The Gateway Keewatin Corridor is hosting public presentations with a meeting, and then their Annual General Meeting next week. The presentations and meeting will focus on the upgrades of the Tote Road and the impact to industry and agriculture to the community and the north.
“We started a group on the Manitoba side in 2002, called the Highway 283 taskforce and the purpose of that was to get the road that goes west of The Pas towards Nipawin, SK, and the Alberta border, up to RTAC standards,” said Gateway Keewatin Corridor President Len Gluska. “We were looking for it to be brought up to a commercial road where it could have primary traffic and full semi loads of product moving on it. Where it’s at now, it’s only three months of the year.

Embracing one’s culture and tapping into the artistic side of it is something that Keeper of the Little People Regalia Outfitters’ Charleen Spence has been able to achieve. Like many other Indigenous people, Spence didn’t have the opportunity to learn her culture and traditions from family, due to the severe conditions imposed by residential schools. It was only later on in Spence’s life that she was able to embrace those traditions and talents.
“I always wanted to dance when I was a child,” said Charleen Spence. “I did not have anyone in my life or that I knew that shared the traditions openly. Due to the residential school and treaties making our cultural practices illegal, our culture knowledge was not passed down to our families and myself. I learnt about who I was through the different traditional teaching from Joe A Ross School and the University College of the North.

It’s a tough time for most school divisions in Manitoba as they finalize their upcoming school year budgets. Each school division is struggling to do more with less funding and Kelsey School Division is no different. Some tough decisions had to be made to minimize the amount of cutbacks that could have occurred.
Kelsey School Division put a great emphasis in this year’s budget on ensuring that staffing levels were maintained.
“Our main focus was to prevent losing any staff through budget cuts,” said Kelsey School Division Chair Cheryl Sinclair. “We wanted to hold staffing levels to where they are and that was one of our main questions asked by the public.

The annual Storyteller’s Film Festival is coming up in April and this year there are some excellent documentaries being showcased that represent life in northern Manitoba.
“First we have a film called Sam Waller's Museum, which is a short documentary about Sam Waller, his life in the area, and his museum,” said Cheryl Antonio. “The next one is Gift to Give and it’s a short documentary about a family whose father is ill and in need of a transplant. We The Artists of the North is a documentary about artists in Thompson, Manitoba. Then our feature length film is called Beans and is a film set in the Oka Crisis of 1990, coming from the perspective of a young girl.”

Budget season is upon many municipalities, school divisions and other organizations. The Town of The Pas has been working on establishing the upcoming fiscal year’s budget through a series of special meetings. Last week council held both a regular and special meeting to discuss matters.
The 2021 utility operating deficit was discussed as well as the impact of water main breaks.
“The utility operating deficit of $479,179.00 is for 2021 and going to be applied against capital assets to cover the cost; it won’t be added to people’s utility bill,” said The Town of The Pas Mayor Andre Murphy. “This is how it’s done every year and doesn’t impact taxation directly. Where people are going to see rate increases on utility bills is around the new lagoon. The new lagoon is going to be added to people’s bills, not based on an actual tax levy to pay for that fee.

There have been many Valley residents who received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal this year for various activities and volunteer efforts. Valley resident Connie McKay was one who received the medal and was nominated by MLA Rick Wowchuk. McKay has volunteered and helped at various community functions for many years.
“All my life I’ve done things for people and the community,” said McKay. “I taught sewing in 4H for young girls for many years and curled lots, which led me to helping the school-aged kids learn to curl in the Valley. I volunteered to work at the Monster Bingos in Bowsman and did lots of other volunteer work.”
McKay now does a lot of stuff through the senior centre and still continues to not only keep active and socialize but volunteer and help out as well.
“I just love doing stuff for other people and helping out,” said McKay. “Now I’m involved with the senior centre. We were closed for a couple of years due to the pandemic, but now it’s reopened and we got things going, which is really nice.
“We have floor shuffleboard and cards, and I work at bingo every other week. There are over 83 new members coming to the senior centre and they’re a really fun bunch. Since the pandemic, very few of the seniors, who came before COVID-19 hit, have returned. Instead, we’re seeing a whole new group of seniors coming.
“I love to go to the senior centre, it’s a great way to socialize and keep busy. In the summertime, I love to golf and used to curl in the winter. I curled for over 50 years, but haven’t done so in the last 10 years.”
It was quite a surprise for McKay when she learned she was going to be a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal. Fortunately, she was able to make it to the reception in Brandon to receive the medal, despite the cold weather.
“When I received the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal I was trying to think of what I did to deserve this recognition and it was hard to pinpoint because I was always doing things,” said McKay. “I was pretty thrilled to receive it.
“At first I wasn’t going to go to the presentation to receive it, because it was in Brandon, but Rick Wowchuk encouraged me to go. I’m not one to be in the limelight and prefer to be more in the background, so this was a bit out of my comfort zone. On Jan. 17, Darin and Della (McKay) took me, so I did go to Brandon to the award ceremony. I believe there were over 80 people who were to receive the medal at that presentation, so it was really nice.
“I’m really glad I went,” concluded McKay. “At first I was unsure because it was wintertime and not the best time to travel, but it all worked out.”

A group of art driven and minded people met at the Northern Arts Workshop held last week at Bakers Narrows. It was a collaboration of different art organizations on a local, provincial and national level.
“The Northern Arts Workshop, sponsored by UCN, was held to bring people in the professional and volunteer fields of the arts together to discuss what they have in common, what their goals are, barriers, funding opportunities, networking and more,” said Cheryl Antonio. “Jesse Wente, Chair of Canada Council for the Arts; Rose-Anne Harder, Director of the Manitoba Arts Network; Thom Sparling from Creative Manitoba; along with representatives from PrairiesCan, Canadian Heritage, and MB Film & Music were in attendance to listen, learn and collaborate.

Northland Ford is celebrating a milestone anniversary this year as today marks 30 years in business in The Pas. It was a venture that Northland Ford Dealer Principal Dale Bigelow decided to take a chance on and it paid off.
“The former dealership, Northgate Motors, went into receivership in 1992 and there was an empty building left,” said Bigelow. “At the time I was working for Trail Motors GM dealership. I was a journeyman mechanic and had spent 10 years in the shop, then got into sales. I decided it was time for me to make a move, so I called a Ford of Canada representative in Winnipeg and five months later we opened the doors to Northland Ford on March 29, 1993.
“There were huge changes from working in the shop to running a dealership. It was a change for me to manage staff and daily business operations.”