Paddling from the Gulf to the Arctic

Six friends embarking on nine-month expedition will canoe on Lake Winnipeg this week

EXPRESS PHOTO BY AUSTIN GRABISH

Jarrad Moore, Adam Trigg, John Keaveny, Winchell Delano, and Luke Kimmes are travelling on a once-in-lifetime 5,200-mile trek to the Arctic Ocean, and are scheduled to paddle across Lake Winnipeg this week. 

By Austin Grabish, The Express Weekly News

Being exposed to frigid temperatures, fierce currents, and alligators all while paddling upstream would probably be enough for anyone to pull the plug on a canoe trip. 

But for six American boys travelling to the Arctic, it’s just a part of the once-in-a lifetime journey they are embarking on.

No, these Minnesota and Iowa boys aren’t raising money for a cause or trying to break a Guinness World Record – they’re paddling just for the fun of it.

And Jarrad Moore, Adam Trigg, John Keaveny, Winchell Delano, Luke Kimmes, and Daniel Flynn weren’t showing any signs of slowing down when they arrived in their three canoes on the banks of the Red River in West St. Paul last Thursday.

The men started planning their trip sometime about a year ago and have been canoeing upstream since Jan. 2, when they started their nine-month journey in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dubbed the Rediscover North America crew, the boys, if successful, will travel 5,200 miles after paddling through 11 rivers in 10 different states and five provinces.

Moore believes he and his friends are the first to embark on such a journey.

“All the separate pieces have been linked up, but together it’s never been done as a full route,” said Moore.

None of the men have attempted a journey like this before, but all are familiar with the outdoors, which is why camping on riverbanks every night hasn’t been a problem.

But the boys were all smiles when they arrived at the Royal Manitoba Yacht Club in West St. Paul last Thursday.

While there, they were treated to hot showers, beers, and a warm meal, a sure luxury for anyone who has been eating pre-packaged meals three times a day.

Keaveny said the trip is just for the “spirit of adventure,” and Moore said it’s been nice to go on a journey just for fun with no strings attached.

“It’s been kind of cool to see the support we’ve actually gotten just doing an adventure to do an adventure,” Moore said.

He added he is relishing the opportunity to travel across Canada.

“As you start, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, you’re like ‘nah we’ll never get to it’. Canada? We’ll talk about that when we get there, that’s like four months away.

“Now that we’re here it’s pretty exciting,” Moore said.

The voyageurs are slightly past the half way point of their trip and expect to arrive at Kugluktuk Nunavut, their final destination, at the end of August or the beginning of September.

Once there, the plan is to sell their canoes and catch a flight back home to Iowa or Minnesota.

This week they will continue to paddle upstream on Lake Winnipeg.

“Right now we’re doing really well. We’re ahead of schedule, but Lake Winnipeg’s a huge variable just because of wind,” Moore said. 

The guys must travel 300 miles on the lake and plan to do it over 10 days. 

They started on Saturday, but fierce winds caused the boys to have a layover near Riverton on Sunday.  

“With the winds that could blow us off the lake. We’ve packed 21 days worth of food and we’re hoping to do it in two weeks,” Kimmes said.

Mother Nature dictates everything on these boys’ journey, and she’s thrown many hurdles at them so far including snowstorms, rain, and ice.

Keaveny noted while still in the States, the group had to walk eight miles on frozen ice, which they also fell through, before they could start paddling water again.  

“You get to open water, you paddle,” Keaveny said.

And then there’s seeing alligators and dealing with unexpected water that’s seeped through holies in their canoes, but no one was dwelling about problems like that last Thursday.

After all, these boys planned this trip a year in advance and knew it wouldn’t all be smooth sailing.

SUBMITTED

Luke Kimmes, John Keaveny, and four friends have been paddling their way upstream to Nunavut since January 2.

 -- First published in the Express Weekly News print edition May 21 2015 p.2 and the Selkirk Record print edition May 21 2015 p.6

 

Selkirk’s new MRI faces funding woes

Province won’t pay for machine in full 

Premier Greg Selinger is seen in this 2011 file photo pledging to fund a new MRI scanner in Selkirk if the NDP is re-elected in the provincial election.

 

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority is facing a $133,000 funding shortfall for an MRI scanning machine slated to go in Selkirk’s new hospital, and the province is refusing to pay the balance leaving the community to pay the difference before the hospital opens in 2017.

The RHA has no formal fundraising plans in the works, but did raise some funds earlier this month by having construction workers, who are building the new hospital, pay for a barbeque lunch during a work break.

“I imagine there will be a more robust campaign on kind of what remains to be raised here,” said Blair Stevenson, the RHA’s regional director of acute care.

A RHA spokeswoman said of the community’s $340,000 required contribution, just over $207,000 has been raised. 

Selkirk mayor Larry Johannson said he was surprised to know the MRI hasn’t been paid for yet.

“Nobody’s ever said that to me,” Johannson said.

Johannson along with several others community groups were pushing for the new hospital to have the scanner several years ago, and Premier Greg Selinger promised $4 million in funding for the MRI if the NDP was re-elected during the 2011 provincial election. 

But that promise came with a catch -- the community had to pay 10 per cent of the machine’s total cost, and even though the scanner is now estimated to cost $3.4 and not $4 million, the province is refusing to fund the remaining $133,000 balance. 

After Selinger’s campaign promise, Johannson and others began fundraising for the MRI.

“We did turn over some funds to the province to go towards the MRI,” Johannson said.

When the Record asked Selinger’s office if the province should be covering the $3.4 million cost given it is lower than the $4 million originally promised, a spokeswoman deflected the question saying the plan was always to have the community split the cost. 

“The commitment to build an MRI in Selkirk has always had a community contribution associated with it,” said Naline Rampersad in an email.

Rampersad went on to say the community funding requirement applies to all capital health projects in the province, and contributions can range from 10 – 20 per cent.

Stevenson said he is confident the RHA will find the money needed to pay for the MRI in time for the hospital’s spring 2017 opening date. 

“We’ve got a very generous community in Selkirk and the Interlake,” Stevenson said.

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 21 2015 p.7

Rally opposes Vince Li’s move to group home

Carol de Delley spoke against Vince Li’s granted right to move to a group home. Li beheaded and decapitated her son Tim McLean in 2008. 

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

With an eagle feather in hand, Carol de Delley vehemently denounced the Manitoba Criminal Code Review Board’s decision to allow the man who beheaded and cannibalized her son to move to a Winnipeg group home.

And the voices of dozens of outraged protesters echoed that call during the Justice for Tim McLean Rally Saturday at the Manitoba Legislature.

De Delley received a letter last Friday telling her Vince Li had been granted the right to move from a hospital to a group home.

“Just in time for Mother’s Day,” de Delley told the Record.

Li was found to be not criminally responsible for murdering de Delley’s son, because he was mentally ill at the time of the unprecedented 2008 killing.

Li had stabbed McLean repeatedly before dismembering and eating his body parts in front of passengers on a Greyhound bus.

De Delley said she has feared Li’s release from hospital for years.  

“It was not a secret that this was going to be the result,” de Delley said.

“It hasn’t come as a surprise, but it doesn’t make me feel any better than it did six years ago knowing that it was looming.”

De Delley questioned what would happen if Li decided to not take medication that controls his schizophrenia once released.

“It’s indicative of the illness to feel better and decide that you don’t need the medication anymore,” de Delley said.

Li has spent the last seven years in a locked ward at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, but has gradually gained freedoms over the years including the right to unsupervised trips in the community and most recently to transition to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.

It wasn’t known at press time if Li had made the move or if he was still in Selkirk.

One protester yelled the Justice system should have to re-evaluate Li.

“He admitted he was guilty, he’s done wrong, send him to court,” the man said. 

Protesters held signs decrying the Manitoba Criminal Code Review Board’s decision to allow Vince Li the right to move to a Winnipeg group home.

Manitoba Schizophrenia Society executive director Chris Summerville said Saturday’s rally was based on ungrounded fears.

“In the seven years that he’s been at Selkirk Mental Health Centre there have been no altercations with other patients, he’s been very compliant with medication,” Summerville said in a phone interview Saturday. 

“He has undergone rigorous testing psychologically and psychiatrically to determine his readiness to live in the community.”

Summerville added Li is sorry for his actions.

“He remembers it and never wants it to happen again, and consequently is self-motivated to take the medication,” Summerville said.

But de Delley questions if Li can handle the responsibility of taking his medication.

“I don’t think that should be his choice anymore. I think he should have lost the right to make that decision,” de Delley said.

Summerville said Li’s release to a group home has several conditions attached to it, which includes mandatory medication and visits with a psychiatrist.  

“There is a page full of conditions which he must meet if he wants to stay in community and not move back to Selkirk Mental Health Centre,” Summerville said.

And the move to the group home won’t happen over night. The letter de Delley received from the Review Board suggested overnight passes to the home for the purpose of a gradual transition would happen first.

 

De Delley said she fears future freedoms Li could receive after making the move to a group home.

“It’s got to stop. It’s got to stop someplace,” she said.  

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 14 2015 p.3

There's no stopping these walkers

Pam Linklater (center) cuts the ribbon at Selkirk’s fifth annual Mother’s Day Run / Walk on Sunday at the Waterfront.

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record 

Moms were honoured and money was raised for three great communities causes during the fifth annual Mother’s Day Run / Walk on Sunday.

A small, but motivated group of people braved Sunday’s gloomy weather and either walked or ran down Eveline Street before making their way back to the Waterfront.

Pam Linklater, a Second World War veteran, was the Queen Mother for the walk.

Linklater, 94, had the honour of cutting the ribbon before participants took off.

Linklater was unable to walk down Eveline, but made a brief stroll at the Waterfront with her walker.

She said it’s great moms are honoured at the walk.

“That’s a good idea,” she said.

Coun. Darlene Swiderski was impressed with the older participants who came out to the walk.

“I think it’s just wonderful especially when you see the 90 and 100 year-olds walking,” Swiderski said.

Swiderski is the executive director of Selkirk Community Renewal Corporation, one of three organizations that will receive proceeds from Sunday’s event. 

Swiderski said any funds the Corporation receives will be allocated to grants community organizations can apply for, and money will also go towards grants homeowners can apply for when they are fixing up the exterior of their homes.

“All of the money we get goes back to the community,” Swiderski said.

Funds raised were also going to the new Kirstin Sutherland Fund.

Sutherland died in a car accident last year, and the fund is meant to honour her memory. She was 27.

Funds from Sunday were also going towards the Sean Nicol Legacy Fund. Nicol was a Selkirk resident who passed away suddenly at the age of 25.

He was passionate about helping people living with intellectual disabilities and the fund is also meant to honour and keep his spirit alive. 

About two-dozen people either walked or ran on Sunday.  

Organizer Linda Rosser said the number of participants fluctuates every year, but this year numbers were really low.

“It’s an up and down thing,” Rosser said.

Rosser said plans are already in the works to make next year’s event bigger and better.

She said the Running Room will be on site to make the event more official and a pancake breakfast will return to the Walk / Run next year.

“We’re going to bring that back big time,” Rosser said.

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 14 2015 p.2

Sharing the stage with a superstar

Former Selkirk girl gets shout-out from Luke Bryan   

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

Former Selkirk resident Paula Jehle-Turner has made a name for herself as a top-notch celebrity hair and makeup artist, and if any proof of that was needed, country superstar Luke Bryan gave it last Thursday.

Bryan called Jehle-Turner up on stage and gave Selkirk a big country shout out.

“He’s like, ‘I’m bringing you up on stage’, and he did,” Jehle-Turner said. 

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Jehle-Turner was at Bryan’s Wednesday night show with family when Bryan told her he’d be pulling her up to the stage.

Jehle-Turner lives in Nashville, Tenn. and has worked for Bryan for the last seven years.

She happened to be back in Selkirk last week visiting family so she took them to his two sold-out shows, and gave them a special backstage tour.

Jehle-Turner is a freelance hair and makeup artist whose clients include big artists like ZZ Top, George Jones, Tim McGraw, Kenny Rogers, Kenney Chesney, etc.

But “Luke Bryan’s probably my biggest client,” Jehle-Turner said.

Jehle-Turner preps clients for concerts, television shows, photo shoots, and red carpet walks.

She drifted off from Selkirk to Tennessee when she was in her early 20s, and has worked with celebrities for the better part of two decades.

Her first ‘big’ client was country artist Jolie & the Wanted.

“That was my first big break,” Jehle-Turner said.

Jehle-Turner is a Comp grad, but wasn’t part of the school’s hairstyling program. Instead, she pursued her hair and makeup learning at a school in Winnipeg after she graduated high school.

“I look back now and think, ‘jeez I don’t know why I didn’t do that’,” Jehle-Turner said.

She says she had a rough start in the industry, but after a few years made a name for herself.

She did it by working for American photographers for free in exchange for the opportunity to build her portfolio.

“I had a book in Winnipeg, but it was never big enough to take to the record labels in Nashville,” Jehle-Turner explained.

“I didn’t have an agent or anything like that, I just beat the pavement knocking on doors to different record labels.”

She credits her success in part to the relationships she’s been able to build with clients.

She said trust is a big part of the job and is what someone in her field needs to keep a client. 

“You’re in their private space, you’re in their face literally,” Jehle-Turner said. 

“I don’t have to show a book anymore. Thankfully I’m at a place where they just know my work by my clients.”

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 14 2015 p.5

Walk for Kids to honour Kirstin Sutherland

Kirstin Sutherland died in a car accident last September. She was 27 at the time of the accident.

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

It’s being called Kirstin’s Walk for Kids, but the five-kilometre walk will be for all ages, and organizers hope everyone will make it out to honour a late St. Clements woman who was taken from the world too soon.

Kirstin Sutherland was 27 when she was killed in a Selkirk car crash last September, and now her friends and family are hoping to keep her spirit alive by putting on the first annual Kirstin’s Walk for Kids.

The event takes place June 14 at Selkirk Park and will raise money for a legacy fund that has been started in her name through the Selkirk and District Community Foundation.

Sutherland had a love for children and was working for River Crest Daycare when she was killed.

Her friends and family remember her as outgoing and loving, and her obituary said she was “like a shooting star,” because her eyes and spirit could light up a room.

“She always liked to have fun, so naturally she gravitated towards children. She would play, be silly, take care of them and most of all, laugh with them,” said Jamie Kreviazuk, a friend, in an email.

Kreviazuk said the walk next month will be a great way to remember Sutherland who “has been and remains the glue that keeps us together.”

“This walk is important to us because we miss her,” Kreviazuk said.

Rick Sutherland, Kirstin’s dad, said the idea to have a walk came after discussions with friends and family.

“We were all sitting around one day and wondering what we could do to honour her,” he said emotionally during a phone interview with the Record.

“We kind of just put our heads together,” he said.

Next month’s walk will take participants on a five kilometre stroll around the perimeter of Selkirk Park.

Rick Sutherland said musical entertainment and children’s activities will also be part of the day.

Sutherland said the hope is to have 300 people come out to the walk.

All of the money raised will go to the Kirstin Sutherland Legacy Fund, and once it hits $10,000 money will be dispersed to various children’s groups and daycares.

Registration costs $20 and can be done in advance online at www.runningroom.com under the ‘events’ section of the website.

Anyone needing more information can call Kreviazuk at 204-785-0468.

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 14 2015 p.9

The need is real

After a nearly two-year battle to open homeless shelter, René Gauthier has the statistics to back St. Francis Place

St. Francis Place Homeless Shelter founder René Gauthier and shelter volunteers Raphael Dicosimo, and Carla Gauthier have been kept busy the last six months at Selkirk’s new homeless shelter.

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

It had a slow start, but St. Francis Place Homeless Shelter has been anything but quiet the last six months.

The shelter, which opened its doors officially on Nov. 16, 2014, has given hundreds of people a warm and safe place to stay, and the demand doesn’t seem to be going away.

Some of the shelter’s clients have been transients passing through Selkirk on route to another city or town ­– others are parents with children who have lost their home and have no beds to sleep in.

“We have a mixed group of people that come in,” said Raphael Dicosimo, a volunteer who has been instrumental in making the shelter’s first few months a success.

Doors to the shelter open at 7 p.m. each day and registration is on a first-come first-serve basis.

Questions aren’t asked when someone checks in at the shelter and the rules are simple for adults: if there’s an open bed you can stay the night.

Clients are given snacks and a continental breakfast before they leave the next day.

They also have the chance to take a shower and are given clean sheets and shampoo when they walk in the door.

There’s also a washer and dryer for folks to use if needed.

But the shelter only has six beds, and there have been several nights where all have been full.

No one has had to be turned away yet, but René Gauthier, the shelter’s founder knows it could happen. 

“It’s a lottery type of thing,” Gauthier said.

Gauthier, who is also the executive director of Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, had been pushing to establish a homeless shelter in Selkirk for the better part of two years before November’s opening.

He faced road blocks from a community with a severe case of NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard – and a council that was supportive, but reluctant to see the shelter open in the wrong location. Ultimately, council provided Gauthier with a building it eventually plans to demolish, and the shelter pays rents each month.

While Gauthier and those who worked with him to make it a reality knew there was a need for a shelter, there wasn’t a flood of takers when the doors finally did open. In fact, it sat empty for weeks.

“We did have a lull right at the beginning,” Dicosimo said.

But Gauthier says he knew people would start pouring in once word got around, and by the end of December, six people had spent the night at St. Francis Place.

That number doubled to 12 in January before growing to 60 in February, and now Gauthier pegs it at a few hundred.

Gauthier said once the shelter had its first client he knew there was a need for St. Francis Place in Selkirk.

“Once we had one person in here we said it was worth it,” Gauthier said.

The clients that have slept at the shelter aren’t whom Gauthier was expecting to see though.

“I expected the homeless to be the hardcore homeless, where they live on the street, like in Winnipeg,” Gauthier said.

But instead the vast majority of the folks who have used the shelter are people who have run into unexpected trouble, and the majority have been men.

Gauthier used an example of a man who was kicked out of his house for the night.

There have been a few regulars at St. Francis Place though, including a family.

Dicosimo said everyone is welcome at the shelter including addicts and alcoholics, and no one will be turned away providing there is adequate room.

“You shouldn’t be criticized always for your choices, because some of us don’t have the capacity to make the right ones, and some of us make the right ones and unfortunate things happen,” Dicosimo said.

She noted there have been no serious problems with clients at the shelter.

“Most people just want to get in and go to sleep,” Dicosimo said

She added the shelter is for all genders and no one will be treated differently based on their religion or sexuality. 

“It’s safe for everybody,” she said.

But there is a rule in place that says Child and Family Services must be called when anyone under the age of 18 checks-in.

“But I mean they’re going to have a place to stay until they can (come),” Dicosimo said.

The shelter’s rule is stays can be no longer than 30 days, but exceptions to it can be made if space permits, Gauthier said.

“We won’t leave these people outside,” Gauthier said.

A small group of volunteers have staffed St. Francis Place, but more are desperately needed, because some have left.

“Basically it’s a revolving door,” Gauthier said.

Volunteer Carla Gauthier said the overnight shift from 10:30 p.m. – 8:00 a.m. is the hardest to staff.

She said the ideal volunteer to fill that shift would be someone who is caring and can stay up late.

“I think it’s just the compassion for the people that have difficulties,” she said.

Anyone interested in volunteering can call 204-482-6448.

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 13 2015 p.12

Suspicious envelopes sent to Selkirk court

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

The courthouse in Selkirk has joined the growing list of justice buildings across the country that have received suspicious packages from China. 

RCMP confirmed the Provincial Court building on Eaton Avenue received two suspicious envelopes, but wouldn’t say when the envelopes arrived at the court.

A Justice source said the envelopes were received sometime at the end of April through the mail.

The source said the two envelopes were from China and contained a number of documents.

“It was a big envelope from Hong Kong,” said the source.  

No one got sick from opening the packages in Selkirk, and RCMP said the envelopes tested negative for harmful substances.

But several people have fallen ill after opening other suspicious packages, including two court staffers in Thompson, who suffered shortness of breath, burning eyes and throat.

Last Monday, four employees at a courthouse in Amherst, N.S. also became nauseous and dizzy after opening one of the envelopes.

Seventeen Provincial Court buildings across Manitoba had received the ‘suspicious’ packages as of last Tuesday.

The packages appeared at courthouses in Winnipeg, Morden, Brandon, Minnedosa, and Thompson at the start of April before showing up at other Canadian courts.

RCMP spokeswoman Tara Seel said Manitoba Mounties are in contact with investigators from other jurisdictions, but couldn’t comment further about the investigation.  

Police believe one person is responsible for sending the packages. 

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 13 2015 p.15

New signs to tell Selkirk’s history

 

RECORD PHOTO BY MICHELLE BALHARRY

Selkirk Heritage Committee chair Doreen Olive,  City of Selkirk CAO Duane Nicol with marketing and communications co-ordinator Vanessa Figus, and Heritage Committee member Peter Hall.

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record 

The City of Selkirk and the Selkirk Municipal Heritage Advisory Committee are hoping new signs at Selkirk’s Waterfront will teach folks a lesson or two about the City’s rich history.

Three stories are now on display on permanent plaques at the Waterfront, and each plaque tells a story that is considered pivotal to Selkirk’s history.

The stories are about boats, the old fishing industry, and politics surrounding Selkirk’s famous lift bridge.

“We threw around some ideas, different stories within the City that we thought would be of importance,” said City of Selkirk marketing and communications co-ordinator Vanessa Figus.

Figus said the signs were placed strategically at the Waterfront so people can see what the area used to look like.

She said the Waterfront had great stories to tell, because it was booming with the fishing and boating industries, and credited both with making Selkirk what it is today.

“That was sort of the main hub, and that’s what built Selkirk,” Figus said.

Doreen Oliver, chair of the Heritage Committee, said she believes the signs will bring people back in time to the Waterfront’s earlier days, a press release said.  

Figus agreed.

“The signs take you back in history, because that particular area of Selkirk was a different time years ago. It was very busy, it was a hustle and bustle, there were hundreds of people working in the fisheries, logging, working on the boats, doing all kinds of things,” Figus said.

But University of Manitoba native studies Prof. Niigaan Sinclair said there’s much more to Selkirk’s history, and it’s problematic to give a history lesson about a place without acknowledging the land’s original inhabitants.

“To erase that is to completely ignore the true history of the area,” Sinclair said.

He said aboriginal people used land in and around what is now Selkirk for hundreds, if not thousands of years, before any commercial fishing or boating industries were started.

“There is no history in Selkirk without aboriginal people,” Sinclair said.

He said the community of St. Peters, which was in the Selkirk area, was a thriving place used for hunting and fishing, and it was also top-notch agriculture territory long before any European settlers arrived.  

“The area now known as Selkirk was a landing space for dozens of First Nations communities throughout the north from Norway House to Oxford House to Sagkeeng,” Sinclair said.

He noted the aboriginal peoples living around Selkirk were booted off their land in 1907 and sent to Peguis to live on scrubland that has continued to flood regularly.

The illegal eviction was settled in 2010 resulting in $118-million going to the Peguis band as compensation.

The historic settlement is one of Canada’s largest single land claims.

Figus said the City doesn’t have immediate plans in place to include a fourth display on any kind of aboriginal history, but noted the goal is to eventually have more displays around Selkirk that will tell other stories.   

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition May 14 2015 p.7