All lakes in Manitoba are at risk for Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) such as zebra mussels. Sadly, some lakes in the province are already plagued with AIS, which cannot be reversed.

In an effort to ensure Riding Mountain National Park (RMNP) remains free of zebra mussels, a new program has been implemented.

Read this week’s paper for the rest of the story.

Board game enthusiasts have a new challenge coming to the community. Warhammer 40k is in the works to take place in The Pas this summer. Warhammer is a tabletop war game originally created in 1983 and has been deemed the most popular miniature war game in the world.
Several editions have been released since the game’s conception, but the overall concept has remained the same.
“Warhammer 40k can be played a few ways, from casual, competitive and anywhere in between,” said Warhmmer 40k Organizer Garret Olson. “The game itself ranges from around one to three hours, depending on the size of armies being played.

The art of snowshoeing is alive in well in northern Manitoba thanks to Indigenous snowshoe maker and racer Diane Buck. As a child, Buck can recall snowshoes being a staple for people in the community and she remembers participating in snowshoe races as a kid.
“At a very early age I was a competitor in snowshoe racing at the Trapper’s Festivals and in Moose Lake, which led me to love snowshoeing,” said Buck. “I did a lot of racing in various communities after that.
“Moose Lake was actually a snowshoe town, where everyone had their own snowshoes and did a lot of it in the winter months. My dad was also a snowshoe maker and he made a couple year, but not as many as I do now. He taught me how to make the traditional style snowshoe.

The Pas Arts Council recently recognized the efforts of one of its long-standing dedicated volunteers. Jan McDonald has served as a volunteer with The Pas Arts Council for 37 years. It started out as a position with the organization, but then she decided to stay on as a volunteer.
“I had been attending The Pas Arts Council events for years and when a job posting came up for an Arts Council Coordinator I applied and got the job,” said McDonald. “I worked in the position for two years and then I decided I would stay on as the volunteer treasurer.
“I have been the volunteer treasurer since 1987 and the chair of the touring committee. Other positions I have held have been the chair of the Northern Juried Art Show (NJAS), the chair of the Northern Arts Committee, the Northern rep on the Manitoba Arts Network, and chair of the Cultural Days Committee.”

This past weekend there were lots of red dress and MMIWG2S+ events in the tri-community to raise awareness, and to show support and love for those who have experienced this injustice. The Pas Family Resource Centre organized a Red Dress Round Dance last Friday at the intersection of Edwards and 2nd Street, to show support for National Red Dress Day.
“We had such a huge turnout and it exceed our expectations, and what we had hoped for even,” said The Pas Family Resource Centre’s Renee Kastrukoff. “There were over 150 people in attendance for the Red Dress Round Dance and lunch. It was absolutely fantastic and beautiful to see so many community and family members come to honour their MMIWG2S loved ones. Even if people didn’t have a MMIWG2S+ individual they were directly connected to, lots still came out to show their support.

With the recent stretch of warm weather, farmers across the Valley were able to get into their fields and get the 2023 farming season underway.

The Dauphin Clippers rugby teams are off to dominating starts in the Westman High School Rugby.

The Clippers girls started the season with a 55-0 win over the Swan Valley Tigers, May 2, before hammering the Vincent Massey Vikings, 77-0, last Thursday.

Felicity Sahulka led the Clippers with two tries against Swan Valley, while Tanya Devos, Brooke Miner, Emma Fox, Chloe Fletcher, Bree Walker, Rhoda Evans and Ruth Evan added singles. Miner added five converts.

On Thursday against the Vikings, Fox, Fletcher, Victoria Carter, Jana Manzano each had two tries, with Allee Hrechka, Miner, Mai Maguet, Evans and Saje Marohn adding singles. Miner also chipped in with six converts.

“You can see they’ve been putting the work in at practice,” said Clippers coach Shawn Sarkonak. “And especially the ones that had the opportunity to travel to Ireland. You can really tell that experienced paid off and we’re rolling in the season right now.”

As well as the girls played, there are areas of the game Sarkonak would like to see improved upon.

“You want to improve every game and every practice. Our key themes that we’re really focusing on is playing an expansive game, going sideline to sideline, playing with flow. Which means moving the ball and not getting tunnell vision and playing as individuals,” he said. “I’ve been preaching to the girls all year that the higher level coaches, they don’t really key in and focus on who is scoring the tries or kicking the converts. They’re looking at what led to the try being scored. The commitment of the defender, drawing and passing, skipping a pass or essentially, just creating space and putting the ball in the space.”

The girls were in Brandon, Monday for a game against Crocus Plains, followed by a date with the Rivers Rams on Thursday.

Sarkonak hopes to see the girls continue their momentum.

“I’ve been talking to the coaches around the league and keeping an eye on the standings and we’re looking forward to this,” he said, adding Crocus Plains won their first game over Souris, while Rivers will be Dauphin’s toughest test as the league champion for the last few years. “We’ve had that one circled all year and we’re really looking forward to it,” he said.

While dominating wins are great, Sarkonak also pointed out they can lead to bad habits forming.

“Or individuals wanting to pad the stats a little bit. The coaching staff is staying on them just to keep the team-game mindset and just to move the ball and work together and good things will happen,” he said.

The Clippers boys also swept their two games, beating the Crocus Plains Plainsmen, 47-5, on Tuesday and Vincent Massey, 42-5, on Thursday.

Guzman Garcia had two tries to lead the Clippers against the Plainsmen. Scott Gower, Lars Gudbjartson, William Miner, Landyn Garton and Louis Prevot added singles and Prevot also recorded six tries.

Against the Vikings, Miner had two tries, while singles were added by Garcia, Joseph Lopez, Julien Lopez and Alex Thompson. Garcia added three converts and Prevot had one.

Clippers coach Aaron Miner said the Clippers are already in midseason stride after they started practicing in early January.

“We’re where we expected to be,” he said.

Miner has seen an improvement in the play of those players who were part of the trip to Ireland. Those who weren’t, he added, are working hard to catch up.

“They’re putting in a lot of extra time and effort at the gym and running at the track. It’s just been amazing to see them catch to the 15 that did go to Ireland,” Miner said.

The team’s experience, Miner said, was a key to the two victories to open the season.

“We’re playing against some strong teams that have great athletes, as well. But with our two exchange students having ample experience, it just put us over the edge,” he said. “They’re doing things that other teams don’t expect Canadian teams to be able to do at this age.”
The ability shown by those students - Prevot and Garcia - is showing other teams how good they can be if they work hard enough.

Most of the Clippers players were in Brandon for a U17 rugby camp, with coaches from Team Canada and Team Manitoba, featuring three days of practices.

“Those players got an extreme amount of practice and good coaching. Those that are in Grade 12 know we haven’t had a lot of chances to practice. We are playing so frequently now, that we’re not getting a chance to get some practice time in,” Miner said.

The Clippers boys joined the girls team in Brandon for a rematch with the Plainsmen on Monday.

In the midst of National Nursing Week, the health care professionals working locally have an extra reason to celebrate.

The RBC Foundation has supported continuing education for local nurses through a $10,000 donation to the Delha Cort Fund held by the Dauphin Hospital Foundation.

The fund, started by an endowment from Cort, a long-time nurse at the Dauphin hospital, encourages staff to pursue continuing education.

Priority is given to facility-related education, which can enhance an employee’s current job performance or personal development toward advancement in their health care careers.

“RBC recognizes the impact that nurses have in our health care system is unparalleled. Dedicated, committed, and always answering the call no matter the sacrifice, they are our caregivers and comforters during our deepest times of need,” said Kim Ulmer, RBC regional president for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nunavut and Western Ontario.

“We aim to give back to nurses through a donation supporting their continuing education and professional development, to refresh their skills and open more opportunities for their career options and advancement.”

The show of support comes at a critical time. Recent Statistics Canada data shows Canadian frontline healthcare workers are feeling strained and overloaded.

Last July, Statistics Canada reported 23,620 vacant nursing positions in the first quarter of 2022 - up 219 per cent from 2019 - and an all-time high of 136,800 job vacancies within the health sector throughout the first quarter of 2022.

Recent data released by Mental Health Research Canada also shows that health care workers, and nurses in particular, were profoundly impacted by the pandemic.

“Recruitment and retention of health care professionals is front and centre in Manitoba and Canada right now,” said Greg Thompson, Dauphin Hospital Foundation chairman.

“We continue to provide various levels of training support for nurses to offer even better patient care and we sincerely appreciate RBC Foundation’s contribution to our foundation, which allows us to offer even more educational opportunities.”

Held in honour of nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, National Nursing Week is designed to increase the awareness of the many contributions nursing makes to the wellbeing of Canadians.

National Nursing Week runs from May 8 to 14.

Rural health care was front and center as the Manitoba NDP unveiled its plan to repair any problems should the party form government in this fall’s general election.

NDP leader Wab Kinew unveiled the five-point plan at a news conference in Virden, last week, saying the platform, “delivers better health care and a brighter future to rural Manitoba.”

“The biggest challenge facing rural communities right now is health care,” Kinew said. “Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson eroded rural health care for seven years, leaving rural families cut off from care and rural communities struggling to build a future. Our team is ready to fix that with common sense solutions that will deliver better health care and a brighter future for rural families and communities.”

The NDP plan would double the rural doctor recruitment fund Brian Pallister cut and bring more doctors, nurses and health care workers to rural communities, Kinew added, by addressing the closures of rural ERs and health care centres, health care staffing shortages, and dangerous wait times for emergency care.

More doctors in rural communities

The NDP plans to reinstate the rural physician recruitment fund cut by the Conservative government and then double it. More doctors in rural Manitoba will keep families healthier with better primary and emergency care, Kinew said. Restoring this fund will help recruit more doctors in rural areas, while taking the pressure off smaller communities that have been forced to fundraise for their health care, he added.

“We need to relook at the finances of the department and I think Shared Health was another layer of bureaucracy that was brought in and so let’s revisit that opportunity,” said Ron Kostyshyn, who is running for the NDP in the Dauphin constituency and attended last week’s announcement. “That’s not saying that Shared Health doesn’t have a spot, but according to my sources or what I’ve read in the paper $85 million has been allocated to Shared Health and I think we can definitely trim off some of the financial dollars and put it towards doctor recruitment.”

Shorter wait times for ambulances and better cell service

Kinew said the NDP will fill the paramedic staffing vacancies that grew under the current government by giving rural paramedics a new contract, paying them the same as Winnipeg paramedics and allowing Advanced Care Paramedics to work to their full scope of practice. Work will also be undertaken to improve cell service in rural communities so emergency calls do not get dropped.

More staff to keep rural health centres open

The NDP plans to keep ERs open by recruiting and retaining more diagnostic imaging and lab technologists by giving them a competitive deal, Kinew said, along with offering incentives to allied health professionals, nurses and nurse practitioners to work in rural communities.

“We’ve gone through some pretty big challenges, not only in Manitoba, but across Canada. But let’s move forward because with the status quo we’re moving backwards instead of forward. So what do you need? You need your doctors, you need your nurses, you need your paramedics, you need your medical experts to get this done,” Kostyshyn said.

Health technology to connect families with the best specialists

The NDP plan calls for equipping rural health care centres with technology to reduce patient transfers and connect rural families with the best specialists in the province. Kinew said the party will improve rural broadband to support this.

The care seniors need to stay healthy at home

The NDP plans to reimburse homecare workers properly for their mileage to help seniors age in place. The party will build more personal care home beds to keep seniors in their home communities and increase access to primary care in rural communities to keep seniors healthy.

The Manitoba NDP’s rural health care commitments are one part of their comprehensive plan to fix health care across the province, the local candidate said.

“We’ve all witnessed what’s transpired in the last number of years and I think the rural health care probably is the biggest sufferer in our health care system. And when we think about smaller communities such as the Grandview Hospital and the Roblin hospital and the Dauphin hospital, they all experienced some challenges,” Kostyshyn said. “So I think we need a serious, I guess, retake of what’s happened in our health care in the last number of years and I think Wab and our party have the right ideas.”

Kostyshyn added problems in the health care system are not going to be solved in the short term, but the time to start a rebuild is now.

“Definitely we need to have a revisit because we can’t continue on the path we’re on right now,” he said.

Colleen Talbot, Martijn van Luijn and Lana Davidson put some smiles on cookies baked at the local Tim Horton’s as the annual Smile Cookie campaign took place last week.

At last report, Dauphin was the number one seller of the special delicacies across Canada.

Proceeds of the campaign will go to the Parkland Crisis Centre and Women’s Shelter.