The Swan Valley Stampeders Junior A Hockey Club held a special fundraising evening for Amara’s Amigos on Feb. 14 during their home game against the visiting Niverville Nighthawks.
While the Stampeders didn’t come away with a win on the scoresheet that evening, the fundraiser was overall a success with local businesses and individuals showing their support for the Amara’s Amigos cause, which was started by Blaine and Lee-Anne Campbell in support of their teenage daughter Amara, who passed away from cancer in 2020. The Amara’s Amigos fundraiser also serves as a memorial for their teenage son Joel, who passed away from a snowmobile accident that same year.
The evening fundraising activities included a shootout auction, Amara’s Amigos merchandise sales, as well as raffles and cookie sales. Overall, the Swan Valley Stampeders and their Hockey Fights Cancer night was able to bring in $11,678.11 for Amara’s Amigos, which will be donated to CancerCare Manitoba, and more specifically to the PROFYLE program, or the PRecision Oncology For Young PeopLE, which Amara was a patient in while she was fighting her cancer.
“We appreciate the ongoing support from the Stampeders group and the community at large, as well as all the businesses and donations,” said Lee-Anne Campbell. “This is part of our mission to supporting other children and families who may have the same devastating diagnoses. We continue to pay it forward.
“It’s great to partner up with them to remember our children’s names,” said Blaine Campbell.
The special game-worn jerseys were also auctioned off, and that brought in an additional $6,400, which the Campbells decided to split evenly between the Amara’s Amigos and the Swan Valley Stampeders. Campbells also intend on putting up more money next year to purchase another set of jerseys and continue the partnership for a third year.

Connor Gottfried of Calgary, Alta., formerly of the Swan Valley, is flexing his creativity and trying his hand at creating contemporary art, art that has grown from an experimental hobby to finding a footing with an international audience.
Gottfried has taken to making interactive sculptures that is inspired by video games and culture of the 1980s and ‘90s, putting playable screens inside replicas of video game boxes as well as incorporating other technology and creating modified icons of the era.
“I’ve always been inspired by contemporary art, especially street art from my years skateboarding and snowboarding, and around 2016, I decided to buy some canvases and try to create some large artworks,” he said.
“I started with paint scraping and soon realized that I could print sheets of paper from my computer and glue them to the canvases to add digital realism in spots. Then, in 2019, I had an idea to put a small screen into a canvas that could play video games on it. Something clicked and it just resonated with me to explore the intersection of art and technology.
“I started building pieces with larger screens and these started doing well on the internet, with lots of people connecting with me on Instagram and a feature in an online magazine,” Gottfried continued. “Seeing how much joy these were bringing people really inspired me to create more.”
The first two pieces Gottfried made were intended to be prizes for the local-to-him University of Calgary campus radio station CJSW, to benefit annual fundraiser.
“Initially, I was just exploring an idea that I thought might be a cool prize for someone who donated to the station,” he said. “When that piece was featured on a popular American blog, it made me realize that it was connecting with something larger.”
The pieces are comprised of two categories of components: the electronics; and the sculptural aspects. In general, Gottfried buys the electronic components from Amazon since the small pieces are difficult to find in brick-and-mortar stores. Some items he’s also been able to source directly from China to lower costs.
“For the sculptural elements, I design the piece in Photoshop using layers and then these layers are printed onto an Aluminum Composite Panel, or ACP, at a print shop in Calgary,” said Gottfried. “ACP is a material commonly used in signage which has a layer of aluminum on either side of a plastic core. It’s both strong and lightweight so it’s perfect for these.
“I provide the print shop with the images and the tracing paths, and they use the tracing paths to cut out the parts for me using either a laser or a CNC router. This way, I can get 100 percent accurate pieces to assemble.”
Tinkering with computers and technology has been a lifelong passion for Gottfried, with his parents bringing home an Apple II computer when he was only five years old. In the 1990s, Gottfried was also involved with the local AccessTV committee, what is now known as a WCGtv Community Media Committee that produces local content for WCG cable, as well as being a major part of bringing internet connectivity to the Swan Valley. Today, Gottfried remains a leader in his company Leara eLearning, which provides a software e-learning and training product.
“When I was young, I was really blown away by the concept of an interactive game, how you could control the character in a virtual world, a world that you could create through programming,” said Gottfried. “Seeing this evolve over my lifetime into what it is now has been fascinating. I think it’s interesting how, in a sense, we shared a childhood with technology itself. We played together with the technology and, as we matured, so did the technology.
“Now, technology has matured into things like AI, which is highly complex. There will never be another generation who will experience the innocent relationship to technology that we had in our youth.”
Many of Gottfried’s pieces feature Nintendo properties such as the Super Mario Bros., Pokemon and the Legend of Zelda, as well as other video game icons – such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Tetris – and wider pop culture staples such as the Golden Girls, the Simpsons, Mr. T, Spongebob Squarepants, and more.
Gottfried’s collection has connected with an audience enough to soon find its way into a contemporary art gallery in Taipei, Taiwan, where he will display 65 pieces in the Dopeness Art Lab beginning on April 12.
His first piece went viral on Instagram in December 2021, and he has also had a solo exhibition at the S16 Gallery in Montreal, as well as contributed pieces in group shows held in Toronto, New York City, New Orleans and Los Angeles.
“I definitely have a personal love for video games of that era,” said Gottfried. “I’ve also chosen games that I think will help the audience feel nostalgia for themselves, so I often create pieces for games that I’ve never played. The underlying connection with all these pieces is the concept of play, which is why I’ve called my collection ‘Play’. Play is where we take risks, problem-solve, and explore curiosity and our imaginations. It’s an integral part of human development, but we often stop playing as adults for a variety of personal and social reasons.
“One of the things that I find interesting is that in this early era of video games, not only were the players playing, but the game designers and hardware designers were playing as well. They were taking risks, experimenting and problem-solving in playful ways, and so the whole industry was in a state of play at that time. With this exhibition, I’m inviting the audience to re-engage with that sense of wonder and to both physically play with the art while also considering how they play – or don’t play – in their daily lives.”
Gottfried also feels like having a solo display at the Dopeness Art Lab is very significant for him as an artist.
“The Dopeness Art Lab is the most visited gallery in Taiwan.” he said. “They have a beautiful gallery space, so it will be really cool to see all of the pieces together in that environment. It’s also significant for me to exhibit in Asia, since this is the birthplace of the video game industry and many of the game characters that we cherish in North America. I’m excited to see how they respond to this exhibition.”
Gottfried added that the Canadian, American and European art scenes have so far been welcoming to him. He has sold pieces in Canada, the US and Europe and would love to do a solo exhibition in the US or Europe in the coming years. In general, his local art community in Calgary is more focused on a different style of art, leaning towards “western” art, so he’s had to reach out to other locations to connect with artists and curators who are interested in exploring technology-related art.
Gottfried’s pieces sell for between $2,000 and $6,500 USD, with all sales now going through Dopeness Art Lab. While he has previously done one-of-a-kind pieces, he now typically will produce five of each kind, allowing more than one person to collect a piece.
Gottfried concluded that even he is now connecting with a global audience with his work, his art and his passion, he doesn’t forget that it was cultivated in the Swan River Valley.
“When I was growing up in Swan River, I was exposed to skateboarding and snowboarding at an early age. At that time, both of these sports were considered outsider activities and were frowned upon by many people in Swan River,” he said. “The sports, however, had a vibrant culture of art and music that was disseminated through videos, clothing and skateboard graphics and this enriched our lives as youth in the Valley.
“This connection to a global culture of visual design, punk music, freedom of expression and joy changed the course of my life and I see this as the root of my artist practice.”
Gottfried also sent a special shoutout to the old Short Stuff store that used to sell and rent video games – video games whose packaging tapped into his wonder with design – as well as his former art teacher Paul Freed, who taught him freedom of expression at an important time in his life.

The Town of Swan River is in another period of transition as CAO Derek Poole stepped out of his role and away from the Town of Swan River this week, making way for the incoming CAO that is scheduled to begin his duties in March.
Mayor Lance Jacobson announced the hiring of Will Tewnion last week. Tewnion is a retired RCMP member who worked in Swan River once before as Detachment Commander from 2007 to 2010, and is excited to return back. For the past five years, he has worked in various Director roles with the Yukon Government.
Until Tewnion is able to return to Swan River, Darren Harvey has been appointed Interim CAO. Harvey was otherwise working as the Director of Public Works.
Poole’s exit from the Town of Swan River ends a 16 year tenure that saw him start as Superintendent of Public Works when he was 28 years old. He kept that role for 12 years. During that time he had some stints serving as Interim CAO until finally taking on the job full time in 2021.
“I was young for the position but now I’m 42 and have 16 years of Municipal Administration under my belt,” said Poole. “I’ve achieved a lot and I’m proud of it.”
During his time as Superintendent of Public Works and later Director of Public Works, Poole was focused, of course, on public works but also the utility, which saw a lot of improvements during Poole’s time.
“I did what any manager would do, I did a large assessment, and discovered that the number one priority was the utility, the lift stations, the lagoon, the well control sites,” said Poole. “All of it was aging. That was the focus for a good 10 years to get everything retrofitted. It took millions of dollars of grants. It was lot of work but the people didn’t really see it because it was a lot of underground work and might only see it at budget time.”
Even during crisis times when the Ross Lift Station failed in 2012 during the Manitoba Summer Games or in 2018 when a well control site failed, Poole sees the management of those crises as one his proudest moments because, through careful water management and conservation from everyone that uses the utility, the Town was able to make it through that time without a boil water advisory.
“Everyone did what they were supposed to do,” he said. “Even council was able to help get an O-ring that we needed for one of our wells that we could only locate in Phoenix, Arizona. Council did what they had to do to get a plane to cross the border through customs directly from Chicago to Swan River.”
Once he stepped into the role of CAO, he found it to be, naturally, more political, and did a lot of work in updating policies and bylaws.
“We did full reviews of our bylaws and policies, everything from the enforcement of it, to the filing of them, so it’s easily changeable when its time to review it for council,” said Poole. “It’s so important for our operation and it saves time, keep everything running smoothly and your employees can enforce a policy without a fear of missing a process.
“There has also been changes in the general professionalism of the Town of Swan River and how council carries itself. That of course I can’t take the credit for that, as Mayor Jacobson deserves credit for that. It was his vision and I implemented it through orientations with council and we got our strategic plan fixed, a proper one with objectives.”
Looking back on his tenure as leader of the Town’s administration, he sees the Town of Swan River being put in a positive light.
“A lot of the time, if you’re struggling, it’s in the news and it’s loud,” he said. “Your failures are in the news. I don’t believe that was us. I believe we were in the news for things that we controlled. We spoke loudly and lobbied loudly. We weren’t so much in the news for HR issues or legal battles. And, we do have our fair share of legal issues, but not because of operational missteps.
“During my tenure, I feel I wasn’t loud as a leader. Behind the scenes, everyone was doing their job.
“I think the Town’s greatest asset is their employees.”
Poole also added that he feels the most important relationship in a municipality is between a Head of Council and a CAO, and he feels that he and Jacobson were able to accomplish a lot during their time together.”

The North-West Regional Library held a Storytime Winter Session on Thursday (Jan. 16) for children ages 3-5, where they listened to stories, made some crafts, sang songs and more. Pictured here, facilitator Sheila Assoignon helps the children show off the snowman craft they made.