Whether or not we in a prairie province need to be concerned about a sailor’s warning of an early morning red sky, a painted sky first thing in the morning is a welcome sight as we settle into 2026.

Mackenzie Collette was born in Curacao, Netherland Antilles and now lives in Toronto, Canada. She graduated the University of Manitoba from the Asper School of Business and is a certified PADI diver and avid sportsperson.
In 2014 she was accepted as a Student Member of The Explorers Club and reclassified after graduation to Member. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
For years, Mackenzie - who is a graduate of Major Pratt and is the daughter of Linda Witty and granddaughter of Ron and Darlene Witty has explored North America, alongside her father David Collette. Now the Canadian family along with Johann Sigurdson also a fellow in world famous Explorers Club and The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, are re-writing North American Viking history in a new series which debuted on the Super Channel Quest January 4th.
Quest for the Lost Vikings, a new eight episode documentary travel series about modern day explorers on a mission to discover the truth about their Viking heritage. The series debuted with the first two episodes shown back-to-back on Super Channel Quest on January 4th.

Read more in this week's Russell Banner on page 2.

There are some people who just aren’t phased by anything. And because of their adventurous spirit and attitude, quite often they’re the kind of folks who manage to be good at everything they put their minds too.
Hailee Durocher is one of those people.
Since Hailee’s arrival in this area, she’s taken on the Beef and Barley Buckin’ Charity Rodeo a couple of times. Or if you live anywhere near the south eastern part of the RM of Riding Mountain West, you’ll likely know her as the much-loved grader operator in your part of the world.
Hailee recalls driving through Russell with her dad on his semi delivery trips.
“Growing up in Winnipeg, I’ve always loved seeing small towns which are so filled with history,” Hailee said.
As fate would have it, she met Angusville’s Garrett Rubeniuk who is now her fiancé and ended up here, planning their life adventures together.
Part of that new path started with a small flower farm while she settled into life at her fiancé’s family farm in Angusville.
“So, what began as a small project quickly turned into a big love for flowers and that passion has grown into what is now ‘Stella’s Florals’,” Durocher explained.
At that point, things just started to fall into place.

Get the whole front page story in this week's Russell Banner.

Saturday was Hockey Day in Roblin with the community’s minor hockey teams, with the exception of the U13 Stars who were playing out of town, all seeing action.
The first game, between the U9 Stars (Poyser) and GrandPlains McDonald, got underway at 9 a.m. following a ceremonial puck drop honouring Jean Addis.
Have a look at photos of the celebration in this week’s paper.

As the calendar turns to 2026, Dauphin mayor David Bosiak is looking ahead to the coming year with optimism, while reflecting on 2025 with satisfaction.

“I think we had a pretty good year. We had some challenges and some opportunities in the public works department,” he said, citing the resignation of Public Works and Operations director Mike VanAlstyne and the retirements of Public Works foreman Terry Genik and Utilities foreman Jeff Weselowski.

“Which gives us tremendous opportunity to bring in some new blood, young people, but also you lose almost 100 years of experience. It has an impact on the organization.”

Despite the changes, Bosiak is pleased with the connection between City hall and the public works shop, saying morale is good on both sides.

The changes in leadership have also provided an opportunity for restructuring in an effort to find efficiencies, he added.

“We’re looking at restructuring a little bit, so we can have our Public Works manager looking after the multi-million dollar projects, but not losing oversight on smaller projects because they are too busy doing the big stuff and there’s no one else to help,” Bosiak said, adding the creation of a project manager position late in the year is paying dividends in that regard.

“Justin Tokarchuk has become our new project manager and that’s worked out,  I think, really well so far in the sense that he’s latched on to all those smaller projects.”

In the past, there has been some frustration among councillors when some of the smaller projects fell by the wayside, he added.

“We often had a surplus at the end of the year, but it was not because we did great stuff. It was because we didn’t do a couple of little things that we wanted to do,” Bosiak said.

Read the full story in this week’s Dauphin Herald.

WEEK 1 | JANUARY 7 - The New Year has arrived, with the early days of 2025 welcoming the Swan River Valley with one of winter’s cold snaps. Temperatures reached their coldest this year on Jan. 4 with a reported -38.7C low. Forecasts indicate temperatures to return to single digits this week.

The sun sets on the Swan Valley – pictured here on the edge of the Saskatchewan border – just as the year sets on 2025, promising a new and hopefully better day in 2026.

It’s been said that you cannot know where you are going without understanding where you have been.

So with a new year looming we took the opportunity to look back at some of the news, good and bad, that made headlines in the Parkland in 2025.

January

• The early part of winter saw Dauphin Public Works’ focus set squarely on snow removal.

Several citywide cleanups took place in January and the work performed by the crews was been exemplary, said Public Works and Operations director Mike VanAlstyne.

“The way our crews operate and the efficiency and the ability to clean up time and time again after these major storm events is remarkable,” he said.

“Within 72 hours we’re pretty well back to normal. I don’t think many communities could say the same, especially communities of our size.”

With the work on Main Street South completed, there was additional work to do, however, a new services agreement with the province provided compensation for the extra work.

February

• As the health region spending the most, Prairie Mountain Health was directed to reduce private agency nursing costs by 15 per cent by the end of the fiscal year.

March

• Justice Minister Matt Wiebe was joined by local MLA Ron Kostyshyn in the City to meet stakeholders regarding the Dauphin Community Justice Centre project. Both mayor David Bosiak and reeve Ernie Sirski left the meeting pleased to see the project moving forward.

April

• The Rural Municipality of Dauphin presented its financial plan.

In a press release, council stated it put together a budget it felt ensured quality service to its citizens through a modest increase of two per cent to the municipal requirements.

For the full story, read this week’s edition of the Dauphin Herald.

Manitoba Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures is advising of five new cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD), including cases in two areas with no prior positive detections: the Rural Municipalities of Swan Valley West and Victoria, in Game Hunting Areas (GHA) 13A and 30.
Additionally, three new CWD cases have been confirmed in southern Manitoba. These cases were found in areas with CWD had previously been detected: one in the Parkland region near the community of Dropmore, and two near Coulter in the Municipality of Two Borders.
The province thanks hunters for their participation in efforts to manage CWD and encourages them to submit samples for testing. CWD is not known to pose a human health risk, but meat from a CWD-infected or untested animal is not recommended for consumption. Hunters active in areas where CWD cases have been confirmed should have harvested animals tested and practise safe carcass-handling protocols.
To help reduce the risk of spreading CWD, hunters are reminded to properly dispose of carcasses and related waste. Do not transport high-risk parts (such as the brain, eyes and spine) outside the area where the animal was harvested. Where possible, leave carcass waste at the kill location or use approved local disposal options to prevent potentially infected material from being moved to new areas.
The province encourages hunters to stay vigilant in their efforts to prevent the spread of CWD and to refer to the new CWD dashboard for the updated summary of samples processed and confirmed positive cases: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/6d48aed3a5b94c9ebc2edab58b4ddb5a.
CWD is an incurable, fatal disease that affects members of the deer family (cervids) including white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose and caribou. Animals infected with CWD may appear healthy until the later stages of the disease. If the disease spreads and becomes endemic to Manitoba, there is a serious risk that CWD will threaten the health of all cervid populations in the province.
First detected in Manitoba in 2021, a total of 35 CWD cases have been confirmed to date. This includes 26 mule deer (23 males and three females) and nine white-tailed deer (eight males and one female).
The 2025-26 provincial testing program is ongoing and has tested over 2,500 samples for CWD. The five new CWD-positive cases include three mule deer (two females and one male) and two male white-tailed deer.
Sample results from harvested animals will be posted at https://www.gov.mb.ca/nrnd/fish-wildlife/wildlife/cwd-results/cwd-results.html. Hunters with questions or concerns about a cervid that has been harvested can email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For more information, visit www.manitoba.ca/cwd.

The pandemic hurt a lot of businesses and some of them closed down permanently. White Feather Creations was one of the businesses that closed during the pandemic, but has just recently reopened. The business provides Indigenous-made items made by owner and operator Rob Nabess and his family.
“White Feather Creations is located at 246 Fischer Avenue in The Pas,” said Nabess. “We have a variety of Indigenous handmade things like moccasins, mukluks, beaded earrings, carvings, paintings and all kinds of different art. Most of the items we have for sale are made by my mom, sisters and myself.”