The Royal Canadian Legion Br. 39 organized and paid for banners of local War Veterans to be displayed on the streets of Swan River, specifically the ones that were Killed in Action that the Legion has photos of. In the future, Swan River’s Legion
branch hopes to expand the list of banners to include all Veterans, and hopes families will be willing to sponsor the banners and supply the Legion with a good quality photo and information on their Veteran. 

Children and their parents and guardians enjoyed their evening dressing up and going home to home collecting treats on Halloween (Oct. 31).

Dauphin city council took an opportunity to honour Brenda Gregory as they gathered for its regular meeting, Oct. 21.

Gregory is one of four inaugural winners of the City’s new Sunshine Award, but was unable to attend the Oct. 7 presentation of the awards to co-winners Jerry Joss, Clayton Swanton and Carla Wolfenden.

In presenting the award, mayor David Bosiak referred to Gregory’s commitment to the community spanning decades and continuing to this day.

“In the early ‘90s when she was on the rec commission, she was a sports mom, an activity mom involved with her kids in the community and doing a lot of great things in our community. I saw her yesterday at Northgate with the next generation, with her two grandsons, still being up there and caring a great deal,” he said, adding all of the Sunshine Awards winners are similar people in the way they contribute to the betterment of the community with no expectation of acknowledgment or reward.

“Brenda in particular has marshaled the Dauphin Derailleurs Cycle Club since its inception in 2017 and has been like the mother hen of the organization and has nurtured it and supported it. The only other thing I’ll say is that for the last couple of summers in particular, she’s been out on the trails in plus 35 degrees working with the green team with a leaf blower backpack or a weed eater or running kids back and forth on the trail system just making sure that we have this tremendous asset up there at Northgate.”

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

Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) member Madison Moore is stepping back into the spotlight and into the world of modelling. Moore recently went to Paris Fashion Week at the end of September with Ally’s Ribbons. It was an experience of a lifetime for Moore.
“The opportunity to go to Paris Fashion Week happened during Manito Ahbee in May this year,” said Moore. “Alyssia and I were backstage for a fitting, and she asked what I was doing in September. I responded, ‘I’m not sure, working probably.’ Alyssia asked, ‘Are you free to travel the world with me?’ How could I say no? I immediately said yes!”
Moore has been busy modelling for different events leading up to Paris Fashion Week. She has vast experience modelling in front of large crowds at big venues.

Many of the long-standing murals in the community have seen better days and slowly, thanks to the efforts of some local organizations, they are being restored and given a second life. The Pas Rotary Club recently unveiled the rejuvenation of a mural painted many years ago by artist Michael O’Toole.
The unveiling was on October 22 and started off with a land acknowledgement to recognize that The Pas wasn’t the first community to settle in this spot. This project started out with the vision of a local Rotarian.
“Jim Scott was our chairperson for The Pas Rotary and he was chair for The Pas Revitalization Committee many years ago, which initially got the mural going,” said The Pas Rotarian Robin Reader. “It was to promote tourism. We have tourists that stop through here when they travel by railway to go to Churchill and see the polar bears, so this mural provided them with something beautiful to look at and take pictures of.

“There are a series of transportation-related scans that occur between depots and processing plants that happen when a parcel is sent to customers. For example, mail and parcels that are sent to The Pas Post Office will receive a transportation departure scan from the Winnipeg Processing Plant and a Flin Flon Depot transportation arrival scan because they are the last destination on the transportation truck route.
“There are multiple stops between Winnipeg to Flin Flon, including The Pas,” said Liu. The parcel is scanned at the Winnipeg Processing Plant, indicating that it is en route to Flin Flon Depot, which is the last possible scan. The parcel is dropped off at The Pas on the way to Flin Flon. The parcel then needs to be scanned, processed by post office employees and carded before the customer picks it up, as The Pas is on the route to Flin Flon, mail and parcels never pass through Flin Flon.

On October 28, 2024, at approximately 7 p.m., The Pas RCMP were notified of two escaped inmates from The Pas Correctional Centre.
Officers immediately responded, and began extensive searches around the Cathedral and 3rd Street area and are continuing to patrol around the community of The Pas with the assistance of Police Dog Services. The RCMP is further being assisted by Manitoba First Nation Police Service officers as well as a drone.
One inmate was safely apprehended at approximately 8:30 p.m.
One inmate remains at large: Brandon Anderson, a 29-year-old male from Nelson House, is 6 feet tall and 170 pounds, he was last seen wearing grey sweatpants with a yellow stripe, and a grey t-shirt or sweatshirt. He has a history of weapons offences and is considered dangerous.
The RCMP is asking residents of The Pas to turn on exterior lights, and ensure their doors and windows are locked. Residents are asked to be vigilant and stay indoors and to call 911 if they see anything suspicious.

A Canadian author with local ties to the Valley has transformed her mother’s life story into a National Best Seller. Roxana Spicer is the daughter of Eric and Agnes Spicer and started out as a documentary filmmaker and former CBC investigative journalist. She has travelled to various parts of the world to track down a story, but the greatest story she’s ever uncovered was that of her own mother. She knew from an early age, her mother had a story to tell.
“It seems I’ve been a storyteller all my life,” said Roxana Spicer. “I did my first public reading of original work when I was ten years old, a budding playwright in the village of Netherhill, Saskatchewan. I would take over our family veranda, rig up blankets for stage curtains, and even charge 25 cents a show.
“One new kid arrived on opening night, stayed for the performance, then left without paying. I shot her with my brother’s BB gun loaded with grain. A couple of minutes later, her mom showed up on the doorstep. ‘I understand Jewel owes you 25 cents,’ she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out two quarters. ‘Here’s fifty cents. The second quarter is for you to promise never to play with my daughter again.’ I probably should have been sent to reformatory school for that! But fifty years later, Jewel arrived at this week’s Saskatchewan book launch in Kindersley near Netherhill, laughing about the incident. In fact, she paid for everyone at the table, including my three Spicer relatives who’d made the trip from Swan River.
“In the half-century between these two stage performances, my career has primarily been that of a documentary filmmaker,” said Spicer. “I have travelled the world for all the major Canadian television networks. The story of my mother remains the most compelling story I have ever undertaken.”
This is the first book Spicer has written and published. The story of her mother’s experience in WWII has captivated readers and critics alike.
“The Traitor’s Daughter is my debut into the literary world,” said Spicer. “Since its Canadian launch in late August, my memoir about Mom and our story has remained on the National Best Sellers’ list as one of Canada’s top ten non-fiction books. It has also been included in the Globe and Mail’s Fall book preview of 62 new titles to read this season.
“I first told my mom I was going to write a book about her right around the time I was packing heat in the 80-person village of Netherhill and performing little plays on our veranda in 1965. Mom was a Russian combat soldier fighting Nazis on the Eastern Front during World War Two. She could pitch a handful of kitchen knives across the room and form a perfect pattern around a frying pan hanging on the wall.
“She was the most fascinating woman I ever met. How could I not write a book about her?” asked Spicer. “The Traitor’s Daughter, however, began as a documentary idea for Canadian television audiences shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It grew into a rich, complex, multi-layered story of a mother-daughter relationship as well as a war story, told through a woman’s very specific point of view.
“Writing a book enabled me to share all those layers with readers. I travelled to ten countries and three continents over thirty years to write this book.
“The Traitor’s Daughter is published by the largest, most prestigious publishing house in Canada,” said Spicer. “Penguin Random House also publishes Margaret Atwood and several other brilliant Canadian voices. It is beyond my literary abilities to describe what a thrill it is to run into Ms. Atwood recording her audiobook in the booth next to mine on the 14th floor of the head office in Toronto.
“The last two years of working with my brilliant executive editor Lara Hinchberger has been the highlight of a fifty-year career. I only wish Lara had been able to join me this week on our book launch in Saskatchewan, back to Netherhill, Kindersley, and Saskatoon, where The Traitor’s Daughter pulled in standing room only crowds. Every book was sold before I stepped onto the stage to read.”
The experience of writing a book, especially one so personal, has been a remarkable endeavour. One that has brought a lot of hard work to life but also something to be proud of, for it was no easy task.
“I have been writing this book one way or the other since I was ten years old,” said Spicer. “The actual full-time writing took seven years; however, I did eight drafts before I was satisfied I’d found the voice’ of the book. It’s a woman’s story, a war story, and the story of Canada’s only officially registered war bride among 47-thousand European women who fell in love with Canadian soldiers and followed their new husbands back to Canada after the war.
“There were two enjoyable experiences in writing this book. My twin brother Victor wrote it was the most profound experience of his internal life to read this gripping, largely unknown story of his mother.
“Then my older brother Harold flew from Calgary with his wife Diana, to be at the national book launch in Toronto, and when I scanned a packed house of book buyers, literary agents, television executives, and Canadian cinema directors, former war correspondents, and a real who’s who of Canadian literati,” said Spicer. “It was the sight of my brother’s eyes welling up and his grin as he stood to join a standing ovation that will remain a real transcendent moment.”
“However, to write a book is to live it. Every minute I was writing about details of my mother’s capture by the Nazis, imagining her terror at the hands of knife-wielding German captors on the Eastern Front during World War Two, relying on her cleverness and resolve to survive, took me into the darkest corners of my imagination. Then, to take these scenes, fleshing out the context of what was happening all around her while resisting the temptation to stray beyond what I knew to be true, to find the right words and to bring the highest standards of journalistic rigour to every sentence, that was a minute-by-minute challenge that lasted seven years.”
Spicer’s novel has been gaining momentum and popularity. Not only is it a best seller, but it has become the topic for many radio and television shows, giving Spicer and her mother an opportunity to talk about it.
“The Canadian public has fallen in love with my mom,” said Spicer. “The Traitor’s Daughter hit number two on the National Best Sellers’ List the first weeks after it landed in Canadian bookstores in late August. The momentum continues.
“The highest-rated CBC Radio program, The Current with Matt Galloway, gave Mom and me half an hour on prime time radio, describing the book as compelling, a page-turner. Zoomer Magazine did a multi-page spread with photos, echoing Penguin’s words: A masterful narration. I appeared on the CBC National, as well as the Bell network radio show, hosted by Richard Crouse.”
Writing this book has been a dream come true for Spicer and the support she has received from people purchasing the book has been overwhelming. The Traitor’s Daughter can be found on bookstore shelves as well as be ordered online.
“The Traitor’s Daughter is now available in all major bookstores across Canada, including Costco,” said Spicer. “Look for it on the Best Sellers’ shelf at Indigo Chapters, as well as McNally-Robinson in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. It’s also available to purchase on Amazon and Penguin Random House Canada.
“Every single book sale keeps Mom’s story alive. This was the promise I made to my Russian mother in Netherhill, Saskatchewan, during the Cold War. Today, it is readers in Swan River and beyond who help me keep that sacred word.”

The Swan Valley Fire Department was called out to a pair of structure fires in quick succession early Monday morning (Oct. 28). Here, the remains of a structure of a residential property on the 200 block of Fifth Avenue South in Swan River is taped off after firefighters worked diligently at keeping it contained. More information to follow in an upcoming edition.

The Roblin Branch #24 of the Royal Canadian Legion may be the strongest and most active its been in years.
But it’s looking for new members to secure the future of one of the last service or
ganizations remaining in the community.

Want to know more? Pick up a copy of this week’s paper to find out.