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Prairie Mountain Health says the Dauphin Regional health Cenre, and its emergency department will remain closed for an extended period of time, as they continue to assess the damage caused by last week's flood.
They have already identified excessive damage to critical infrastructure, especially in the basement of the facility.
Insurance assessors and restoration teams are working as quickly as possible to complete a thorough damage assessments.
Once necessary repairs and remediation is completed, they say planning is underway to reestablish the emergency department and diagnostic services as a priority.
In the meantime, the Ste Rose Hospital emergency department is open 24/7, while the Grandview emergency department is also open seven days a week.
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The Province of Manitoba, in partnership with Duracan and several municipalities, is offering subsidized well water testing for flood affected residents in the Parkland.
Dianne Guinto, Microbiology Manager for Duracan, said they have plenty of experience, not just with water, but lots of different kinds of testing, which makes them the perfect partner.
"We are an accredited lab, we specialize in an array of analysis for environmental samples, that includes soil, air, water obviously, as well as construction materials that could have asbestos in them..we offer private well subsidies that we have from the government, so we have been coordinating with different municipalities and districts on how they want to collect the drop off, as well as pick ups, and then submitting it to us for testing," said Guinto.
Water sampling bottles for the program are available for pickup at Manitoba Office of Drinking Water regional offices, including Dauphin and Minnedosa, as well as several rural municipality and watershed district offices, including Roblin, McCreary, Swan Valley West, and Inter-Mountain Watershed District, to name just a few.
The testing process itself is fairly simple. The incubation period is around a day, and once the lab has results from your water sample, they'll give you a call if there's anything to be concerned about. Guinto said because of the flooding, there are definitely higher-than-normal levels of contaminants in the samples they receive. Even if you can't tell if your well water is contaminated, the only way to be sure is getting it tested.
"Because of the flooding, we are seeing high presence of coliforms and E. coli in those well waters, that makes water unsafe for drinking...your water can have no indicators that is it contaminated, it can look, smell, or taste normal, but only testing can confirm that there's no disease-causing bacteria in your water, and it is safe to drink," said Guinto.
With the scale of the program, partnerships with municipalities and watershed districts are necessary to make sure it goes smoothly. The Swan Lake Watershed District is one of many watershed districts involved. Bill Gade, RM of Swan Valley West Reeve, said because of the number of residents using private well water systems, he strongly recommends that residents get their water tested, especially considering they were hit very hard by flooding.
"We have some areas in the municipality where the water has a little too much arsenic in it, you can't really use a well there, some areas don't have a lot of well water. There's about a half of the municipality that has good well water and can use it, so we have roughly half our residents are using well water," said Gade.
Within the RM of Dauphin, the RM's water system covers a good number of residents, but there are still a good number of well water users. Ernie Sirski, RM of Dauphin Reeve, said even if your well's immediate area wasn't flooded, it could still be contaminated because of seepage.
"The reality is if you're in a well water situation right now, the issue of overland flooding could have happened. Even just seepage, if you haven't had overland flooding, seepage into the well from water that's 50, 60, 100 feet away could affect the quality, so I would encourage everybody to get it tested," said Sirski.
For more information about where you can pick up well water testing kits, or details about how your local municipality or watershed district is handling samples, call their office.
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- Contributed by Ian Gillingham
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- Contributed by Jeff Henson
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Before the flooding, not a lot of Parkland residents had heard of Team Rubicon before. Premier Wab Kinew menitoned he'd put in a request for them to help with flood mitigation and recovery efforts.
Mischa Kaplan, Team Rubicon CEO, has the basics: whenever their volunteers are in an area following a disaster, they'll do what they can to help, and they're no strangers to situations like this.
"We are a veteran-led humanitarian response charity. We mobilize military veterans, former first responders, as well as skilled civilians, and we send them to disaster zones to undertake humanitarian response work...we are a registered charity, we've been around for about 10 years now, this is our 10 year anniversary actually, and we have almost 5,000 volunteers which we call greyshirts, we have almost 5,000 greyshirts across the country now," said Kaplan.
A few recent disaters and recovery efforts they were involved in include flood preparation in Peguis First Nation earlier this year, and severe wildfires in the Conception Bay area of Newfoundland in 2025. Their work dates as far back at 2016, when they helped with recovery efforts for the Fort McMurray wildfires.
Right now, Team Rubicon has greyshirts on the ground in the Parkland, albeit in small numbers for now - they're running reconnaissance teams to collect damage evaluations, which will help the organization find where their resources are most needed in the coming weeks.
"They are in the process of conduction reconnaissance missions, so trying to understand actually what the needs are. The first thing we do when we get to a disaster zone is we try to understand what are the unmet needs. When we've understood that, the second question we ask is, what can we do as an organization to fill those needs...right now, we are patrolling the area trying to figure out exactly how extensive the damage is, where the damage is, and what that damage looks like in terms of what we can offer. So we have 4 different reconnaissance teams working right now, again their main job is to gather information on what the damage is, and try to figure out where we can fit in," said Kaplan.
With the scale of the disaster response in the Parkland, Team Rubicon will be working with various other groups and organizations to ensure things go smoothly. One of Team Rubicon's big selling points is a large number of their volunteers are Canadian Armed Forces veterans, or former first responders. Kaplan said the skills those people have make them perfect for working in disaster zones.
"The reconnaissance phase often does involve a lot of liaison with other agencies, this is going to be a fairly complex recovery effort, it involved the province, it involved the federal government, it involves a bunch of the municipalities, so part of the job of that reconnaissance team is to identify who are all the key players, and how can we work to assist those players...people that come from military backgrounds or first responder backgrounds have a very unique ability to operate in austere environments, operate under a great deal of pressure, to emphasize operational execution despite all the many challenges that you face, and all the sort of issues that can arise in a disaster setting, as you can imagine it's a very fluid setting," said Kaplan.
Kaplan said he expects the reconnaissance teams to complete their work in the next few days, helping Team Rubicon determine where their resources are best used, and what kind of resources, like heavy equipment or chainsaw teams, are best utilized.
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- Contributed by Ian Gillingham
The Manitoba RCMP is urging you to be extra cautious when operating all-terrain vehicles, utility-terrain-vehicles, and all off-road vehicles.
There were eight off-road vehicle fatalities in 2025. That's up from five in 2024 and three in 2023. There have been multiple deaths reported in 2026, and the majority of cases involved a rollover.
As of May this year, Manitoba Public Insurance said there were 93,913 registered off-road vehicles of various types in the province. Just less than 36,000 are ATVs. In 2025, the RCMP issued 275 tickets for violations under the Off-Road Vehicles Act.
Staff Sgt. Matt Lavallee is with the Prairie Mountain RCMP.
"Last year, we did make an increased presence in the recreational areas. Often, we partner with Manitoba Sustainable Resource Officers. They have the same enforcement powers as we do," said Lavallee. "The combination of teamwork is continuing to grow, as is our presence in these areas, which brings us in contact with more and more people on the trails."
In a UTV that has a roll cage, you must wear your seatbelt, but a helmet isn't required. Lavallee recommends using both.
On all other off-road vehicles, helmets are mandatory.
"Just like seatbelts in motor vehicles," added Lavallee. "And that's for a reason. They have saved lives again and again. Motorcycles, snowmobiles, ATVs, UTVs, they save lives."
As the weather heats up, Matt encourages you to have fun on the trails. And while you do so, do so sober.
According to a recent report by CAA Manitoba, more Manitobans are getting behind the wheel impaired. Whether it be alcohol, cannabis, or any other drug, the need to travel sober is critical.
"The consequences for driving an off-road vehicle impaired are the same as they would be for driving your car impaired," ended Lavallee. "Off-road vehicles are not limited to ATVs. They include UTVs and snowmobiles."
In a day when off-road vehicles have more power than ever before, never let your children drive them unsupervised. It's also illegal for someone under the age of 16 to drive an off-road vehicle unsupervised.
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The Dauphin & District Community Food Bank needs more help than ever before, and Dauphin businesses and farmers are stepping up in a big way.
Don Dewar is a Dauphin farmer, and former Food Bank board member. In an area where farming is an important way of life, what's the best way to help those in need? By doing exactly that: the Food Bank has been donated a plot of land by the City of Dauphin, and all the inputs necessary by several businesses.
Intermountain Ag Society is donating seed, seed treatment, and chemicals for the field; Dauphin Co-op is donating fuel and fertilizer; Betty and Al Dunsmore are covering the cost of signage; Cargill Grain will accept delivery and purchase the crop following harvest; the City of Dauphin has donated the field, covering the cost of crop insurance, and waiving the land lease fee for the summer. Dewar Seed Farms is providing the equipment and labour. Dewar said he couldn't have picked a better group of people to work with on the project.
"We've been fortunate enough to get all the unputs supplied by different suppliers to grow a crop...getting everybody together, I'm fortunate to know these suppliers, and we work with the suppliers on different levels, and when I asked them to support the food bank, they were more than willing to help," said Dewar.
With first-hand food bank experience, formerly serving as a member of the board, Dewar said it's not hard to see their needs are higher than ever right now. With all the work they do, all the people that make use of the food bank, and the rising cost of groceries, this project will be very helpful.
"The food bank's always had a soft spot with myself, I was on the board for years, actually I was treasurer, and I realized the problems they have trying to meet the need, we all know the price of groceries is going up...the food bank supplies all the food for the Christmas hampers that they're giving out at Christmas time, as well as all they food they give out during the year, so it's a small part of their overall budget I think, but it will be needed, and it will definitely be used," said Dewar.
If all goes well, the Food Bank expects these donations to lead between $25,000 and $35,000 in revenue for the Food Bank to put back into their programs.
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- Contributed by Ian Gillingham
Charges have been laid after a 25-year-old from Winnipeg was shot in the abdomen on the Ebb and Flow First Nation.
On Friday at 8:05 p.m., Ste. Rose RCMP responded to shots fired as the man was riding his bike in the community. He was located near a local business and was ultimately taken by air ambulance to the hospital in Winnipeg for further treatment. He is in stable condition.
Joshua Houle was arrested at a home on Central Road in the community.
The 23-year-old faces several charges, including aggravated assault and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
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Fundraising efforts for the Dauphin Rail Turntable exhibit are briefly being put on hold by the Dauphin Rail Museum.
In making the announcement, they say they understand that allowing the community to focus on the ongoing clean up and rebuild following recent flooding in the area should be the primary focus at this time.
They add the decision came after discussions with both Museum Board Members and several donors to the project
The rail museum stresses that this pause in fundraising is only temporary, adding the original timeline has not been pushed back because of recent events.
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The Federal Government has approved the deployment of emergency support to areas of the Parkland, most notably the Swan Valley.
That support includes members of the Canadian Armed Forces assisting with flood recovery and rebuilding efforts.
Riding Mountain M-P Dan Mazier requested the assistance through a letter to the federal minister of Emergency Management last week.
While he is happy to see the request approved, he adds he will be keeping a close eye on the work they end up doing.
"I think the more important thing is what they find in the next steps. It is one thing to identify what is damaged, but there is another whole set of exercises, such as getting things dried out, to get all of that stuff out, and then how do you start rebuilding."
Mazier is particularly astonished by the amount of infrastructure damage done in the Swan Valley by the flooding.
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- Contributed by Jeff Henson
Mother Nature has claimed another popular summer festival in the Parkland.
First, it was Mossey River Days in Winnipegosis last weekend.
Now, the Swan Valley Ag Society announced on Monday that this year's Northwest Round Up & Exhibition in Swan RIver was being cancelled due to the massive flooding in that community.
Ag Society president Lesley Sembaluk says it was a very difficult decision for their board to make, adding they took several factors into consideration.
"The local infrastructure, the roads, the exhaustion that people are facing - some people are going through their second flood now. People that had started repairing their homes after the first flood are now having to do it all over again. We also looked at the resources, particularly the resources that we use for the rodeo."
Typically, preparations of the rodeo grounds begin in late June, but Sembaluk says they have not been able to even get onto the grounds because of the flooding.
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