dance, you might hear that song come on and be like ‘hey that was the one!’ We kind of wanted to get people a couple weeks to practice. If a couple comes out and they’re working together, and maybe they know the names of the tunes, we can offer that too, they can just put on YouTube and do a little bit of practicing before they come out.”
All you need to get into the class at the Watson Art Centre, on Friday, is a ticket to the Big Band Dance Night.
This year the dance has music performed by the Dauphin Community Jazz Band, the Brandon Community Jazz Band, and Grace and the Wielers.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
High-quality bike trails for the 2020 Manitoba Summer Games are mostly completed.
Currently, all the bush has been cleared for the trails, as well as an extra 2km of trails to have the possibility of hosting provincial and national events.
Sustainable Trails is a company that is well known for creating competitive trails in Canada.
As soon as the frost is out of the ground, that company will be finalizing the trails by building the berms and rollers and everything else needed for the trails.
The competitive trails are built to the east of the Dauphin Countryfest amphitheatre, between the upper and lower campground.
Clayton Swanton is really excited about the Co-op Central Trailhead facility. It’s the central hub.
There will be 3.5 km of family trails that start there as well. Overall, 6 km of trails have been cleared.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
