Regional News-Optimist December 31, 2020

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Our most-read stories of 2020

Readers react emotionally to tragedy Staff

Most Canadians are happy to say goodbye to 2020. It hasn’t been our best year.

But, looking back, it has been a news-filled year, and the News-Optimist has helped bring that news to our readers both in print and online.

At a time when people can’t circulate like they used to, online information has been sought after and consumed even more than past years, evidenced by the nearly three million views of News-Optimist online stories in 2020.

Here’s a look back at the most-read stories on www.newsoptimist.ca.

Our most-viewed story was not a local story, but one that had the attention of all Canadians who take pride and a proprietary interest in the famed Tudor jets and their crew. The most-read story was “Victim of Snowbirds crash in Kamloops identified.”

A short piece of information we shared from our sister news outlet, Castanet, was among the several stories we carried detailing how one member of the Canadian Armed Forces died and another was injured after

Capt. Jennifer Casey

a Snowbird jet crashed in a residential area of Kamloops, B.C. It occurred in May, sadly, while the team was on a crosscountry tour meant to impart hope during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The short story read, “The fatal victim of the Snowbirds crash in Kamloops has been identified as Capt. Jennifer Casey, sources have confirmed to Castanet News.

“Casey was the public relations officer for the Snowbirds.

“Her family has been notified of the crash.

“Her biography says she joined the Canadian Armed Forces in August 2014 as a direct entry officer. Prior to joining she spent several years working in broadcast radio as a reporter, anchor, and producer in both Halifax, NS and Belleville, ON.

“She joined the Snowbirds in November 2018.”

Through our partnership with other Glacier Media news outlets as well as The Canadian Press, we were able to publish numerous stories, photos and videos from the tragic event, but it was the short story above that put a name and a face to a Canadian all would mourn that drew our readers’ in their tens of thousands.

Not surprisingly, stories about the coronavirus pandemic and its resultant disease, COVID-19, were consumed voraciously by our readers in 2020 and will continue to be of top interest as the worldchanging story carries over into the new year.

The most-read COVID-19 story on our website in 2020 was a Maidstone area man’s description of the symptoms he experienced, written by The Canadian Press and published on our website March 26.

“No appetite, no smell, Saskatchewan athlete recounts falling ill with COVID-19” begins as follows: “The possibility of having COVID-19 started Continued on Page 2

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There is still time to tour the lights Staff The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t stop the Western Development Museum from going ahead with Light Up the Village 2020.

In fact, organizers increased the number of lighted displays and expanded hours from weekends to all week long.

It began Dec. 1 and will carry on to Jan. 9, 2021,

with the gates open to the general public for driving tours from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. each night, except statutory holidays.

Admission is $10 per car (maximum of five guests from the same household or your “bubble”). New this year is a season pass for $30 allowing families to come and tour as many times as they like. The WDM can also

accept debit or credit card at the admission gate this year.

“We’re extremely happy with the turn out this year, from sponsors as well as visitors,” says Shirley Maze, Light Up the Village co-ordinator. “Plans are already underway for next year.”

The WDM opened the village in the winter for the Continued on Page 2

Wellbeing

Happy Holidays

to you and your family, from the Staff at

Light Up the Village 2020 is on at the WDM until Jan.9. Photo by Averil Hall

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Our most-read online stories of 2020 Continued from Page 1 to become real for Brock Weston as he drove home to Saskatchewan.

“The Wisconsin college student had had fever sweats the night before. A stuffy nose and sore throat he thought were from dust in the air or maybe, at worst, a cold or flu had been hanging around for a couple of days. “‘I had no appetite. I couldn’t smell. My eyes were hurting,’ the 25-yearold told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. “‘I thought, ‘OK, maybe this is a little more than just the flu.’’

“Weston, who plays

hockey and studies biology and chemistry at Marian University, had been packing for his trip home last week when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Canadians abroad to hurry back.”

The story came near the beginning of the pandemic, at a time when Canadians wanted to know what to expect from this new disease.

Weston recovered, but he said COVID-19 certainly slowed him down.

“I had absolutely no sense of smell and no taste. I had no appetite for five days. I lost over 10 pounds,” he said. “I kind of got this migraine that just

This paper is proudly printed locally in Estevan.

carried over four or five days that made my eyes just hurt. Couldn’t look to left, right, up, down.”

Since then, many more locals have experienced COVID-19 first hand, and, here in the North West zone, 19 had died as of Tuesday.

Daily reports on COVID-19 case numbers continue to be among the most read online stories on www.newsoptimist.ca, as well as related stories from across Canada and the world.

Next in the ratings was a short but sad story that obviously tugged at the heartstrings of readers.

“Woman jumps from Saskatoon bridge” elicited numerous comments on our Facebook page expressing

sadness at such a tragedy.

Another short story, but one that resonated with Saskatchewan.

“Possible COVID-10 transmission at North Battleford Walmart” published May 31 and “COVID-19 death was in the Battlefords area” published March 3 were the next two most-read stories. Both these stories seemed to bring home that Saskatchewan wasn’t to be spared, despite its comparatively sparce population. Alice Grove, 75, died at Battlefords Union Hospital in North Battleford, where she had tested positive for COVID-19, one of the two deaths first reported in Saskatchewan.

While the News-Optimist covers plenty of

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Local Journalism Initiative reporter to the area, thanks to a federal program aimed at bolstering news coverage at a time of financial constraints in the industry, two of the stories above have helped bring to the public more information on gang-related crime in the Northwest and how courts and police are dealing with it. This coverage continues and stories resulting from the program here and across Canada, which any news outlet in Canada can reprint free of charge, are well read on www.newsoptimist.ca.

We now move on to 2021. Hopefully there are fewer tragedies to report, and continued recovery from the pandemic to celebrate.

There is still time to tour the lights

Continued from Page 1 businesses to see if they first time in 2017. The pub- would help decorate some lic seemed to enjoy it, so of the buildings and they they decided to continue, provided the lights and désays Maze. cor to do this.

“I believe driving “This helped a great through the village in the deal to make it a bigger apwinter took people back peal to our visitors,” says to a simpler time and was Maze. nostalgic for many.”

In 2019 the museum 306.634.9556 In the second year, the was able to add more lights

WDM approached a few and more businesses came

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good news as well as not so good, it is often the not so good that gets the most attention. That following stories, in order of views, were the next most-read.

“RCMP charge adult male for second degree murder” “Onion Lake Cree Nation boards up suspected meth houses, runs out gang members” “Rural resident brutally attacked after strangers ask for help with a stuck vehicle” “RCMP seek suspect in theft of firearms from NB Canadian Tire store” “RCMP say watch out for small town crime spree suspects” “Three deceased in house fire on 99th Street” With the addition of a

public events, adjust hours and institute provincial safety guidelines at all its locations, but because it was an outdoor event, Light Up the Village remained a bright light to look forward to in the winter season.

Maze says, “In the spring when businesses had to close due to COVID-19 and so many public events were cancelled, this was one that we were very happy to be able to go forward with.”

With an appeal to the community, the show could not only go on, but

it could be even bigger and better.

“This is the first time we asked for financial support and are extremely happy with the response from our sponsors. With this help we have been able to add many new displays,” say Maze.

Saskatchewan Health Regulations must be adhered to by everyone attending this event.

All net proceeds from Light Up the Village go to restoration and repairs needed in the Heritage Village.

Couple arrested by N.B. RCMP gang unit due back in court in January

By Lisa Joy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter / News-Optimist

A couple arrested by the North Battleford RCMP gang unit had two more appearances in court.

Trevor Cummer, 39, and Ashlyn Paules, 26, appeared in North Battleford Provincial Court on Dec. 3, 7, and Dec. 18 and both of their matters were adjourned.

Paules is now scheduled to appear in North Battleford Provincial Court on Jan. 19, 2021. At that appearance the Crown is ex-

pected to indicate whether they are proceeding by summary conviction or indictable offence, which is the more serious offence.

Cummer is also scheduled to appear Jan. 19, 2021, to speak to the matter.

The RCMP Gang Task Force/Street Enforcement Team arrested Cummer and Paules. According to police, they had launched a drug investigation at the end of September before executing a search warrant at a residence in the 700 block of 100 Street in North Battleford on Oct.

7. Paules was arrested at the residence and Cummer was arrested on his way to the residence.

Cummer and Paules are jointly charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, possession of hydromorphone for the purpose of trafficking, and possession of proceeds of crime.

Cummer was additionally charged with possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of a prohibited weapon.

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Saskatchewan churches increasingly targeted for break-in and theft Submitted The RCMP has issued a Crime Pattern Alert for Saskatchewan, saying there has been a significant increase in church break-ins. They are urging Saskatchewanians to help make church buildings more secure.

The Saskatchewan RCMP Crime Prevention/Crime Reduction Unit (CP/CR) has a mission to reduce crime in Saskatchewan by targeting known criminals and repeat offenders. To do so, it analyzes the features of crimes committed in Saskatchewan and finds patterns of crime.

The CP/CR has recently confirmed the existence of a new criminal trend in Saskatchewan. Since the beginning of the year 2020, there is a sig-

nificant increase in breaking and entering, thefts, mischief and attempted breaking and entering into Saskatchewan churches.

From January 2020 to November 2020, 64 of these incidents have occurred in 55 churches across Saskatchewan.

This represents an increase of 60 per cent in break-ins in churches in Saskatchewan since last year.

This new trend affects churches of all denominations.

Nothing indicates these crimes are motivated by hate, racism or ideology.

In most of these incidents, the doors of the church have been opened by force at night, after the church was closed and left vacant. Items such as money, electronics, computers,

guitars, safes, freezers and refrigerators were stolen.

The majority (43) of this year’s church break-ins occurred in Central Saskatchewan. The churches in this area have seen an increase of 173 per cent in break-ins since last year.

Monica Deters, the CP/CR crime analyst who compiled and discovered the extent of the break-in increase, is categorical about what this means: “This increase in church break-ins is concerning enough that it creates a pattern. Even though the break-ins mostly happened in the Central District and during the summer, this new criminal trend is noticeable because these break-ins happened all year and across Saskatchewan. It is imperative

that we all get involved to better secure these buildings.“ Saskatchewan RCMP is asking Saskatchewanians to help make church buildings more secure. Stay alert, especially at night, and report any suspicious activity around churches to your local RCMP detachment or police service.

If you are a resident, keep an eye on your community’s churches and ensure your religious representatives know about this new increase of break-ins into churches.

If you are a community representative, find ways to discuss the possibility of repurposing and managing abandoned churches in your community.

If you are a church caretaker, lock the doors when the church is empty, secure the objects of

value of the church in a locked space, note the identifying features and serial numbers of the electronics and household items of the church and install motion-detector lights, alarms and/or security cameras around the church.

Don’t hesitate to call your local RCMP detachment to talk about the security of your church and to learn how to make it more secure. To find your local RCMP detachment phone number, visit https:// www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/detach/ en/find/SK. Breaking and entering occurs when someone enters a building without permission with the intent of committing a crime, generally to steal or damage property. It is a Criminal Code offense.

Request for city’s help in flooding Holy Family’s skating rink brings up questions of fairness

By John Cairns

correspondence from the principal, Michelle Sarenco, outlining the request: “We are requesting the city’s assistance with flooding our skating rink.

We have the boards built and we will put the boards up. Parents have agreed to clean the ice. We would just need the city to do the flooding of the rink on an ongoing basis.

“Is this something you are willing to do?”

On the one hand there was broad support expressed for the rink, with Councillor Thomas “Bill” Ironstand voicing support.

Staff Reporter

At their last council meeting of the year on Dec. 14, North Battleford city council discussed a request by Holy Family School to flood their new outdoor skating rink.

In the end, the general feeling was that more discussion was warranted with the school division on the request, as there were a number of outstanding issues left to be addressed such as costs of water and staff hours.

Council had received

“Community rinks, they are essential to who we are as a people,” said Ironstand, who said having a rink to allow kids in the area to do productive things would keep them “off the other path.”

But several issues must still be addressed with the request, which came too late to be included in the city’s 2021 budget or to be in their work plan for the year.

The main issue seems to be logistics, as the fire hydrant is at the front of the school, and the city would need more hose for

the flooding to occur at the rink location.

Staff hours and their availability was also an issue. Adding one more rink to the number of rinks serviced by the city raised the possibility that they might have to hire someone or contract out for the extra work.

Director of Leisure Services Cheryl DeNeire noted it was already a challenge for their staff to manage their existing rinks.

DeNeire pointed out they lost all the rinks they had flooded to warm weather the previous week, so they

had to re-flood again.

The city is already responsible for six outdoor rinks including four on city property and two on school property at Connaught School and St. Mary School. Those two outdoor rinks operate as public rinks. Meanwhile, Bready School also has an outdoor rink but are 100 per cent responsible for its upkeep and flooding; it is a school rink, but is available to the public after hours.

That was yet another issue raised: whether it was consistent for the city to do some flooding at schools

while other schools do their own flooding.

The recommendation from administration was to defer the item of rink flooding at Holy Family to the next budget cycle, in 2022, and there was sentiment at the meeting to do that. No final decisions were made, however.

The general mood at the meeting was to try and find a solution. Mayor David Gillan suggested it warranted a broader discussion involving the school division about the cost-effective options for flooding the rink.

Battleford gets funding for ‘prepare to stop’ lights

By John Cairns

proved for $72,300 for their “Prepare to Stop When Flashing Installation Project,” where “prepare to stop” lights are to be put up between the intersections of 22nd Street (to Highway 40) and 29th Street on Highway 4.

The Town of Battleford

Staff Reporter

The province has announced that Battleford has received funding for a couple of “prepare to stop” lights that are planned for Highway 4.

Battleford has been ap-

went ahead with the application following council approval in September. On Tuesday, they were one of 66 communities across Saskatchewan announced as having been approved for the road safety improvement grants. A total of 70 projects

are receiving $750,000 from the Provincial Traffic Safety Fund, with the Battleford grant being the largest.

According to the province, the 70 projects include speed display signs and other speed reduction initiatives, and intersection

and crosswalk improvements.

“Everyone in Saskatchewan benefits from safer roads in our communities,” Minister Responsible for SGI Don Morgan said in a news release.

“The communities who applied know their roads

better than anyone, and the provincial government is pleased to assist their efforts to improve traffic safety. The next intake for applications begins in January, and I encourage other municipalities and Indigenous lands or territories to consider applying.”

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A look back

The year’s top food-related stories

The commentaries offered on this editorial page are intended to provide thought-provoking material for our readers.

Contributors’ articles, cartoons or letters do not necessarily reflect the opinion of any Regional News-Optimist staff.

From lab-grown meat to grocery store staff bonuses to the food-service crisis to gardening and cooking at home to panic buying

By Sylvain Charlebois

Professor of Food Distribution and Policy Dalhousie University

T H E B AT T L E F O R D S

The year 2020 was as unusual as they get, with no shortage of stories. Some flew under the radar because of the pandemic but this list is based on how some foodrelated stories will probably have long-term implications, whether they were related to COVID-19 or not.

At No. 10, the apparent end of Tim Hortons’ identity crisis.

For a few years, the iconic Canadian chain had clearly lost its bearings. The restaurant chain still has a long way to go, but 2020 may have been the first year of a turnaround story.

Alex Macedo, the former president, left in March with barely anyone noticing.

For years, the company’s marketing and product development groups were simply out of touch with what was happening out in the field and in stores. But that changed this year. Should be interesting how things unfold in a hopefully calmer 2021.

At No. 9, Singapore became the first country to allow lab-grown meat to be commercialized.

This may seem like a far-fetched idea right now for Canadians, but it’s likely just a matter of time before these products come to Canada. How they will be regulated is still a mystery.

But the cost to produce synthetic meat in labs now is probably lower than doing it conventionally, and without the slaughter and the massive environmental footprint.

This is going to pose a challenge for the livestock industry.

At No. 8, the hero pay debacle in the spring wasn’t handled well by grocers.

Increasing wages early in the year only to cancel those raises in June pointed to how ill-designed these programs were. Canadians came to realize that essential jobs in the food sector are occupied by under-appreciated, under-paid personnel.

But food retailing is all about high sales volumes with very low margins. A 10 per cent salary base increase will make many stores unprofitable. Recognizing the hard work of front-line employees is critical but it can’t be done permanently with current business models.

Sobeys, Walmart and other chains have opted to bring back “lockdown bonuses,” which was the appropriate language to use. A good comeback.

At No. 7, the apparent divorce between McDonald’s

Regional

and Beyond Meat, the darling of plant-based diets.

While McDonald’s recently announced its new McPlant products to be rolled out in 2021, Beyond Meat, which had been working with the fast-food chain for a while, wasn’t even mentioned in the release.

McDonald’s underscored its commitment to the fundamentals of agriculture and that’s a big deal for our farming community.

Beyond Meat learned the hard way that its “better than beef” rhetoric makes the company a liability. McDonald’s made that crystal clear this year.

At No. 6, the sudden rise of e-commerce in the food industry.

Online shopping has made the entire supply chain more democratic and accessible to consumers. Everyone can sell to consumers now, including farmers, processors and farmers’ markets.

In 2020, we’ve seen the food industry commit to the incredible sum of more than $12 billion in investments over five years to support online strategies.

When the year started, barely 1.7 per cent of food sales in Canada were conducted online. By the time we’ve finished with 2020, that number will have more than doubled – and almost half of Canadians intend to buy food online regularly after the pandemic.

At No. 5, the collapse of the food service industry and

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consequent pivoting due to successive lockdowns was extremely painful to watch.

We started the year spending about 36 per cent of our food budget on food consumed outside the home. In April, that percentage went down to nine per cent. By mid-summer, it went back up to about 25 or 26 per cent.

But most restaurant operators are realistic. It won’t go back up to 26 per cent anytime soon.

At No. 4, farmgate waste.

Because of disruptions created by the pandemic, Continued on Page 5

Letters welcome Letters to the editor are welcomed by the Regional Optimist. All letters, including those which are faxed or emailed, must be signed and bear the address and telephone number of the writer. The name of the writer will be published. Letters are subject to editing. Personal attacks will not be printed.

Letters will be rejected if they contain libelous statements or are unsigned.

Gordon Brewerton Senior Group Publisher

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‘Brownness Begone’

By R.H. Wood

North Battleford

There was only one person in the doctor’s dining room when I entered. He was muttering miserably about his “bran year, bran life and bran future.” He bewailed as he stared at his meal, “Bran soup, bran stew, bran pudding.”

How could anyone disparage the pudding which was seldom served and a totally delicious combination of custard and succulent jam roly-poly?

The explanation lay in his

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The

ood Pile

peculiar pronunciation of the word “brown.”

Colleagues began arriving and he was encouraged to eat up, eventually agreeing that the pudding was quite excellent and that he would like some more. This pleased us greatly as the delicacy had in the past been christened “Queen of Puddings” and the staff had obviously

made a special effort that evening.

To further resolve his sad state and since it was New Year’s Eve, a group of the residents took off to the nearest tavern to consume much peatbog flavoured nectar for which I have never really acquired a taste - same with Buckleys. I dutifully remained at the hospital

The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 5

to cover their on-call requirements, the result of not having learned to step back quickly. The “sad one” apparently settled for copious amounts of popular “bran” ale as one might have expected!

To brighten the season, we always tour the Christmas illuminations and the WDM, (Wash, Distance Mask). What a lot of effort has gone into brightening the Battlefords this year.

The colourful decorations do much to dispel the bleakness we have endured. Let us wish all who have had a brown or worse black time of it, a “Guid, Prosperous, Peaceful and Covid-free New Year”.

The year’s top food-related stories Continued from Page 4 millions of litres of milk were dumped, millions of perfectly healthy farm animals were euthanized across the country, and lettuce and mushrooms were disposed of due to lack of labour.

The waste was unbearable and incomprehensible. Most Canadians were confused and had no idea what to think of the waste.

Farmers weren’t to blame but our lack of focus on processing as a country was. Because of what happened this year, as the social contract between the food industry and consumers is being

redesigned, farmers need to be ready.

At No. 3, telecommuting, cooking, gardening and how we became more domesticated as a society.

Getting people to stay home created a tsunami

of changes. Working from home got us closer to our own kitchens, which in turn changed our relationship with food. Most of us cooked and almost 20 per cent of Canadians started a garden this year.

Many got to experience life without restaurants, if only for a while.

Only time will tell if our new habits stick.

At No. 2, amid the massive Black Lives Matter movement ignited by George Floyd’s dreadful death, PepsiCo changed the name and brand image of its Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup.

Other food companies followed suit during the summer. As in many other sectors, food marketing clearly ended a racistcharged chapter in 2020 and how food will be marketed will change.

And the No. 1 food

Journalists at risk around the world A coalition of more than a dozen press freedom and human rights groups, led by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, is calling on the Canadian government to help protect the lives of foreign journalists at risk.

In a letter written to Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco El Mendicino, the coalition is asking that the government introduce a “Journalists at Risk” program within Canada’s existing refugee system. It’s a modest proposal, allowing at least 100 “high risk” foreign journalists annually on a fast-track option to apply for Canada’s protection.

“The need for investigative journalism that holds those in power to account has never been greater,” says Canadian journalist Michelle Shephard and the chair of the CJFE’s International Committee. “And yet, journalists, writers and filmmakers worldwide have never faced the multitude of challenges that we do today. That’s why we’re asking the government to grant these journalists entry into Canada, so they can continue their critical work in safety.”

Last year, more than 50 journalists were killed worldwide, and dozens of others were imprisoned.

Many others disappeared without a trace. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a third of journalists who are murdered for what they do were threatened first.

CJFE is calling on the government to offer a path to safety for journalists who have been threatened to reduce the chance of them being murdered.

Canada has already

been a world leader when it comes to protecting the rights of journalists. The federal government, along with the UK, formed a Media Freedom Coalition in July 2019, a partnership of countries working together to advocate for media freedom and for the safety of journalists.

In recent weeks, a highlevel panel of legal experts have released three reports on behalf of the coalition, including one authored by Canada’s former Minister of Justice Irwin Cotleu

story of the year: the sudden and unnecessary panic buying of food during the first wave of the pandemic in the spring is an easy pick for the top spot.

Beyond the ridiculousness of toilet paper hoarding, the impact of empty shelves was immense.

Many Canadians would have experienced the emotions of food insecurity for the first time. Since then, behaviours and policy have been impacted by the powerful images of bare

grocery store shelves.

It was truly a moment in time.

It’s always difficult to make such a list, and anyone can add to or remove any of these stories. But this year’s list was one of the easiest to write in decades.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. www.troymedia.com

Randy Weekes

MLA Biggar-Sask Valley Constituency randyweekes.mla@accesscomm.ca Toll free number 1-877-948-4880

“We see this proposal as a chance for Canada to act quickly on one of its own recommendations ...” said Shephard.

We wish everyone a happy, healthy, and wonderful New Year

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1541 - 100th Street, North Battleford 306-445-5555

Page 6 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

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Paul Harach and the Hamps: Life is a dance By any measure, Paul Harach was an extraordinary man and a great musician to boot. His career spanned seven decades.

He was still playing his saxophone at dances when he was 90 years old. They say that music keeps you young. Paul Harach was proof of that.

In 1998, I was a member of the North Battleford Lions club. I was drafted to head a committee to organize and look after the Lions First Annual Octoberfest. It was a big deal – hundreds of people in the Battlefords and area attended this gala evening at the Don Ross Gymnasium.

We didn’t need just a good band; we needed a great band. An easy choice; I booked Paul Harach and the Hamps. We weren’t sorry. What a great evening it was –great food, great drink, fellowshipping, laughter and great music. The Hamps did not disappoint.

Paul said you can do anything if you decide to do it and set your mind to it. He taught himself to play the guitar, banjo, clarinet, keyboard and accordion.

But his main instruments were saxophones (alto, bass and tenor). A man should live his dreams. In Paul’s case, music was his dream.

Paul played at weddings since the late 1930s, their children’s weddings, then 25th, 50th and 60th anniversary parties. He noted that it was heartwarming to see families come together to reaffirm their wedding vows. It was wonderful to see couples who still had a sparkle in their eyes.

Paul noted that music had been a large and integral part of his life. He wondered what kind of music the next generation would play. Regardless, it would be music to dance to.

When Nellie died

Paul Harach circa 1990

(Jan. 21, 2013), Paul’s life changed. At age 92, he no longer had the desire to play in the band. But it wasn’t in his nature to give up on life. Remarkably, he bought himself a trumpet and taught himself to play it. He also learned to cook.

And he learned to plant and tend a garden, and many other things that Nellie used to do. Paul would call friends for recipes and tips on how to cook and prepare certain dishes. He was forever curious and with a desire to learn. And Paul had a strong stomach and he learned not to be fussy.

Paul wanted his grandchildren and future generations to know what life was like for him and Nellie decades ago – what it was like during the hard times and the good times – in a different society. So he documented their stories in “the Way We Were,” a chronological account of their extraordinarily full lives.

After Nellie’s passing, Paul lived independently, until three months before his passing, in the house that he and Nellie had built so many years before. Paul played the trumpet in the dining room of his new residence two days before he passed away on Oct. 19, 2018.

Paul gives us his life story in the first person: Early years I was born Nov. 20, 1920 to Harry and Eva Harach at Krydor. I was the eighth of 12 children.

Nine were sisters. My parents came from Ukraine in 1908 and began farming on a quarter of land that they had purchased for $10. My father was a tailor and my mother was a seamstress.

I used to watch my father draw the pattern for my new overalls, which were not always made to fit my long legs. Despite a lack of money in our family, times were good. Then the

The Hamps at Danceland - Erwin Hamp, Paul Harach, Ron Tanchak, Helmut Hamp, Eugene Hamp, Cathy Flath and Wilmer Hamp. Photos submitted

H

iebert on Heritage

Richard W. Hiebert, Ph.D President, Battlefords Heritage Society

stock market crash of 1929 – some of our relatives and friends lost their entire life’s savings. As far as my education was concerned, my last year in Zaporoze School had 54 students and one teacher, believe it or not. In 1937, I left school to farm with my father during the drought and Great Depression.

Farming tales Back in the late thirties, aspiring farmers could take a course on farming.

They learned how to hitch a plow, fix a binder knotter, and apply fertilizer, even though, sadly, no one could afford equipment or fertilizer. My father and I were luckier. We mixed fertilizer with seed as an experiment. It worked.

I bought my first tractor and one way disc in 1944.

Farming started to become an enjoyable occupation.

In 1947, my wife Nellie and I moved to farm Nellie’s stepfather’s land.

The land was mostly pasture which was unusable so we rented some cultivated land. I owned a tractor and a one-way disc. I thought that was all we needed. Wrong! I was a bit naive. We attended farm sales for years to fill the yard with equipment we needed. We bought a combine and a swather and a sprayer. I did custom work for our neighbors so the equipment paid for itself. We still didn’t have a truck so Nellie hitched two wagons together in tandem to pull behind the tractor.

On one occasion, she lost a wagon down Prokop’s Hill.

Somehow, she got back on the road.

I dreamed of owning

a cattle ranch to go with our grain farm. I bought a registered bull (Curly) for $350. He respected Nellie but not me. One day he objected to me crowding his space and let me know in no uncertain terms. One of us had to go, and it wasn’t me.

Paulette was only two years old when Nellie brought the cows in from the pasture. There was no babysitter, so Nellie left her with the chickens. Paulette loved the little chicks.

Crows and magpies competed with the chickens for food. I tried to pick them off with my 22 rifle but didn’t have much luck.

Once Nellie got fed up with offending birds and just pointed a rifle in their general direction and got her crow at 100 yards!

We harvested late at night. We used a hip roof barn and an old house to store grain. The fields were large and in the dead of night, it was easy to lose your sense of direction. I would watch Nellie drive with a full load of grain drive in circles until she saw the highway. At three in the morning I would tell Nellie, “It’s time to quit.

Nellie would reply, “Just one more load.”

In 1948 I bought a selfpropelled combine. This was the first state of the art combine in the area so there was plenty of custom work. In 1952, it was not uncommon for Nellie and I to work around the clock until we got snowed under

by Oct. 15.

After eight years of farming and feeling established, new opportunities established themselves. We

were able to buy a section of land between Speers and Richard along Highway 40. We bought all the buildings and 200 acres of crop. I figured we’d get a good portion of our investment back that year.

Wrong. Buckwheat and Russian thistle took over; the dockage was 30 per cent. It took years to clean up the field. Eventually we had a golden crop of wheat the weighed in at 40 bushels to the acre. So we took a two week holiday. When we came back, 40 head of the neighbor’s cattle were grazing in our crop. “Don’t worry,” said the neighbour.

“I’ve got insurance.” The insurance broker informed me that a tree had fallen on a section of fence, allowing the cattle into the field – “an act of God,” he said.

So much for insurance.

In 1954, we sold all of our cattle and moved to Nellie’s mother’s house in Hafford for the winter so we could work on our house. I had taken a carpenter’s course so I was doing most of the work myself. We moved in on Nov/ 28, 1955. Importantly, we continued farming from town. When our daughter Gayle got married in 1975, she and her husband helped Nellie and I with the farming. From 1977 to 2000, we farmed with two separate outfits.

One day, Nellie told me it was time to quit farming. I reluctantly agreed.

I bought a small For Sale sign and put it near the bins by the highway. The next day a neighbour dropped by and bought the land and the bins. Then it was one last harvest in 2001.

And we were done. I sold our land and retired at age 81. It was tough to leave farming, even at my advanced age. I reminisced about the good old days. I remember the beauty and silence of the sunset. I remember the Canada geese flying overhead, honking, on their way to Texas. I remember the rain when you wanted the sun and the sun

when you wanted the rain.

But mostly, I remember the miracle of growth after seeding and seeing the plants break through the soil, maturing and swaying in the Saskatchewan wind, and then gradually turning golden. I will never forget it. I remember the harvest when the days turned to nights. I remember the delicious lunches that the women brought to us in the field. I remember the frost and the urgency to finish the harvest.

Volunteering Those of us who lived in small communities, usually sat on committees and volunteered our time. I was no exception. My father signed me up as a member of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool when I was 12. Later, I became chairman, and after 75 years, I became a lifetime member.

There’s more. I was secretary of the local school board, president of the local Saskatchewan Farmers’ Union, a member of the Hafford Credit Union, a member of the Redberry Municipal Council, a long time member of the Farmers Union and founding member of the Hafford Cooperative. I was a very involved and busy man.

The travel bug In October of 1940, I bought my first car in North Battleford – a 1929 Chevrolet – for the princely sum of $142.80. This included a two per cent education tax. The licence cost $8.

Nellie and I wanted to see this interesting world of ours, so we travelled throughout Canada. Eventually, we flew around the world, visiting Europe, both eastern and western, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, the Caribbean, Mexico, Australia and Fiji. Life was grand.

Marriage, Nellie and our family Nellie (Aniela) Novicki and I were married on July 12, 1945, in St. Micheal’s Church (which was still in Continued on Page 7

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The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 7

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Paul Harach

Continued from Page 6 use at the time of this writing). We were blessed with two daughters, Paulette and Gayle. Paulette was born in 1950 and married Ron Schatz. They have four daughters – Akua, Rebecca, Naomi, and Hannah. Gayle was born in 1955 and Married Len Semko. They have two sons – Jesse and Jacob.

Paulette and Ron work abroad including Ukraine and Afghanistan. Gayle and Len enjoy successful careers in Saskatoon. Our children and grandchildren regularly telephone and visit. It is such a joy.

When I first saw Nellie, she was with her two sisters at a community dance. I couldn’t help but notice that she could dance a mean jitterbug. She was smiling and laughing. I was absolutely mesmerized. I was struck. I knew then that Nellie would marry me and make my life complete. Nellie was at my side throughout our lives and our many adventures.

She was my life partner and we loved each other so much. Family came first, but Nellie still had time for community work.

She drove people to the hospital for appointments, delivered Meals on Wheels, helped organize the Hafford Music Festival, sat on the executive of the Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League, was a member of the Hafford Hospital Association, a member of the curling club and helped our babas make rugs from rags. She still had time to bake her famous chiffon cakes and buns for church bazaars and fund raisers. We had a lot in common. Nellie was my wonderful wife, the faithful mother of our children – the foundation of our family. Nellie’s kind heart showed when she left goodies in the mailbox for the newspaper carrier. She was the light of my life, and for our children and grandchildren. My music would take me to many places and long hours in the field I longed for home and Nellie. She still waited for me till three or four in the morning. Invariably, she left a love note on the table to read. Sixty-five years of marriage seems hard to believe. It seems like yesterday that I was pushing my bicycle up the hill to pick up Nellie for a date.

My musical career I got into music and a dance orchestra early in life. We put together the Harach Melody Boys in 1938. We had a two year run. Then our cousins (band members) moved away. We regrouped and started another band. I bought my first banjo in 1939 from Eaton’s for $29.

I put $5 down and needed two references to vouch that I would pay the required $2 per month payments. I eventually sold the banjo and bought a clarinet (payments were $3.05 for

2021 Paul Harach and Anelia Novicki were married July 12, 1945. Photo submitted

10 months. Yes, those were the days.

We travelled by Bennet Buggy or by foot carrying our instruments. We were paid the magnificent sum of $5 which, of course, had to be divided up among the band members. We didn’t care. We loved music and we loved to play. Sometimes we played four times a week. An old fashioned Ukrainian farm wedding would last at least three days. The first day would be at the bride’s place where the ladies would lament while braiding the bride’s hair. The second day was reserved for the church ceremony. The band played on a grain bin platform for the dance. The congregation was usually generous in giving tips.

The third day was at the groom’s place. There was bargaining at the gate, over a few drinks, to determine who would lead the bridal entourage with the bride’s trunk and dowry.

Fifteen cents was charged at the door for regular dances, but girls were admitted free. Theoretically, this would motivate the young men to put away their inhibitions and ask a girl to dance. Eventually we went big time and commanded $1 each. What would we do with all that money? Top bands were getting $8 for a five piece band. In 1940, I purchased a saxophone for $30. That was how I became the leader of a band with others to follow. I continued playing with pick up bands, with neighbours, and cousins. On one occasion, we were booked at the last minute to play at one of the dance platforms on a Sunday because the guy who hired us did not think the band he booked would show up because they had played a Saturday night dance which lasted all night long. But the band showed up. So we had two bands taking turns playing.

In the early 1930s and up to the early 40s, platform

and hall dances were often shut down by the police to enforce the Saturday night curfew. This had the effect of scattering the bootleggers.

I played with the Victory Aces (later the Hafford Aces), the Rhythmaires, the D Ace 5 variously from 1944 to 1945. In 1965, I joined the Hamp Brothers Band from Radisson and stuck with them. The band consisted of brothers Erwin, Wilmer, Eugene and Helmut with Cathy Flath as singer. Later, accordion player, Ron Tanchuk joined the band. We played weddings, community dances and clubs. We played in hotels and dance halls and even the Centennial Auditorium in Saskatoon. We came a long way from the days of the country platform dances, and the farm granary wedding dances.

In 2007, two of my good musician friends, Steve Puto and Andy Tokaryk, and I were were recognized by the Redberry Municipal Council, Town of Hafford and community as “accomplished double diamond musicians” who played for more than 70 years in Saskatchewan.

The Hamp brothers, Kathy, Ron and I produced a CD, and more recently, Ron and I (as the Diamond Aces) launched our Musical Journey CD. Our purpose was to share the joy of music with our families, friends, other musicians and Canadians abroad.

Music continued to be a big part of my life. I transposed music to a key I liked. I enjoyed jamming with my musical friends, playing at nursing homes, fall bazaars, and fundraising events like the annual Hafford Polka Fest. We also played Veselka, and dance clubs in North Battleford, Prince Albert and Saskatoon.

(Source: The Paul Harach Story: Life is a Dance circular; The Way We Were circular; Gayle Semko)

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Page 8 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

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Cairns on Cinema

Update on Wonder Woman 1984, Tom Cruise and other movie news

By John Cairns Staff Reporter

Welcome again to Cairns on Cinema. I hope you have all managed to get through the holiday season in one piece and got a few good movie DVDs or Blu-Rays under the Christmas tree.

Normally, it would be around this time of the year that I would start writing my Cairns on Cinema box office year in review column. But I’ve decided to hold off on that depressing topic for another week, and simply focus on the latest news.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sort of glad to see the “blockbusters” back in circulation again, albeit in an unusual sort of way.

It makes life seem sort of more normal.

Christmas Day 2020 was the debut of Wonder Woman 1984. This is the second Wonder Woman movie directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot, with the movie set in the glitzy 1980s.

Yes, the decade of Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev! Michael Jackson!

Yuppies! Robin Leach!

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous!

Come to think of it, it was also the decade of Donald Trump — but it seems like every decade is the “decade of Trump” in one way or another, including our current one.

Trump, you’re fired!

It’s a sure sign we’re all getting old when we have the eighties-nostalgia getting rolled out in movies. I remember seeing the spy movie Atomic Blonde starring Charlize Theron a few years back, which was set in ‘89 Berlin as the

Wall was coming down.

That movie was even better for the nostalgia with its Eighties-era rock tunes in it — all these tunes that had been played over and over on music video shows on MTV. So the eighties are seeing a big pop culture comeback. About time.

To be honest, it would have been even funnier if this latest Wonder Woman movie was set in the seventies, because that’s when the TV show aired.

It might have made for a better movie — I notice there is a ton of complaints about how long it is.

Obviously, the Dec. 25 release date had been delayed numerous times and in the end was not even the full rollout in cinemas they had hoped for. They are doing a combined theatrical-digital release.

All things considered, they did decent business.

In its first weekend in cinemas, Wonder Woman 1984 earned a domestic haul of $16.7 million, which is the best domestic box office weekend for any movie since the pandemic was declared.

By contrast, when the first Wonder Woman movie came out in 2017, it had an opening weekend of $103 million. That gives you a good idea about how far the domestic box office has fallen for the movies in general.

When you add in the $68 million gross from international markets, Wonder Woman 1984 has made $84 million so far, which sounds good until you realize that under normal circumstances it should be making hundreds of millions of dollars by now.

“Warner Bros. must be kicking itself for all the money it isn’t making on [Wonder Woman 1984], but I guess they decided simply to get it over with.” – JC Warner Bros. must be kicking itself for all the money it isn’t making on this release, but I guess they decided simply to get it over with. Also, I find it bizarre reading all these headlines claiming Wonder Woman 1984 “dominated” this weekend’s box office. I’m sorry, but this is “fake news.” $16.7 million is not “domination” in any way, but it’s better than nothing.

I notice the CGIanimated Soul from Disney-PIXAR, featuring the voices of stars such as Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey, is also released this week digitally on the Disney Plus platform. Usually, PIXAR movies will absolutely clean up at the box office, often topping the box office for the week.

Soul is another movie that could have been expected

to open in 3,000 or so theatre venues to blockbuster weekend numbers of upwards of $60 or $70 million or so. But these aren’t normal times, and so this movie is getting a digital release which would have been unheard of just a year ago.

Okay, I’ve had enough of attempting to report on the box office. Now, on to the lighter side of the news.

I want to talk about the incident not long ago that went viral — the infamous “rant” by Tom Cruise, who infamously blew his top at his staff during the filming of the latest Mission Impossible movie in the United Kingdom.

Reports are that Cruise caught a couple of workers breaking COVID-19 protocols by being too close together near a computer,

and that prompted him to go ballistic at his entire crew. He launched a tirade that ended up getting recorded and leaked to the press. It ended up in the British tabloid the Sun. “We are the gold standard!” Cruise yelled.

“They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us!

Because they believe in us and what we’re doing! I’m on the phone with every f***ing studio at night, insurance companies, producers, and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies.

“We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherf*****s! I don’t ever want to see it again, ever! And if you don’t do it, you’re fired! If I see you do it again, you’re f***ing gone. And anyone on this crew does it, that’s it — and you, too, and you, too!

And you — don’t you ever f***ing do it again!! That’s it, no apologies! You can tell it to the people that are losing their f***ing homes because our industry is shut down...”

How viral did this rant get? I noticed even John Gormley had a field day with this on his radio show, replaying the audio over and over again.

Gormley was comparing it to Cruise’s scene in Jerry Maguire. “Help me... help you!! Baaaahahahahaha!!

Of course, this is not the only weird incident to involve Cruise, who was ridiculed years ago over his “jumping on a couch” incident on the Oprah Winfrey show. Pretty much the whole moviegoing public is turned off by his antics by now, yet the reason he’s still a big

star is because his movies are too good, and he’s too good in them. Top Gun! Jerry Maguire! Mission Impossible!

Personally, I think this whole incident is a good example of how toxic things are in Hollywood in general. More broadly, it also shows you how much pressure everyone is under, with COVID-19 regulations crushing businesses.

Hollywood is under more pressure than most, with revenues decimated and with movie shoots getting called off all over the world. It’s freaking difficult to get any movie shoots going at all in this environment, and more difficult to get a decent release for the finished product of any movie.

Keep in mind that it’s a challenge just to get movie shoots off the ground even during normal times. Now, even you are able to get a movie financed and get a production going, you have all these new health restrictions and protocols you have to follow, on top of all the other occupational health-and-safety and other regulations you have to do on a movie shoot.

For the Mission Impossible franchise, there is a lot on the line including Cruise’s own money and reputation (what’s left of it, anyway). On top of that, there’s also the pressure of getting roasted in the media for COVID-19 violations on the set, and that could get the whole production shut down by the government and kicked out of the country. Heck, even following the rules isn’t enough to prevent many businesses from being shut down in this environment — especially in Britain, which is under a big lockdown.

If word were ever to leak out about COVID-19 violations on Mission Impossible 7 in the U.K., and then a big scandal erupts, who are the press and the government going to go after? Who else: Tom Cruise!

So while this profane rant surely isn’t a good look for Cruise at all — and I understand a few of his crew members quit in disgust after this unprofessional display — his meltdown is actually kind of understandable. These times we are living in are driving us all up the wall, and the pressure to keep businesses afloat is unimaginable. Some are having more trouble dealing with it than others — like Cruise, clearly.

Anyway, if you think you’re having problems dealing with COVID-19, know you are not alone. I just found this whole Tom Cruise story to be funny.

That’s all for now.

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The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 9

A fright in the forest

O

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an inspiration for this piece of embroidery made by Marcella Pedersen. “I hope you enjoy reading and studying the symbols. Did you find the roll of toilet paper?” Pedersen asks. Photo submitted

COVID-19 is but a stitch in time Staff

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an inspiration for a piece of embroidery made by Marcella Pedersen.

The Cut Knife-area embroidery artist completed an embroidery art design that commemorates the year of COVID-19 – but one in particular that focused on the positive aspects, which included people coming together.

Pedersen writes the following about her latest work: COVID-19 Virus was the inspiration to stitch this piece to use up thread on hand and fill in lockdown time. When you live two and a half hours away from possible supplies, you collect what you can at garage sales, seminars and online.

So I had accumulated quite a stash and the lockdown provided opportunity to use up the stash.

In developing this design I was looking for a circular hardanger piece.

I found two samples from Ruth Hanke and Jeannette Sorensen, so adapted Jeannette’s to suit the size of fabric I had on hand.

In designing this piece I looked for samples of what the COVID-19 virus looked like. Then I went to some graph paper to design a COVID-19 in hardanger stitching. From there I

went to stitching the center COVID-19. With the four corners of the COVID-19, I decided to make this piece of art a memorial of COVID-19. I decided to fill the corner blocks with symbols of what we were experiencing: masks, hand sanitizer, washing hands and physical distancing. Even the fill-in stitches – I wanted to make them spikey looking.

After the center was completed, I was trying to decide whether to put circular cutwork around the COVID center or to stitch four more COVID-19s and then implement the cutwork around the outside. The latter was chosen. From there, I stitched the outside cutwork. As I stitched the four corner COVIDs, I wondered what to put in the little squares.

In looking for the initial symbols, I found a few more, but not 16 of them.

There have been both positive and negative aspects of COVID-19, but I decided I would like to focus on the positives.

In designing some embroidery art re COVID-19, I asked for help on Facebook, looking for 16 positive words or symbols as a result of COVID-19. With all the suggestions (52 of them), they seemed to fall into four categories: Benefits, Necessities, What Helped, What Changed or Needs to Change. Some

words were hard to decide which category to put them into and some lists ended up longer than others so I had to compromise. Some words became symbols eg.

Love, Prayer, Serenity.

Benefits: Family, Prayer, Together, Reunited, Reflection, Time, Nature, Serenity.

Necessities: Toilet Paper, Yeast/Flour, Shelter, Love, Clean Air, Community, Resilience, Essentials, Safety, Locally, Biodiversity, Relationships, Optimism.

What Helped: CERB, Zoom, Kindness, Music, Slowness, Tolerance, Solidarity, Generosity and Collection Action, Exercise, Reading, Selflessness, Commitments. Innovation, Flowers, Dormancy, Incubation, Blueness of Sky. What Changed: Priorities, Back to Basics, Silence, Women’s Work Invaluable, Thankfulness, New Beginnings, Relief, Recover, Reconnection, Simple Times, What Needs to Change: Sustainability, Guaranteed Annual Income, Reset, Reimagine.

Covid-19 (1): Love, Nature, Time, Serenity Covid 19 (2): Prayer, Music, CERB, Zoom Covid 19 (3): Change, Reunited, Clean Air, Shelter.

Covid 19 (4): Exercise, Water, Bread, Toilet Paper.

By Sarah Beauregard and Johannie Dufour / Translated by Katya Teague nce upon a time, in the town of Mount Christmas, two young strangers were waiting for relatives to arrive at the train station. They sat on separate benches, each absorbed in their own book. Naoko was reading the autobiography of Jaëlle, a famous pop singer, and Eduardo was studying the French play Cyrano de

Bergerac.

Suddenly, a voice rang out from the speakers overhead. “Your attention, please. Due to a snowstorm, the number 9 train from Holly-on-the-Lake will be delayed.”

Both Naoko and Eduardo sighed and glanced at the station clock. Their eyes met for a brief moment, but they quickly looked back at their books.

If I weren’t so shy, I’d go talk to her, Eduardo thought. It’d be nice to wait together.

I’m starting to get tired of reading, and this young man seems interesting, Naoko thought.

After a few minutes, Eduardo worked up the courage to approach the young woman.

“Hello,” he said, fumbling for words. “Uh… are you waiting for someone?”

“Of course,” Naoko replied with a half-smile. “There’s nothing else to do here.”

“You’re right,” Eduardo said with a weak chuckle. The young man turned on his heels and headed straight to the bathroom.

His cheeks were hot and flushed, and his heart was pounding. He needed to splash some water on his face. Eduardo turned on the faucet, but in his haste, he opened the tap too far.

Water came gushing out and splashed all over his shirt and pants.

“I’m such a klutz,” he exclaimed. “Now she’ll laugh at me for sure.”

Suddenly, Octave the cardinal appeared. This magical creature was known for keeping a watchful eye on the people of Mount Christmas. He looked at Eduardo and offered his advice.

“The key to speaking with a pretty lady is chivalry,” the bird said.

“Chivalry?” Eduardo looked skeptical. “Isn’t that a little medieval?”

“Perhaps,” Octave replied, “but courtesy is always appreciated, even today. It shows that you’re polite and respectful.”

Eduardo considered the idea while he held the edge of his soaked shirt under the hand dryer. When he returned to the platform where Naoko sat, he decided to take the bird’s advice.

“Please excuse my graceless introduction earlier,” he said. “Your radiant smile caused my heart to race, and I behaved foolishly. Would you allow me to buy you a coffee or hot chocolate to make amends?”

Amused by this old-fashioned tone, Naoko chuckled and accepted his offer with a smile.

When he returned with their beverages, Eduardo noticed that Naoko was shivering so he promptly draped his jacket over her shoulders.

As they sipped their warm drinks, Naoko and Eduardo talked about books, their families

and their plans for the holidays. Three hours later, the voice from the overhead speakers announced the arrival of the number 9 train.

“What, already?” the pair exclaimed. Neither of them had noticed the time pass.

“Eduardo,” Naoko said coyly. “It was kind of you to buy me a drink and keep me company, but can I please ask for one more thing?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied. “What?”

“Your phone number,” she said with a smile.

Perched atop the station clock, Octave looked down at the happy couple. “No, chivalry certainly isn’t dead,” he said. The magical bird fluttered his wings and flew off into the distance.

Brought to you by Chris & the Staff

Merry Christmas

from our family to yours

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Page 10 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

Regional News-Optimist

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New Year celebrations will be a little different this year.

While we cannot gather together as we have in the past, we can be confident that better days are ahead.

Hon. Scott Moe, Premier

MLA for Rosthern-Shellbrook scottmoe.mla@sasktel.net

Jeremy Cockrill

MLA for The Battlefords office@jeremycockrill.ca

Happy New Year; be safe in 2021.

Ryan Domotor

MLA for Cut Knife-Turtleford domotor.mla@sasktel.net

Struck by lightning, a not-so-stolen car, lost treasure and more – Quirky and unusual claims from the last year 20201214_News Optimist Ad_ New Year 2020.indd 1

Submitted

12/14/2020 11:51:57 AM

parked it before her procedure – she just didn’t see it because of her eye surgery!

Her claim was closed after she got her car back.

Hopefully lightning doesn’t strike twice: While camping this summer, a customer was sitting outside by his tent trailer under a large tree watching a thunderstorm. All of a sudden, lightning struck his foot, exited from his arm and struck the tree, causing a branch to break and fall on his trailer. Thankfully, our customer was unharmed, but the trailer was damaged beyond repair and the electricity fried some of the contents. We replaced the trailer and the contents so now he’s all set to go camping again.

Insurance companies were created to help people get back on their feet after a rough time. In the last year, Aviva Canada has handled thousands of property and auto claims – including a few quirky and unusual ones: A sight for sore eyes: After having eye surgery, a customer returned to the parking lot of the hospital to drive home but her car was nowhere in sight. Assuming it was stolen, the customer reported the theft to the police and called us to start her claim, then took a taxi home.

The next morning, the police found the vehicle in the exact spot where she’d

Two fast, two furious: A customer purchased a new car and a few weeks later had a flat tire. They took it into the dealership to be serviced. However, before they could make the repair, another driver reversing in the parking lot backed into our customer’s vehicle, smashing it into a pole. The damage was so extensive that the car was deemed a total loss. So our customer ended up buying the exact same car for the second time in less than three months.

Buyer beware! Treasure to trash: A customer filed a claim for several missing pieces of jewelry and an “original” Atocha coin, supposedly recovered from a Spanish shipwreck.

By Elaine Woloshyn Correspondent

I am sure everyone had a good Christmas dinner with all the turkey trimmings. The Heifer and Hen Restaurant in Chitek Lake Your curiosity fuels our commitment to keep you was open for a take-out informed on local news, events and businesses. turkey meal. Amy and staff Together, we make a community that’s connected worked hard to prepare this every minute at newsoptimist.ca in order to offer an option and every Thursday in your to two-member households The Battlefords Regional NEWS-OPTIMIST who did not want to cook 00 46-43 an entire turkey.

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tleford and is now learning the skill of feeding and caring for bison.

Condolences to Sandra on the passing of her husband, Jim Rings of Chitek lake. They are the owners of a golf course there. Anyone who has golfed reports on how nicely the northern surroundings are, with many birds, squirrels and deer on the course to entertain the golfers. A “for sale” sign has been posted at the main highway for the past two years. His mother-in-law Marilyn Morley also lives in Chitek.

Snowbirds are now travelling more, as Arizona and Florida are going to administer COVID-19 vaccinations to individuals at a small fee. This will be a welcome route to getting

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back to normal for some seniors who have been going south for many years.

The warmer climate is always a drawing card, not to mention relaxation in the sun.

“Tough people don’t last forever, but tough people do.” The pandemic will eventually fade in people’s minds and life will normalize, but many small businesses have been sinking.

Let us patronize the mom and pop shops as much as possible.

Happy New Year to all and wishes for a better year head. Thank you to the people for and near who appreciate reading my column, as I do receive phone calls from those who have moved away and try to stay connected to us Mayfair folks, Also, a big bouquet to editor Jayne Foster and to the hard-working staff who produce the Regional News-Optimist week after week to keep us informed locally.

New Year’s Resolutions T GREA

1. Start my Journey tors towards Better Hearing! i s i v Step #1 n t- oCall Battleford's Hearing at (306) 445-5700 e 4 p y o a ex s Step #2 - Book my Hearing test!

Higghrw -M g lane Aassiin p en2. Book a hearing test for that certain someone p o w no you think maybe needs one too! ®/™ ©

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oured* 98% of claims in 2019, which was 266K claims amounting to more than $3B paid out to customers. This works out to paying out almost $8.5M every day of the year or $5,896 every minute. *Honoured refers to all claims that were opened, processed and resolved, with or without payout in 2019. Data calculated by dividing all paid and processed claims by the total number of claims received between January 1 and December 31, 2019. The figure includes property and auto claims.

Mild weather promotes outdoor activities

We’re HERE because YOU’RE here.

LEFO

up some toys worth over $250 and left them sitting in the back seat of her car, meant for a charity organization that helps mothers and children fleeing domestic violence.

To her shock, someone smashed the window of the vehicle and stole all the presents – without even knowing what the gifts were! In the spirit of giving over the holidays, Aviva claims employees raised a donation of over $2,000 for the charity. We also honoured the claim and got the car repaired.

Aviva Canada hon-

Upon investigation, we determined the certificate of authenticity for the coin provided to our customer was fake. Due to the unusual circumstances of this particular claim and because there was no way for us to verify the authenticity of the missing coin, we decided, in good faith to honour the claim. We paid for the replacement cost of the coin at its original purchase price, as part of the larger jewelry claim.

Not this time, Mr. Grinch! A few weeks ago, a customer had wrapped

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The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 11

A look at the top ten weather events in 2020 Across Canada, it was another year of destructive and impactful weather Environment Canada Canada is warming at nearly twice the global rate with parts of western and northern Canada warming three or four times the global average. Sea ice in the North is thinning and shrinking, and our unique ice shelves are crumbling into pieces. While Canada is still the snowiest country, less snow is falling across the south. White Christmases’ are less frequent and less white. Frostfree days are increasing, and our growing season is longer, but so too is the length and severity of the wildfire season. Weather systems are moving slower, leaving more time to make an impact. When it rains it often rains harder and longer. Records continue to topple like never before, often dramatically shattering previous records.

So-called unprecedented events are becoming common, happening back-toback, not decades apart.

Our “Goldilocks” weather is not so sure any more with conditions being either too hot or too cold and too wet or too dry.

Scientists have made a clear link between climate change and extreme weather events that include heat waves, wildfires,

some flooding and sea ice loss, and strong possibilities for linkages to heavy rain, icing, drought and storminess. As Canadians continue to experience more extreme weather, these top news events will simply, decades from now, be called “normal”. As the Top Ten Weather Stories of 2020 bear out, exceptional weather which we thought was futuristic is occurring here and now. It is playing out in our backyards, in our communities and in our country. What 2020 showed, through smoky skies in British Columbia, frequent hurricanes in the East, and vanishing ice in the North, climate change occurring elsewhere outside of Canada is also having an increasingly greater impact on the health and well-being of Canadians at home.

Across Canada, 2020 was another year of destructive and impactful weather. Property damage from weather cost Canadians millions of dollars and the economy billions.

Based on preliminary estimates compiled by Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ), there were nine major catastrophic weather events, with total insured loss estimates approaching $2.5

billion. But that was only a fraction of total property losses and infrastructure costs from major and nuisance weather costing billions more.

From a list of 100 significant weather happenings across Canada in 2020, events were ranked from one to ten based on factors that included the degree to which Canada and Canadians were impacted, the extent of the area affected, economic and environmental effects and the event’s longevity as a top news story.

10. August long-weekend storms: East and West The civic long weekend in August featured some nasty summer weather in both southern Alberta/ Saskatchewan and in Ontario. First, in the East, a low-pressure system crossed through central Ontario late August 1 through August 2. The warm front associated with the system brought significant tropical-sourced moisture between 50 and 70 mm from Windsor to the Greater Toronto Area and Niagara, and along the north shore of Lake Ontario. Rainfall in Barrie totalled between 80 and 90 mm, more than the average monthly total, and

Happy New Year!

To All Our Customers, Friends And Family From the staff at Nutters Tanis

Ray

Audrey

Maryann Marla

Pat

Debby

Lilly

Christine

Cheryl

#5 11204 Railway Ave E | North Battleford, SK

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the highest of any August one-day rainfall in history and the most one-day amount for any month in 25 years. A couple of volunteer observers reported in excess of 100 mm of rain in Western Ontario.

The storm system spawned four tornadoes with winds clocking between 130 and 190 km/h.

In the West on August 2 and 3, pulses of energy in the midst of hot and humid air destabilized the atmosphere, resulting in

several robust storms, featuring large tennis- and baseball-sized pulverizing hailstones. Strong thunder cells also produced damaging wind gusts and heavy rainfall that triggered localized flash flooding.

Large hailstones inflicted extensive property damage in Crossfield, Alberta near Carbon, from Cremona to Drumheller, and at a campground northwest of Calgary. Winds in excess of 100 km/h inflicted damage to trees and dwellings

in Killam, southeast of Edmonton and at Forestburg.

In Macklin, Saskatchewan storm winds took down trees and power lines and tore off a hotel roof. Hail cracked several windows and windshields, damaged siding on several buildings in town and scarred golf course greens. Costs of this August hailstorm in Alberta and Saskatchewan included 4,000 insurance claims totaling $55 million in property losses.

Amidst the storm, three non-damaging tornadoes occurred including one at Youngstown and two near Dorothy, Alberta.

9. Fall in Canada – winter in the West and summer in the East Across much of the Prairies residents welcomed unseasonably warm weather during the first week of November, but with an eye on a powerful storm lining up to the West. From November 7 to 9, the summery interlude came to a dramatic end with the arrival of a slow-moving, moistureladen Colorado low from the American northwest.

Strong winds with gusts up to 85 km/h ushered in the storm and combined with falling temperatures to produce wind chill values Continued on Page 12

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Regional News-Optimist

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A look at the top ten weather events in 2020 Continued from Page 11 of -22. Moreover, the storm featured a mixture of heavy snow and rain and/ or a congealment of ice pellets and freezing rain, prompting lockdown conditions from southwestern Alberta (south of Calgary) through central and southern Saskatchewan, and into northwestern Manitoba. It was mostly snow in Alberta and central Saskatchewan with recordbreaking amounts drifting and blowing about in sudden whiteout conditions.

Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Kindersley, Saskatchewan took the biggest hit with 50 hours of snowfall (30 to 47 cm), much of it blowing around. Maple Creek and Swift Current, Saskatchewan were buried in 2-metre drifts. In southeastern Saskatchewan and in southern Manitoba prolonged periods of freezing rain and ice pellets kept snowfall totals down but added to the treacherous driving conditions. Residents were prepared for the well-publicized winter blast, but, the wintery nightmare created significant impacts with damage to leafed trees and power lines. Travel was nearly impossible and dangerous with sudden reduced visibility. New snows made most surfaces icy and slippery. Local businesses, community centres and

schools closed early or never opened at the beginning of the week as dense snow choked streets and highways.

In contrast, at the end of October and in early November, southern parts of Ontario and Quebec had a taste of winter with the season’s first snowfall and biting frosts. But summer weather made a quick return with an unprecedented long stretch of record-breaking high temperatures across Ontario, parts of southern Quebec, and eventually into Atlantic Canada beyond Remembrance Day. Over a remarkable stretch of eight days 200 daily high temperature records were set from Ontario to Newfoundland with some readings eclipsing the previous record by several degrees.

On November 9, the temperature in Collingwood,

Ontario soared to 26°C --- one of the highest temperatures ever in the province for November and the warmest November day in 60 years.

8. Frigid spring helps Canadians self-isolate It is often said that spring is reluctant to arrive in Canada. In 2020, spring was not late; it went missing. Following a mild winter, the weather turned cold across most of southern Canada in March and persisted for another two months. At times, negative temperature anomalies were extraordinary, reaching as much as -22 degrees in parts of Alberta at the end of March. Most of the blame goes to the polar vortex which for most of winter remained at home, circulating the North Pole before sagging southward in March bringing with it an expansive cold air mass.

More than 80% of Canada had a colder than-normal spring. April was especially cold and cruel being the sixth coldest April in 73 years in the Prairies and southeastern Canada.

April felt like late-November with double-digit negative highs and wind chills pushing –35 in central Alberta. The cold spell continued into the first half of May. Temperatures felt more like early March than early May; and Mother’s Day more like St. Patrick’s Day. The lingering springtime chill, along with May snows, fit the mood of the nation, frozen in place. In some ways, Mother Nature made it easier for Canadians to self-isolate indoors to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Mother Nature joined with public health officials to keep people dutifully two metres apart in the warmth of their own homes. Further, on May weekends, because people who normally went away to cottages or cabins tended to stay put, there was a slower start to the wildfire season compared to most.

7. The year’s most powerful tornado In a year with at least 77 tornadoes across Canada, the highest rated and therefore the most powerful tornado occurred on August 7 in southwestern Manitoba near the rural

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municipalities of Pipestone and Sifton. On August 6, individual storm cells produced large hail, powerful winds and torrential downpours in Alberta. The next day, the low-pressure system shifted eastward posing a threat with large hail, heavy rains, and damaging winds through the afternoon and early evening hours in eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba. Environment and Climate Change Canada issued a tornado warning at 7:49 pm and five minutes later a monster funnel cloud filled the sky and grounded as an EF-3 tornado near Scarth, 13 km south of Virden, Manitoba.

Violent winds blew over 200 km/h lasting between 10 and 15 minutes, leaving a 9-km long damage trail of farm buildings, chewed up grain silos, crushed steel fertilizer bins, snapped trees, felled powerlines and wooden utility poles, with scattered debris across yards and fields.

A man from the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation witnessed the twister’s ferocious strength when winds uprooted a pine tree and tossed it onto his Jeep’s roof seriously injuring him. Within seconds, winds blew out the vehicle’s windows and started rolling it for 150 m before it settled in a ditch.

At the scene, he witnessed the tragic sight of the tornado lifting a pickup truck and tossing it a kilometre away. Police and other first responders found the crushed truck. Tragically, its two teenage occupants from nearby Melita, Manitoba had been ejected and did not survive. The Scarth tornado was the strongest twister recorded in Canada in 2020, reaching wind speeds estimated as high as 260 km/h.

6. Record hurricane season and Canada wasn’t spared Meteorologists pre-

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dicted another “active” Atlantic hurricane season in 2020, but a record season was more like it! The tally at the official end of the season was 30 named storms, 13 hurricanes of which 6 became major hurricanes– approaching three years’ worth of storms in one. Named storms went from Arthur to Wilfred and started again from Alpha to Iota. The “hyper” storm season reflected a warm multi-decadal cycle of high storm activity that began in 1995 and broke the record for the number of named storms in a single season set back in 2005. As forecasters are getting better at detecting even weaker storms, it was no surprise that once again a couple of them showed earlier on the map. For the record sixth year in a row, a named storm formed in the Atlantic basin prior to the official start of the season.

5. St. John’s “snowmageddon” Meteorologists called it a bomb cyclone, where a storm’s atmosphere dropped 24 hPa (degrees of pressure) in 24 hours.

For townies in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador it was “Snowmageddon” – the fiercest blizzard of a lifetime in a city known for its punishing winter storms. On the morning of January 16, a deep low-pressure system situated in western New York tracked through the northeastern United States before continuing onwards to Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula - a normal track for a mid-winter storm.

For much of the next day, the storm deepened and strengthened to “bomb” status, its pressure dropping more than 54 hPa in 48 hours. Snow began falling early on January 17, intensified during the day, before easing up later overnight. Blizzard conditions prevailed for 18 straight hours with visibilities of 200 metres or less. St. John’s International Airport broke its historic daily snowfall record with 76.2 cm and had to stay closed for six days.

Nearby, Mount Pearl and Paradise reported 90 cm of snow over 28 hours. Snowfall intensity of 10 cm an hour was impressive. The last time St. John’s saw something close to 75 cm of snow was in April 1999, when the pre-storm ground was snow bare.

Winds on January 17 were impressive, reaching hurricane force at 160 km/h along the coast. The deep low and strong winds also generated a significant storm surge with a wave height of 8.7 m on January 18, damaging docks, wharfs and yachts. But it was all about the snow!

Most times you couldn’t tell if it was snowing or just blowing around. Monster drifts were higher than doorways, which meant Continued on Page 13

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Top ten weather events

for weeks in the city, but it also made news worldwide from the United Kingdom to Turkey to Australia.

With 12 days to go in January, St. John’s broke the record for their snowiest January since records began, totalling 166 cm from January 1-19, 2020. No wonder the local townies called it Janubury.

Continued from Page 12 people often had to dig from the inside out. The super-sized storm left piles of snow higher than houses.

The city was entombed in snowdrifts. There was even an avalanche in the middle of downtown. St. John’s, claiming to be the snowiest major city in Canada, earned its reputation and declared a state of emergency along with 11 other nearby communities. This marked the city’s first in 36 years - which lasted more than nine days. Another 10 to 20 cm of snow fell over the next days making cleanup efforts even more challenging. That is when 625 Canadian Armed Forces personnel arrived for a week or more to help dig out the city by clearing roads, attending to the elderly and sick and ensuring residents got medical care.

Plugged narrow streets became an enormous struggle for crews cleaning more than 14,000 km of city roads. Power outages occurred to more than 20,000 hydro customers.

All businesses were ordered closed and all vehicles except emergency ones were prohibited from operating. Even government snowplows were taken off the streets. Mail delivery was halted but even when resumed, mailboxes were buried; blood donor clinics closed; even funerals had to be postponed.

Homeowners ran out of supplies and lined up at grocery stores five days after the storm ended when they were able to reopen.

Insurer costs exceeded $17 million, covering only a fraction of snow removal costs and economic losses.

The monster snowstorm on January 17 was the big talk

4. Endless hot summer in the East Following a cold spring with frost and snow in the first half of May, the weather in Central and Eastern Canada soon turned from slush to sweat. The long weekend in May - often the unofficial kick-off of summer - proved prophetic and a trendsetter. In Eastern Canada, it was the summer of summers – coming early and staying warm until almost Labour Day. Overall, it was either the fourth or fifth warmest summer in 73 years and the warmest since 2012. Temperatures started exceeding 30°C on May 25 and humidex values soared close to 40 in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.

On May 27, Montreal hit 36.6°C, its hottest May temperature ever. In fact, it was the second-highest reading ever in Montréal!

The only hotter day in 15 decades was 37.7°C on August 1, 1975. In Quebec, 140 temperature records were eclipsed in June, and July saw even more records broken. Incredibly, Sept-Iles touched 36.6°C on June 18th – an all-time record for the area. Be-

Happy New Year

fore the second week of July, Ottawa had already as many days above 30°C, with four exceeding 35°C, as it would normally see an entire summer. Normally such sizzle occurs once every 10 years, not four times in one summer. July 2020 wasn’t the hottest July on record at the Ottawa International Airport, but you’d have to have been alive in 1921 to have experienced a more sweltering one in the city with records dating back almost to Confederation.

With the kind of summer Ontario had, it was not a surprise that the Great Lakes were as hot as a hot tub. Surface water temperatures ranged between three and five degrees higher than normal except for larger and deeper Lake Superior. According to satellite reconnaissance on July 10, Lake Ontario’s average surface temperature reached around 25°C - a record this early in summer and on par with the highest temperatures in any month since satellite data collection began.

3. Fort McMurray’s flood of a century For the second time in four years, residents of Fort McMurray, Alberta were forced out of their homes.

This time it was water, not fire. Severe ice jamming on a 25-km stretch of the Athabasca River caused water to back up on the adjacent Clearwater River, flooding much of downtown at the end of April. It was said to be the most significant flooding in more than a century. In a matter of hours on April 26, ice clogging raised water levels on Fort McMurray area rivers between 4.5 and 6 metres. The sheer size of the ice prevented the use of common ice-jam breaking options, such as explosives.

P

P

Y

NEW YEAR

Instead, what nature started, nature had to stop. An unprecedented two months of extreme cold as much as 10 degrees below normal, followed by a week of rapid warmth, lots of sunshine and warm rains prompted continued melting of the ice exacerbating the flood but continuing to mitigate it too. For more than a week, 13,000 residents in the lower townsite of Fort McMurray had to evacuate. Another ice jam on the nearby Peace River forced 450 people from their homes in Fort Vermilion, Alberta. Many customers went without power or gas service for nine days. States of local emergency and boil water advisories were in effect in both Fort McMurray and the surrounding municipality adding to the state of emergency declared a month earlier due to COVID-19. Some residents were forced out of their homes after weeks of isolation due to the pandemic. Emergen-

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lay on the golf club and two small bridges on the course were smashed. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimated the cost of the flooding from nearly 3,000 claims totalled above $562 million with 90% paid out to commercial properties.

2. BC’s September skies: all smoke, no fires Statistics from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported a second consecutive quiet fire season across British Columbia in 2020 following two of the busiest years ever in 2017 and 2018. The number of fires provincewide this year was down to 629 or a third of the fires in the record year of 2018.

Most shocking, burned hectares of woodlands were only 1% of that consumed two years earlier and 4% of the average areal burn over the past decade.

Whereas there were only a few home-grown fires, owing to a cooler and wetter spring, there was a record Continued on Page 14

cy measures officials did a remarkable job managing evacuations in one of the world’s first natural disasters during a public health crisis. In spite of the efforts of thousands of volunteers and workers engaged in bailing and sandbagging to protect infrastructure including the hospital, essential businesses were unreachable in the submerged downtown core, and only a handful of grocery stores remained open, causing a strain on supply. Tragically, a man from the Fort McKay First Nation, about 60 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, drowned after he and another were caught by rising waters of the Athabasca River.

Most water damage was to commercial property downtown where 1,230 structures were damaged from both overland flooding and sewer backup.

Hundreds of abandoned cars and trucks were completely submerged. Huge ice chunks and piles of silt

Sakewew High School

New Year!

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A

A flooded neighbourhood along the Clearwater River in downtown Fort McMurray, Alberta is shown on Tuesday, April 28, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Greg Halinda

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The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 13

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Page 14 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

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A look at the top ten weather events in 2020 Continued from Page 13 amount of imported wildfire smoke in September.

Visible from space, dense smoke plumes from forest fires in the U.S states of Washington, Oregon and California travelled northward into British Columbia’s southern airshed.

Residents from Victoria and Vancouver east to Kamloops, Kelowna, and in the Kootenay region faced some of the worst air quality in recorded history and some of the poorest and unhealthiest air in the world. For eight consecutive days in mid-September, about four million British Columbia residents, urban and rural, and young and old smelled smoke and breathed foul air. Special Air Quality Statements were issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada, as air-cleansing rains and pollution-dispersing marine winds were absent in the first half of September. Beautiful British Columbia didn’t look so beautiful! Residents with underlying respiratory and cardiovascular conditions were especially vulnerable, as the fine particulate matter was six times levels registered from the homegrown fires of 2017 and 2018. The long-term health effects for all residents are unknown.

Around the Labour Day weekend, a high-pressure system building over northern British Columbia produced strong gusty winds over the southern half of the province. The same weather system ushered in a couple of days with record high temperatures warmer-than-normal and pulled in smoke from massive fires burning across the border from the United States. Smoky skies

bulletins for the southwest prevailed for 11 days, compounding a public health crisis already posed by the COVID-19 virus. At times, the thick layer of smoke aloft prevented sunshine from getting in and heating up the ground thus chilling temperatures by 6 to 10 degrees across the West.

Around September 18, a fall frontal system from the Gulf of Alaska brought rains and winds to the Coast to start flushing out the smoke and improving breathing. Wildfire smoke wafted across the border into Alberta. Calgary was spared but smoky skies prevailed in southwest Alberta, near the Rockies. Further east, satellite imagery on September 14 and 15 showed plumes of smoke drifting across the country extending as far as Europe. American wildfire smoke moved back into southwest British Columbia on September 30 for a very short time, but the air quality was nowhere as bad as it was earlier in September.

1. Calgary’s billiondollar hailer Calgary, Alberta endured more than its share of stormy summer weather in 2020. The season featured frequent hailfalls with grapefruit-size stones,

powerful wind speeds, tornado scares, dark funnel clouds, lightning-filled skies, torrential rains, and flash flooding. The city lived up to its reputation as the hailstorm capital of Canada. The June 13 hailstorm was Canada’s costliest and the fourth most expensive insured natural disaster in history with Canadian insurers estimating the dollar value of the 63,000 claims (minus crop losses) at about $1.3 billion. More than 32,000 vehicles were extensively damaged with cracked and smashed windshields with vehicle write-offs totalling $386 million.

As was frequently the case this summer, on June 13 warm, humid air was positioned over Alberta generating multiple rounds of severe thunderstorm cells. With colliding winds at various heights over southern Alberta, the resulting wind shearing kept the large, long-lived thunderstorms going. Around 7 p.m. MDT, a hail core scraped over northeastern Calgary, visibility dropped to half a kilometre, and temperatures fell 5 degrees in less than six minutes.

Hail the size of tennis balls and golf-balls ricocheted out of the sky propelled by wind speeds up to 70

km/h. Pounding hail shook houses, broke windows and downed trees. Crashing hail dimpled vehicles and riddled house siding with millions of dents. The violent hailstorm smashed skylights, flattened flowerbeds and turned backyard vegetable gardens into coleslaw. Streets and intersections were flooded, and manhole covers were lifted. In its wake, slushy hail drifts 10 cm deep piled up along highways, and were still evident the next day.

Power outages knocked out service to more than 10,000 customers. Train and bus services were sus-

National Another “not-cold” year in Canada – 24 in a row Quiet Canadian wildfire season Arctic Ocean – more water than ice Atlantic Canada Rough landing in snowy Halifax Winter’s first big storm slams Eastern Newfoundland Record January snowfall in Sydney Newfoundland’s stormy February Powerful storm brings down a dome in Cape Breton Easter Friday weather bomb Microburst and century flooding strikes Fredericton Québec Winter’s first storm with all kinds of precipitation February snows gridlock Québecers Late February storm and surge at Québec City and eastward Late winter flood threat Easter weekend features snow, surges and coastal flooding Wildfires out of control in the Saguenay Microbursts and Québec’s first tornado More tornadoes and flooding in July Pre-Thanksgiving hail and wind costs millions Ontario January’s weekend storms – three in a row Texas storm turns on lake-effect snow engine Summer’s first heat wave fuels severe thunderstorms

Chair Harris Sutherland and The Board of Directors wishes everyone a Very

and a Happy and Prosperous 2021.

We Wish You a Very Happy New Year

hundreds of thousands of hectares of young wheat, canola and barley.

Regional weather highlights and runner-up events

DISCOVERY

Merry Christmas

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Flash flooding in Toronto’s west end Record number of waterspouts on the Great Lakes Three-day rain event across Ontario Prairie Provinces Brutal cold, even for the Prairies Widespread June wind-hail-rain in Saskatchewan West Manitoba June Deluges Tornado day in Saskatchewan Northern Saskatchewan too wet for grain and rice producers Thought to be tornadic, straight-line winds strike Manitoba Edmonton rainstorm floods hockey venue Calgary’s other hailstorm Finally, summer heat in the Western Prairies Big trough country “Great” harvest with some exceptions Pre-winter weather chills the second half of October Weather dome over the west British Columbia Toughest part of winter in mid-January Vancouver’s big wet and long dry May heat not a trend Rare Vancouver Island tornado Quiet wildfire season North Yukon cold Tuktoyaktuk winds Flood concerns in downtown Dawson Arctic heat waves July showers in Iqaluit Whitehorse’s record snow and cold

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The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 15

Deck the Halls for New Year’s Eve It’s hard to hear “Deck the Halls” and not immediately be overcome by the festive nature of the holiday season. The lyrics to “Deck the Halls” were written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant in 1862, and the song many people know today is a traditional Christmas carol. However, the Welsh melody that is part of the song can be traced to the 16th century and a song called “Nos Galan.” That song is not about Christmas, but rather New Year’s Eve.

“Deck the Halls” Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

‘Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Fill the meadcup, drain the barrel, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Troul the ancient Christmas carol, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

See the flowing bowl before us, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Strike the harp and join the chorus, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Follow me in merry measure, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

While I sing of beauty’s treasure, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Fast away the old year passes, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses!

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Laughing, quaffing all together, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Heedless of the wind and weather, Fa la la la la, la la la la.

English lyrics written by Thomas Oliphant Lyrics courtesy of Digital Music

Chamber of Commerce looks ahead to 2021

By John Cairns Staff Reporter

With more provincial COVID-19 restrictions now in place, the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce won’t have a lot of opportunity to put on large-scale events early in 2021.

Still, what they might do in 2021 came up as a topic at the last chamber directors meeting of the year, held on the Zoom platform on Dec. 15.

One major event usually scheduled for late January is the annual Chair’s Banquet (formerly President’s Banquet). The 2021 event would, under normal circumstances, see current chair Harris Sutherland pass the gavel to the current second-in-command, Melanie Roberts of North West College, and see the swearing in of Roberts and the new Chamber executive.

But with banquets be-

ing a prime source of COVID-19 infection, and with gathering restrictions in place, it is unlikely to go ahead in the usual format.

Instead, the Chamber has discussed holding the event as a catered lunch instead. By “catered,” Chamber chief operating officer Linda Machniak said, they mean “catered out at their place of business.”

Details are sketchy, but more information is expected to come in the coming weeks about what the revised format will entail.

Also up in the air is the Chamber on Tap series normally held at Porta Bella Restaurant, due to the latest size restrictions on restaurants.

The last Chamber on Tap event scheduled for Dec. 3, 2020 had been postponed, and the hope was to reschedule it for early in the new year. But Machniak told the board that with restrictions the way they are, “that won’t

be happening any time soon.”

Machniak noted she is “shy” about scheduling too many Chamber events in the first half of the year given the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. The annual Post-Budget luncheon with the provincial minister of Finance, as well as the Power Hour with area political leaders, would also normally fall within that time frame. Machniak indicated some of these events might have to be put off.

At this point, there is no plan to postpone the annual general meeting early in the year, which Machniak indicated will go ahead.

A number of Chamber events were postponed or cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic. Those axed in 2020 included the postbudget event, the annual golf tournament, and the annual Holly and Heels luncheon.

The Chamber was able

to get in both the Chair’s Banquet and the Power Hour before the pandemic hit. The Power Hour was held just a week before the provincial shutdown.

After a quiet summer, the chamber was able to re-

sume events in the fall including the annual BBEX awards, which were transformed into “BBEX Goes to the Movies” in November to comply with public health protocols.

The chamber also re-

sumed Chamber on Tap events and also staged provincial and municipal election forums. The forums were taped at the Western Development Museum for Access TV, without spectators present.

All chamber seats filled; no election this year There will not be an election for seats on the board of the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce this year.

Six nominated candidates have filled all six seats available for the 2021-2023 term on the board, and will now be forwarded to the current board for ratification by the nominations committee. The six are: Roy Dussault, Discovery Co-operative Ltd.; Kim Frolek, Loraas Environmental Services; Donna Lehmann, North Battleford Agencies Ltd.; *Dallan Oberg, HRO Chartered Professional Accountants; *Kayla Petersen, Re/Max of the Battlefords; *Derek Schmidt, Bill & Don’s Mens Wear.

The following directors either still have

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one year remaining on a term to serve, or will receive an executive appointment for 2021: Gord Brewerton, Battlefords Publishing Ltd. / News Optimist; Tisha Carriere, Gold Eagle Lodge; Alexis Christensen, BATC (Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs Inc.); Terry Gagne, SaskTel; Cassandra Germsheid; Kerr’s Cleaners Inc.; Misty Lavertu, Downtown North Battleford BID; Dana Rissling, Innovation Credit Union; Melanie Roberts, North West College; Harris Sutherland, Gold Eagle Casino.

The new board members will join the annual general meeting and begin their board duties at the first meeting of the new – J C term in February, 2021.

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Happy New Year

Here's wishing you the best of the holidays and may the magic of the season fill your heart and bring you joy.

We look forward to serving you in 2021.

Board, Management & Staff

May happiness, hope, gratitude and good fortune light your way throughout the year.

Happy New Year!

2021

From Management and Staff At

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Page 16 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

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New Year 2021

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The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 17

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Once rural landmarks, wooden grain elevators are disappearing from Saskatchewan

By Nick Pearce

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter / The StarPhoenix

Rob Dubyk avoided the note for years.

It sat by his kitchen phone, yellowing with age.

Dubyk had written down the numbers of local authorities after his father died, but he couldn’t bring himself to call, to say he planned to burn down the century-old grain elevator outside his family’s little blue farm house that three generations of his family had shared near Rosetown.

Dubyk wanted to conserve and restore the building, but high costs and roadblocks made that impossible. Saying goodbye by setting the tower ablaze was the last thing he wanted to do, but eventually he realized there was no other option and he made the call.

“There was just nothing else we could really do,” he said.

On an April morning in 2017, Dubyk piled fuel at the base of the elevator and the small office beside it. He touched a lit rag to each and hurried back a safe distance. He checked the time: 8 a.m.

A few gathered neighbours watched the first sparks with him. They were old friends, veterans of working nearby fields and longtime residents of Rosetown.

Dubyk huddled behind a video recorder, capturing the flames as they engulfed the building where he had worked with his grandfather. The fires spread and the tower teetered before pancaking downward into a smouldering pile that smoked for weeks.

By then, the time read 8:28 a.m.

It was over.

Numbers ‘declined tremendously’ since the 1950s Wooden grain elevators used to be the sign of a successful community.

The towering structures, whether owned by farmers or co-operatively by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, were places to store and prepare grain before it was shipped to a world market through a network of rails and roads. They were also

community hubs where people shared news and did business.

But as farming practices changed and many small farms were replaced by a few large ones, it made sense to have fewer, centralized grain storage vats or newer facilities. Today, the peaks of polished steel grain bins are visible from the road leading to Dubyk’s farm.

Gary Storey, a professor emeritus in the University of Saskatchewan’s department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, wrote for the Encyclopedia Saskatchewan that there were 3,035 primary grain elevators in Saskatchewan in 1950 and that had number dropped to 2,750 by 1970. The number “declined tremendously” after that. By 2004, only 197 primary elevators were left.

Grain elevator enthusiast Jim Pearson, who kept a running tally of all standing elevators in the province, died in 2018. His last count was 427.

When grain elevators were torn down, it often meant some businesses in the community were destroyed as well, said Ray Ambrosi, a Regina-based researcher.

“It demoralizes the whole community, so (the towns) just faded out,” he said.

Elevators were landmarks for communities.

When they disappeared, the towns where they stood became nearly invisible.

Drivers on the highway would pass them by, contributing “to the decline of rural Saskatchewan,” Ambrosi said.

Old structures a liability Some, like Dubyk, want to save the grain elevators that are still standing. But conserving the wooden structures is no easy feat.

The elevator on Dubyk’s land was built in 1923 by the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Company. Dubyk’s family later bought it from the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and rented it out to an area farmer until the 1990s. By the 2000s, it had fallen into disrepair and Dubyk no longer rented it out.

Getty Images

A plow wind tore the elevator apart in 2010, ripping the driveshed off and tossing it 200 yards away.

Rain and wind pelted the tower’s open side. Exposed to the elements over years, its boards warped and rotted, squishing together as the elevator lost its footing and its structural integrity weakened.

Trespassers, ignoring the private property signs posted on the farm’s fences, turned from annoyance to liability. Dubyk began to worry. He would be responsible if people ventured too close to the tower and a piece fell on them.

The building was unsound and he estimates it would have cost $100,000 to restore it — a cost he wasn’t willing to bear.

Attempts to work with insurance companies, heritage groups and the local government office all hit roadblocks. In the end, he burned the landmark down.

“We kept putting it off, and putting it off. Finally, for liability reasons and the amount of damage done by the storm — it was nearly 100 years old — begrudgingly we had to get rid of it,” Dubyk said.

Jurisdictional roadblocks make conservation a challenge Hilary Grant, a heri-

tage researcher who’s studied Saskatchewan elevator conservation, said it’s “short-sighted” for governments not to offer some solution to preserve the structures, even if the communities around them are disappearing.

She knows how tough it is for people and communities to save these elevators; in addition to the cost, she says efforts to preserve elevators run up against jurisdictional challenges.

Many of the towers were built along railway lines, which makes them federal properties that can’t be given provincial or municipal heritage designations.

Grant said grain elevators could be made a federal responsibility — as has been done for lighthouses that dot the east coast, and railway stations. Those structures receive federal protection, which means they should at least be mothballed and conserved for future generations.

Many lighthouses are not turned into museums; rather, they are treated “like abstract sculptures in the landscape” and allowed to live on as symbols, she said.

Grant doesn’t see why grain elevators shouldn’t be treated the same way.

“It’s a system so tied to a traditional way of life.

What does it say if we let it go?” she asked. “Is it throwing in the towel on that traditional way of living, some of those values?”

Elevators could be reimagined as community hubs Researcher Ali Piwowar, who wrote her masters thesis in architecture on preserving the heritage of grain elevators, suggested reimagining them in Indian Head as cafés, hotels and libraries, and proposed moving them to larger urban centres, such as Regina, for wider public access.

The community never implemented her plans and the last elevator there disappeared this spring.

She remains optimistic about the future of the province’s grain elevators.

Since her thesis was published in 2015, she’s been involved with about 30 communities that want to discuss the roles their local elevators can play.

She was drawn to grain elevators because of their “layers of stories and values,” Piwowar said.

“That’s where they transcend from just objects of what you think are important, to these monuments or landmarks that are really just so intrinsically entwined in the prairie landscape.”

Preservation efforts must reflect realities of colonialism Russell Fayant, a faculty member with the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program at the University of Regina, said consulting with Indigenous peoples has enhanced grain elevator conservation efforts.

From the 1950s to the ‘70s, Fayant’s uncles and older cousins could often be found dangling off the sides of grain elevators with buckets of paint.

That’s because when the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool needed labour to maintain its elevators across the region, it regularly hired Métis workers like Fayant’s family members. The workers travelled widely across the province, sleeping four to a motel room.

Preserving the elevators was dangerous work with few benefits.

“For something that’s so iconic … somebody had to maintain those giants and it was largely Métis people that did that work,” Fayant said.

“Where you have an elevator, you don’t have a Metis person far away.”

When elevators went up, it meant farmers were moving onto the land and Indigenous people were Continued on Page 20

Page 18 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

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BARTROP : It is with great Hours of operation: Monday - Friday 8am - 4:30pm Refunds • sadness that the• No family of Vincent Harold OBITUARIES Bartrop, 87, of IN MEMORIAM ANNOUNCEMENTS Battleford Saskatchewan KRATCHMER: Matthew.

BARTROP : It is with great announce passing on December 15, 1926 December sadness that the family of Vincent his In loving memory of 2020. Matthew will forever Harold Bartrop, 87, of Battleford Decemberhis 14th, 2020. Vince 18, be remembered by his four Saskatchewanannounce Anna Prystupa and their spouses: passing on December 14th, BELIEVE IT? was predeceased by his loving children Sept. 20, 1926 son Keith, son Terry (Vicky) – 2020. Vince was predeceased wife, ofyears,50 years, Shirley, children Theresa, Stefan and - Dec. 28, 2019. by his loving wife, of 50 Don’t fall victim to Terri Ann, son Daryl (Mary) Shirley, parents Isabel and Isabel John, sharing fake news parents and John, sister – children Mark and Jocelyn, sister Marion, brothers Richard, about COVID-19 Ron and Wayne.

He is survived Marion, brothers Richard, Ron son Glenn (Colleen) – children online.

Mandy and Cody, Kristen and by his loving children Stormie and Wayne.

He is survived by Kelsey; 11 great-grandchildren; (Roger), Shane (Colleen), Learn the four siblings Jim (Olga), Simon and Shannon his (Kieran),loving James simple steps that children Stormie Peter. He was predeceased by (Sandra), Terra (Jesse) as well will help you (Roger), (Colleen), his loving wife, Norma, of 65 as numerous grandchildren and Shane SPOT fake news his parents Joseph great grandchildren. Dad will be online.

Shannon (Kieran), James years, and Mary Kratchmer, sisters laid to rest with his beloved wife Shirley in Rockhaven cemetery. A Pauline and Madeline, celebration of his life will be held at a later date, to be announced.Terra Watch the video at (Sandra), (Jesse) asbrothers wellAdam and Leo and granddaughter Amy Kratchmer. Matthew grew up on the farm near Reward, SK SPOTfakenews.ca as numerous and grandchildren married Norma (nee and Kirchgessner) in October, 1953. They BRINKHURST: Doreen Lily Ann your friends raised a family and farmed in the Reward area. Matthew also great grandchildren.

Dad will be Brinkhurst passed away operated a bulk fuel depot, custom cat work and grain cleaning. remember you peacefully, with family by her The his family beloved moved to Battleford in 1972 where he continued to farm laid to rest with wife and pray for you. side, at Battlefords Union in the Reward area and operated a used car business in North Hospital on Dec. 18,2020 at Shirley in Rockhaven cemetery.

We are sure that Battleford. Matthew and Norma loved to host family get-togethers HELP STOP THE the age of 87 years. Doreen and visit friends for card games.

They moved into Luther Heights you left this world SPREAD OF FAKE lebration of his life will be held at a later date, to be leaves to cherish her memory, in Saskatoon in 2009 and later resided in Samaritan Place until NEWS! a better place and her family: Daughter Sandra unced.

Norma’s passing in 2019 after which time he moved into Trinity (Dan) Knowles, grandson, Jeff that all the good Prepayment required

(Shawna) Knowles, greatgrandsons Carter and Cody, grandson Cory (Justine) Knowles, great-granddaughter Kennedy, granddaughter Christie (Dustin) Wolf; Daughter Heather (James) Guthrie, granddaughter Amanda Guthrie, granddaughter Megan Guthrie, great-grandson Jaxon Guthrie; Son Hugh (Heidi) Brinkhurst, grandsons Dawson and Conner Brinkhurst; her sister Olive Jones; brothers-in-law Ed Smith, and Herb Brinkhurst; sisters-in-law Margaret Hayter, Dee Brinkhurst, and Pearl Brinkhurst. Doreen was predeceased by her husband, Raymond Brinkhurst; son Doug Brinkhurst; parents, Harold and Enid Nelson; her brothers and sisters. Doreen was born on Jan.30, 1933 to Harold and Enid Nelson. She grew up on the family farm near Gallivan, the youngest in a family of 9 children.

She went to school in Gallivan, travelling by horse and buggy in summer and horse and cutter in winter. She would graduate high school at NBCI in North Battleford. After graduation, she worked as a nurse’s aide at Notre Dame Hospital in North Battleford. She went on to take nursing training at City Hospital in Saskatoon, graduating in 1955. She secured a position in Pediatrics at Notre Dame Hospital, where she worked until her marriage. Doreen married Raymond Brinkhurst in 1955, and they began their life together on the family farm in the Riding Hill district. Here they raised a family of four children, Doug, Sandra, Heather and Hugh. The family loved to spend summers at the cabin at nearby Atton’s Lake, and also enjoyed many trips to visit family in B.C., Alberta and Ottawa, ON. Doreen was a loving farm wife and mother, growing a large garden every year, canning, pickling, baking, and hosting many family get togethers. She was a talented sewer, making many clothes for herself and her kids. She enjoyed crocheting, knitting, crossword puzzles, and nurturing her many houseplants and flowerbeds. She was active in her church, and had a deep and abiding faith in God, which helped her during the difficult times in her life. She and Raymond loved to travel, and enjoyed trips to California, Washington, Hawaii, and to New Zealand while their son Hugh was there as an agricultural trainee. Doreen had a wonderful sense of humour, and always enjoyed visits with her friends and all her sisters, both in person and later over the phone. She was kind and generous, and was always there to lend an ear, listen and offer prayers and encouragement to her family and friends. Her grandchildren and great grandchildren were the lights of her life and she loved to share her albums of pictures.

After Raymond passed away in 2003, Doreen remained on the family farm until the summer of 2018, when she moved to Harwood Manor in North Battleford. Her family would like to sincerely thank all the staff at Harwood Manor who cared for her during her time there. A memorial service for Doreen will be planned for the spring or summer of 2021. Donations in Doreen’s memory may be made to Battlefords Union Hospital Foundation, Box 1358, North Battleford, SK S9A 3L8. Condolences may be sent to www.

SallowsandMcDonald.com, Hugh Brinkhurst, Box 136 Gallivan, SK S0M 0X0 or to Sandra Knowles Box 21 Rockhaven, SK S0M 2R0.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Sallows & McDonald-Wilson & Zehner Funeral Home (306) 445.2418.

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Manor. Matthew had a deep faith and was a major supporter of his church and a Fourth Degree life long member of the Knights of Columbus. He passed peacefully on December 18, 2020 at St. Paul’s Hospital Palliative Care Unit. A Private Family Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday December 30, 2020 at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church In Unity, SK with Fr. Gregory Roth as the Celebrant. Live-streaming will be available at: www.faithproductions.ca/livestream The Rite of Committal will take place in Holy Rosary Cemetery in Reward, SK. Arrangements in care of Chelsea Krentz – Mourning Glory Funeral Services (306) 978-5200 www.mourningglory.ca __________________________________________________

THOMPSON: It is with great sadness the family of Walter Thompson announce his passing, with his family by his side, on Saturday, December 19th, 2020 at the age of 85 years. Walter will be dearly missed by his devoted wife of 61 years, Shirley Thompson; daughters Teresa (Dave) Prosko and Brenda (Trevor) Mino; grandsons Andon and Ty Prosko; and granddaughter Cara Mino. He is also survived by his 5 sisters Rosileen “Dolly” Knaus, Wilma Schrader, Gloria Baker, Gladys Tarangle, and Audrey Scott; and his brother Wesley Thompson. Walter was predeceased by his mother Rosie McDonald; father Wesley Thompson; stepfather Russ McDonald; brothers Roy Thompson and Ronald “Ronnie” Thompson. Walter was born on the family farm by Richard, Saskatchewan, the third of nine children. At 17, Walter went to work on the neighboring farm of Fred Anderson for 4 years. After that, he began working for McMillan Brothers, hauling gravel for several years before moving to the scale house where he worked until retiring at 67. He and Shirley also enjoyed helping out at Kramer Auctions for several years. Walter enjoyed playing hockey, baseball, and hunting with his brother Roy. After marrying Shirley, together they enjoyed bowling, curling and dancing. Walter was a proud, hardworking man that enjoyed spending time with his family. He was always there to help his children and adored his grandchildren. A heartfelt thank you to the staff at River Heights Lodge for all the care and support given to Walter and his family.

As per Walter’s wishes, he has been cremated; there will be no service planned at this time due to Covid 19 restrictions. Donations in Walter’s memory may be made to the charity of the donor’s choice. Condolences may be left at www.SallowsandMcDonald.com.

Sallows & McDonald-Wilson & Zehner Funeral Home entrusted with arrangements (306.445.2418).

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Liquor Permit Advertising Form Under the provisions of The Alcohol and Gaming Regulations Act, 1997, Notice is hereby given that 102111626 Saskatchewan Ltd has applied to the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA) for a Retail Store Integrated permit to sell alcohol in the premises known as Meota General Store at 290 Main St W Meota SK, S0M 1X0.

Written objections to the granting of the permit may be filed with SLGA not more than two weeks from the date of publication of this notice.

Every person filing a written objection with SLGA shall state their name, address, and telephone number in printed form, as well as the grounds for the objection(s).

Petitions must name a contact person, state grounds, and be legible. Each signatory to the petition and the contact person must provide an address and telephone number. Frivolous, vexatious or competitionbased objections within the beverage alcohol industry may not be considered and may be rejected by the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Licensing Commission, who may refuse to hold a hearing.

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City of North Battleford 1291 - 101st Street P.O. Box 460

North Battleford PH: (306) 445-1700 Saskatchewan FAX: (306) 445-0411 Canada S9A 2Y6 PUBLIC NOTICE CITY OF NORTH BATTLEFORD

Public notice is hereby given, Pursuant to Section 207 of the Planning and Development Act, 2007 that the City of North Battleford intends to pass a bylaw to amend the Zoning Bylaw No. 1971 as hereinafter provided.

It is proposed to amend the Zoning District Map, which forms part of Bylaw Number 1971, as follows: Intent Rezone from FUD – Future Urban Development District to M2 – Heavy Industrial District, 9700 Thatcher Avenue (Parcel C Plan 86B15558 Extension 1, Parcel C Plan 86B15558 Extension 2), as shown within the bold dashed line on Sketch “A” below.

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Position located in Arborfield, Sk. Camp accommodation provided if necessary.

Send resume and work references to: Bryden Construction Box 100, Arborfield, Sk. S0E 0A0; Fax: 306-769-8844 Email: brydenconstruct@ xplornet.ca www. brydenconstruction andtransport.ca

Reason This area has been requested to be rezoned by an applicant looking to establish an industrial use at the location.

Bylaw Inspection Any interested person may inspect the bylaw at City Hall, 1291-101st Street, North Battleford, SK Monday through Friday, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Copies are available to persons through the Office of the City Clerk.

Public Hearing Representations respecting the Bylaw will be considered by the Council on the 11th day of January, at 6:30 p.m. Council shall hear any person or group of persons or person acting on their behalf, who wish to make a representation. Due to COVID-19, Council will be held electronically over Zoom. Council will also consider written comments received at the hearing or delivered to City Hall before the hearing.

Issued at North Battleford this 24th Day of December 2020.

Debbie Wohlberg, City Clerk

Page 20 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

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Regional File: E3/5286

NOTICE Pursuant to

The Water Security Agency Act

Notice is hereby given that in accordance with the provisions of The Water Security Agency Act and regulations, application and plans required by Section 61 of the said Act, were filed with the Water Security Agency at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, by the undersigned, for approval to construct and operate works described as: Serafina Energy Ltd. has proposed to install an additional 16 water source wells and their ancillary works at the existing induced surface water infiltration wellfield along the north bank of the North Saskatchewan River at E 1/2 25 45-18 W3 and S 1/2 30- 45-17 W3. Serafina Energy Ltd. has requested an additional 1,830,000 cubic metres of water annually for a new total allocation of 5,490,000 cubic metres of water annually for Serafina Energy Ltd.’s Meota East and Meota Central SAGD projects (enhanced oil recovery).

Any person who objects to the granting of this approval may file a written statement, within 30 days from first publication of this notice, outlining the reasons for objection, to the Water Security Agency, Victoria Place, 111 Fairford Street East, Moose Jaw SK S6H 7X9 or comm@wsask.ca.

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Notice of Abandonment of Poll The Rural Municipality of Parkdale No. 498 Municipal By-Elections 2021 Whereas, Rene Cadrain, nominated for the office of Councillor for Division No. 2, is the only candidate, I hereby give notice that NO VOTING for this office will take place on January 25, 2021.

Dated this 22nd day of December, 2020.

Ashela McCullough Returning Officer

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North West College

North West College is Currently Accepting Applications for the Following Position: North Battleford: Human Resources Generalist Posting #56-OOS-2021

The out-of-scope Human Resources Generalist provides administration and technical support in such areas as recruiting, legislative compliance, employee relations, union relations, health & safety, human resources planning, performance management, professional development, compensation and benefits. The Human Resources Generalist contributes to the implementation of services, policies, and programs and assists College management with human resources issues.

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Administrator

Date Posted: Dec 21, 2020

Location: Town of Radisson Employment Term: Full Time The Town of Radisson is currently seeking applications for the position of Administrator.

The Administrator oversees the Office Assistant and the Town Foreman, and provides support to the Mayor and Council.

The successful candidate must possess the Local Government Administration Urban or Rural Standard Certificate; along with superior verbal and written communication skills; have a strong knowledge in municipal accounting and finance; exhibit leadership and be community oriented.

Preference will be given to those applicants with 2 or more years’ experience in urban municipal administration. Experience and knowledge of MuniSoft municipal software will be considered an asset. Excellent communication, time management, and public relations skills are required. The position offers a competitive wage based on the UMAAS Salary Guideline, pension plan and a group benefit plan.

Start date and wage is negotiable based on experience.

Please submit a cover letter with resume including three work related references to the municipal office and email to: tradisson@sasktel.net Application deadline – when a suitable pool of candidates is received OR 5 p.m.

Friday, January 8, 2021 Town of Radisson P.O. Box 69 Radisson, SK S0K 3L0 Ph. 306-827-2218 Fax: 306-827-4747 The Town of Radisson is a thriving community situated halfway between Saskatoon and North Battleford on Highway 16. Radisson’s population according to the last census figure is 505. For more about the Town of Radisson please visit www.radisson.ca.

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Elevators disappearing Continued from Page 17 displaced. As a symbol of intensified farming, Fayant says grain elevators represent a severe disruption to traditional Indigenous economies and cultures.

Fayant says this narrative needs to be part of the remembering of the grain elevators.

“For us Indigenous peoples, to feel part of the society, we have to feel like our stories are also part of the society,” he said.

“We can’t smile with the rest of all prairie people as we look up at these giants because we know the harm they caused our community.”

Some structures are becoming teaching tools Elizabeth Scott, an adjunct history professor and curator at the Western Development Museum, says there is value in having the elevators preserved as teaching tools. The museum’s elevator, based in North Battleford, has been invaluable for teaching agricultural, architecture, and settlement and railway histories, she says.

The WDM acquired its elevator from the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in 1983, when the buildings were still widely in use.

Roughly 30 SaskPower volunteers cut about 40 power lines to move it 70 kilometres to North Battleford from Keatley.

Their decision to save the building means younger visitors can start to understand the web of elevators that once brought communities together.

“To have one standing and to have that heritage still physically in place will become more rare,” Scott said.

In Val Marie, about 360 kilometres southwest of Regina, community

members rallied around the town’s derelict grain elevator, fundraising and bringing in $60,000 for the cause, according to the elevator’s website.

The effort was led by Maurice Lemire, whose father was the village’s first elevator agent, and assisted by many of the community’s older residents who remembered the days when the elevator was functional.

Kristin Catherwood, the living heritage director for Heritage Saskatchewan, says the number of people who can recall those days is shrinking.

“Sometimes, with the nostalgia of the elevator, it’s not thought about, how younger people don’t actually have any connection to grain elevators,” she says.

“That symbol is starting to vanish, actually, as well as the physical structure.”

History classes don’t usually cover how Saskatchewan’s small towns became the way they are.

So two years ago, Catherwood worked with high school students in Val Marie to ask what it meant to save their community’s grain elevator. Many didn’t know until they interviewed older residents in the community and learned about the structures’ history and value.

The Val Marie elevator is now a municipal heritage structure on its way to being a museum. Saving it will fundamentally change it, but Catherwood thinks its history could empower young people to guide their community forward.

Jayne Hanson, a firstyear nursing student at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, was in Grade 10 when she took Catherwood’s class.

She says the elevator used to be nothing more than a landmark for her; the first

thing she saw when returning home to Val Marie.

She never considered how it was once the heart of the town’s economic and social life.

By interviewing older community members, she learned the elevator was home to haircuts, boot repairs, and after-hours socializing on top of farming business.

“Once you go into it, you can almost feel how busy it used to be,” Hanson said.

For Catherwood, preserving and saving the roots of the community could be the first step in revitalizing it.

“It was external forces that created those towns and it’s external forces that are really taking the guts out of them,” she says. “So many of them are struggling to survive.”

Holding pieces of the past Today, a large portrait of Dubyk’s elevator hangs in his home, alongside small items he’s made using reclaimed wood from the structure. Other photos show him working on the farm with his grandparents and parents in the shadow of the tower.

He’s taking a small stand for the weigh scale that used to sit in the elevator.

“It just brings back all those memories; three full generations here,” he says.

“It is strange to not see it. I’m maybe getting a bit more used to it now, but that was the first thing you always noticed.”

He plans to eventually level the elevator site, but he’s been putting that off too.

When it finally happens, the last traces of a tower that once burst with so much life will be erased for good.

Regional News-Optimist

The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 21

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The most Googled topics in Canada for 2020 Kobe Bryant, toilet paper, and Donald Trump are among the topics Canadians were the most interested in this year

By Cameron Thomson

Vancouver is Awesome Glacier Media

By analyzing the most trending topics for 2020, Google peeked into the Canadian collective consciousness to come up with a list of the most pressing questions posed to the search engine.

It’s safe to say that 2020 was… unprecedented, at the very least. Even aside from the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of 1.77 million people around the world, we saw Australia devastated by wildfires, millions protesting the death of George Floyd, the dethroning of U.S. President Donald Trump, the tragic death of Kobe Bryant---many other history textbook-worthy moments.

With so much change and uncertainty, millions of Canadians took their queries to Google. As 2020 draws to a close, the search engine compiled a list of Canada’s most searched topics, people and questions.

The biggest ‘why…’

5) Why is Nevada taking so long?

It appears many Canadians were anxiously awaiting the results of the U.S. Presidential Election in November. The answer, as it turns out, is a combination of an extremely high volume of ballots and challenges presented by the emphasis on mail-in-voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

4) Why did Kobe have two numbers?

After Bryant and his daughter were killed in a helicopter crash, Canadians came across this interesting fact about the Lakers legend. The answer is Bryant began his career in the NBA wearing the No. 8 jersey and when he joined the Lakers in 1996. Then in the 2006-07 season and

until his retirement in 2016, the NBA icon took up the number he wore in his earlier basketball years: No. 24. Bryant had his own personal meanings behind each number.

3) Why is it called COVID-19?

The name of the virus that has plagued headlines for most of the year is simply an abbreviated form of coronavirus 2019. According to the CDC, the ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease.

Formerly, this disease was referred to as “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019nCoV”.

2) Why was George Floyd stopped?

Before he was killed by a police officer who knelt on his neck for over eight minutes, Floyd was stopped after a convenience store employee called 911 and told the police that Floyd had bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. The event sparked worldwide anti-racism protests and resulted in the firing of the officers involved in Floyd’s death.

1) Why are people buying toilet paper?

Back in March, grocery stores across the country were putting limits on how much TP Canadians could buy. Shelves were emptied as soon as they were filled for what experts consider are largely psychological reasons: people resort to extremes when they hear conflicting messages, some were reacting to the lack of a clear direction from officials and panic buying allows people to feel a sense of control.

The biggest ‘How to…’

5) How to cut your own hair With lockdown restrictions stopping visits to the barbers or hair salons people got… creative.

Vancouver Is Awesome can’t compete with the thousands of

beauty gurus on YouTube with full, detailed instructions on how exactly one cuts their own hair but some basic pointers are: cut less than you think and work with your natural hair texture.

4) How to make a mask The facemask has become somewhat of a symbol for the coronavirus if not 2020 itself. The movement to create a custom mask was born out of CDC recommendations which state medical masks should be reserved for health workers. Again, there are heaps of YouTube tutorials for making your own mask but the CDC recommends that they have two or more layers of washable, breathable fabric, they should completely cover your nose and mouth and fit snugly against the sides of your face and don’t have gaps.

3) How to apply for CERB According to the Government of Canada’s website, as of Oct. 4, $81.64 billion was paid to 8.90 million Canadians through Canada Emergency Response Benefit payments. The program has since been transitioned into new employment insurance supports and

Take a leap of faith and welcome in the New year.

Full of wondrous things to come.

Prykhodov/iStock via Getty Images

COVID-19 benefits. For more information, you can check out the Government of Canada’s website.

2) How to make hand sanitizer This was an especially hot topic since at the onset of the pandemic hand sanitizer sold out just about as fast as toilet paper for obvious pandemic-related reasons. Here’s this simple recipe: 2/3 cup 99 percent rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) or ethanol 1/3 cup aloe vera gel 8 to 10 drops essential oil, optional Mix 1) How to apply for EI Closely related to number three, the answer to this can also be found on the Government of Canada’s website.

Finally, the most searched topics of 2020 5) Raptors On Feb. 23 the Toronto Raptors dominated the Indiana Pacers in a historic wire-to-wire victory with the final score of 127-81.

The 46-point margin of victory is the largest in franchise history and was a monumental moment for the team and the rest of the country watching the game unfold.

4) Zoom Canadians became very familiar with the video calling application as nearly all activities related to school, work and even just seeing friends and family moved to a virtual setting.

By February 2020, Zoom had gained 2.22 million users - more users than it amassed in

the entirety of 2019. On one day in March 2020, the Zoom app was downloaded 2.13 million times.

2) Coronavirus Coronavirus feels like it needs no introduction. The virus has been the source of pain and hardship for millions around the world.

Through the challenges the pandemic has presented it has also highlighted the indelible human spirit with stories about ‘caremongering’, strangers putting out essential items free of charge and the many ways healthcare workers have received long-due recognition for their work just to name just a few.

And now, the most searched topic of 2020 by Canadians: 1) US election U.S. Presidential Elections have always been a bit of a show but 2020 brought the whole circus. Between the suspense of waiting for Nevada’s results, the baseless accusations of voter fraud made by President Trump and the ensuing lawsuits, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping presser and President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani melting onstage, there was plenty to Google.

And with that, here’s to 2021.

Happy New Year

• May this year bring new happiness, new goals, new achievements and a lot of new inspirations in your life. Wishing you a year fully loaded with happiness!

• “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” - C. S. Lewis

Noah Cooke Candace Mack-Horton Sales Manager

Phone: 306-445-7261 email: candace@newsoptimist.ca

Page 22 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

Regional News-Optimist

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Stretching our good will for peace in 2021 I told Ed, my old neighbour in Saskatchewan, that I did not want to hear any of his predictions for 2021.

I will need quite awhile in the new year to get over the last year. Especially since I gained weight in 2020, which will not go away quickly. The 2020 evil pandemic will keep on in 2021, killing without mercy until the vaccines are available to everyone.

The Bible never hides the power of evil to kill the innocent without mercy. “When Jesus was born in Judea in the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one born king of the Jews?’ We saw his star in

N

eighbourly Advice

According to Ed

By Raymond Maher

www.accordingtoed.com

revraymaher@accesscomm.ca the east and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:1-2) Herod directed the Magi to Bethlehem, where they worshipped Jesus.

They did not return to King Herod to tell him they had found the baby King in Bethlehem. King Herod intended to kill the one rumoured to be the

king of the Jews. An angel of the Lord warned Joseph in a dream to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt because Herod would search for the child to kill him.

They escaped to Egypt.

King Herod gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old

and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

One can understand the great weeping at the brutal killing of innocent children. King Herod cared nothing about innocent children, like the COVID-19 virus that came to kill innocent victims in 2020.

Some years death has the upper hand and will not easily relent. There is no mercy in the evil of sin, sickness and death.

Thankfully, God’s love can overcome the power of evil in any year. God uses us to help overcome evil by how we protect each other in peace and love.

2020 was like the year

64 A.D. A great fire ravaged Rome in July for six days. It left 70 per cent of Rome destroyed and one half of the population homeless. Emperor Nero played music or fiddled and partied while his people suffered and died.

He was indifferent to their fate. As their emperor, he had no regard for their well-being or safety.

Peace of mind was hard to find for us in 2020.

Everything was turned upside down and inside out thanks to the ravages of the coronavirus. It brought the worst out in us. Many turned from a peaceful climb up the stairway of loving my neighbour, at least in theory, to becom-

ing a reckless driver on the highway of, “I’m not my neighbours’ keeper, so get off my case!”

2021 dawns with the relief that vaccines can flatten the power of the sickness and death of the pandemic. It needs to be a year of peace; a peace without protesting that the government cannot tell us what to do. Wear a mask, isolate, and social distance in peace. In peace, forego public assembly, in worship if need be, to protect the lives of others.

In 2021, let us climb the stairway of loving our neighbours by being our neighbours’ keeper in actions, not just in theory.

Worship Together Spend some quality family time together. Worship at the church of your choice.

Our community has a number of churches and a variety of denominations for you & your family.

(RC) St. Joseph Calasanctius Parish 1942 - 98th Street, North Battleford, SK S9A 0N4

TerriTorial Drive alliance church

306-446-1695

PASTOR: Rev. Phinh Do

DAILY: Tues., Wed., Thurs. & Fri. - 9 a.m. unless otherwise noted WEEKEND MASS TIMES: Saturdays - 7:30 p.m. Sundays - 9:00 a.m. & 11:00 a.m.

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

ANGLICAN PARISH Rev. Trevor Malyon

1401 - 98th Street, North Battleford, SK

St. Georges Anglican Church Battleford Sunday @ 5:00 p.m.

St. Paul’s Anglican Church North Battleford Sunday @ 11:00 a.m.

Battle River Parish YouTube channel CJNB Radio 1050 a.m. Sunday mornings 7:45-8:30 a.m.

Contact: 306 445 4155 stpaulnb@sasktel.net

306-445-5901

Reverend George Yando Sunday Services 10:30 AM Everyone Welcome

PRE-REGISTER

Hope Mennonite Fellowship

Battlefords Grace Community Church

1291 - 109th Street, North Battleford

SUNDAY - 11:00 a.m.

Worship Service

Pastor: Bill Hall

191 - 24th Street W., Battleford, Sk. 306-937-7575

WORSHIP SERVICES - 11 a.m. Sunday

Church Phone 306-445-4181

Everyone Welcome

Living Water Ministry

Sr. Pastor Brian Arcand Pastor Anand George Phone: 306-445-3803 Cell: 306-441-9385 Fax: 306-445-4385

All Saints Ukrainian Catholic Parish 902 - 108th Street, North Battleford LITURGY TIMES

Dec. 24-6:00 p.m. Dec. 27-10:00 a.m. Jan. 1-2:00 p.m.

Sundays in Jan. 2021 4:00 p.m. Wed. Jan. 6 - 6:00 p.m.

COVID protocal in effect. Call Larry at 306-441-5325 to reister

Battleford United Church 52 - 4th Avenue West Battleford, SK

306-937-3177 Rev. Gayle Wensley

SUNDAY SERVICES 11:00 a.m.

Battlefords Cowboy Church Services 1st & 3rd Thursday of each Month

Battleford Legion Hall 7:00 p.m.

PASTOR - Rick Martin

Third Avenue United Church

ROMAN CATHOLIC ST. VITAL’S

Sunday Worship Services at 10:30 am

Saturday Evening Mass - 5:00 p.m.

Sunday Mass - 10:30 a.m.

Rev. Dexter van Dyke

Pre-registration required to register at

306-445-8171

www.thirdavenueunitedchurchnb.ca Email: thirdaveunited@sasktel.net

Everyone Welcome

1371 - 103rd Street (Use East Door)

LIVING FAITH CHAPEL

1372 102nd St 306-445-3009

Phone 306-937-7340 PASTOR - Fr. Sebastian Kunnath

Phone: 306-285-3823 Contact: Don Retzlaff

Services: First & Third Sunday 10:30 a.m.

Church & CE Wing: 306-893-2611 For booking the Wing: 306-893-4729

Sunday Services 10:30 am Various Weekly Programs Pastor Casey Sitter www.livingfaithchapel.ca

Battlefords Seventh-Day Adventist Church

11 - 18th Street, Battleford, SK

Maidstone/Paynton United Church of Canada

Sunday Evening Service 7:00 p.m.

Bible Study Wednesday 7:30 p.m.

1702 - 106th Street, North Battleford

Come Join Us Sundays at 11:00 am Loving God Growing Together Serving Others Phone Church: 306-445-4818 Fax: 306-445-8895 Email: tbcnb@sasktel.net www.trinitybaptistchurch.ca

Pastor James Kwon

Corner 16th Ave. & 93rd Street, North Battleford

Phone 306-445-9096

Saturday Services Bible Study - 10:00 a.m.

Worship Service - 11:00 a.m.

Regional News-Optimist

The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Page 23

WHO DOES IT? w w w. n ew s o p t i m i s t . c a

Professional Directory

AGRICULTURE PARTS

ELECTRIC CONTRACTOR

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Ag Services • Solar • Residential Commercial • Maintenance

AGRA PARTS PLUS WRECKING

• Older Tractors • Combines • Swathers • Balers & Tillage • Other Ag Related Equipment

DEADLINE FOR THURSDAY EDITION IS MONDAY BY 4:00 PM

GENERAL CONTRACTOR

Derrick Shynkaruk General Contractor

• New Construction • Renovations

306-445-6769

3 miles N.W. on Hwy. 16, 2 1/2 miles west on Sunshine Road

CONSTRUCTION

ET YOUR Co-Jack Construction USINESS Established in 1996 Complete Building Renovations ROWING! Brad Pearson

Box 5 Medstead, SK S0M 1W0

Look for the RIGHT business for the JOB

Owner co-jack@sasktel.net

Cell: 306-824-0184 Home: 306-342-2122

Kevin Ryhorchuk

306-441-8727

306.441.1980 306.445.3144

djshynkaruk@gmail.com

GENERAL CONTRACTOR

To Book FIND OUT HOW TO REACH Your Space Now Over 26,000 readers Jeff Schommer plus 99,152 306-481-4892 unique visitors online schommshandymanrenos@yahoo.com

a "To-Do" List?

FORWeHave ONLY $39 Will Take Care /week of it!

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306.445.7261 ask for Candace

Wishing you all a happy New Year from Unity

By Sherri Solomko Correspodent

Here’s hoping Dec. 31, 2020 can bring us all the hope and promise we expected Dec. 31, 2019.

When we reflect on this past year in Unity many thoughts come to mind. You can remember the year with all of its chaos and uncertainty or you can remember the year with all the good things that happened in our community.

In spite of the pandemic, Unity welcomed a number of new businesses as well as some wonderful upgrades and renovations to existing businesses.

Our business community were absolute rock stars since March of

U

nity News

2020. Many adapted by offering changes to the way they provided their business or services, while continuing to offer safe, in-town shopping and services options.

Our food bank happily reported a continued commitment from this community to see that their shelves were full for those who needed it. As well, they were equally amazed at some of the increased initiatives to help supply their inventories when some of the normal seasonal canvasses were unable to proceed.

Nicole and the recreation department also embraced chaos. They enhanced green spaces, rolled with multiple changes in playgrounds, outdoor recreation spaces and indoor recreation spaces and communicated with residents on what was available and what protocols were in place.

Our churches, which

are normally places people flock to in time of crisis, were forced to re-think how they delivered comfort and their messages. Whether you realize it or not, these changes certainly increased their work load and they’ve all done it without offering a sigh of exhaustion or an utterance of frustration.

Our community cared, and people showed these actions over and over again from March up until now.

It’s what we do in Unity.

This ongoing optimism was manifested in parades to amuse seniors during lock down, drive bys for birthdays and anniversaries or showing up in droves to support the grads of 2020 in a parade when the pandemic’s circumstances

prevented a traditional grad celebration. Windows were painted at Easter and there was pride in property improvement all summer long, creative Halloween decorations and elaborate Christmas decorations to light up the community.

It all combined to demonstrate we care about each other.

I’m sure there are dozens of actions I missed including that showed great things from Unity this past year and especially this holiday season. Let’s approach the year with hope, as a vaccine is now being initiated. Let’s continue to hold each other in our hearts and with caring actions.

Continue to show we care. Drop off some extra

holiday treats for a shut-in, senior or neighbour who may be alone. Help shovel in the neighbourhood.

Make sure to wave at seniors in their windows of our seniors’ centres so they can see our warm smiles and feel a community caring for each other.

Whatever updates are given by our government on restrictions or easing restrictions, let’s approach them with cautious optimism and certain care in implementing them, so we are not seeing yet another repeat of rising numbers in our region or provincially.

Here’s hoping this finds you all safe, healthy and socially distanced. Until next week ...

Small celebrations within ‘bubbles’ the norm

M

eota News

By Lorna Pearson Correspondent

Christmas visiting was kept pretty much within family bubbles and precautions were taken when necessary. Folks reviewed the “Christmas in Meota” video and it was enjoyed and appreciated.

The end result is, Meota is a great place to live.

In the process of making our quilts, the subject of the carding machine that my parents used to have came up. That was back when we used sheep’s wool

for the batt in each quilt.

This was loaned out to someone and not returned.

It consisted of two rollers covered with metal hooked needles, one turning each way and producing a nicesized batt.

The Lions Christmas decorating competition was judged Dec. 21. The winners in order were Gerry Goodheart, Maurice Bru and Lawrie Ward. A drive around the village is worth the effort, as there are several places that are nicely done up. The moving pictures and lights are always

good to watch and the whole village is brighter.

A Dutch Tribute to Canada at Christmas There is a Dutch Christmas tradition that Canadians need to know about.

Every year in the town of Holten in the Netherlands, Dutch school children honour the graves of 1,355 Canadian soldiers. A candle is lit and placed on each Canadian grave.

These Dutch children know they are only able to celebrate their Christmas in freedom and peace be-

cause of the Allied sacrifice, in the Second World War. More than a thousand young Canadians gave up their lives, their families, their futures to defeat the evil Nazi Germany.

These Canadian sons, fathers and brothers never got to return home. They are permanently an ocean away, but at Christmas they are remembered. They are not alone. They are not cold. They are not in the dark.

They are remembered.

It is a simple but beautiful tradition. It is

a reminder that light and love can defeat the cold and dark.

Thank you for remembering our boys, Dutch children. Canada is grateful.

Leo and Trudy Janssen visited this site, the Canadian War Cemetery, with Leo’s cousin Elizabeth, who lives nearby, in 1999. The first thing noticed is the heather, many different kinds, beautifully groomed, then the headstones with candleholders, waiting for the children to arrive.

For more local news see www.newsoptimist.ca/news/news-local

Regional News-Optimist

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BATTLEFORD FURNITURE

&

T H E B AT T L E F O R D S

Page 24 - The Battlefords, Thursday, December 31, 2020

Regional

news-optimist Serving the Battlefords since 1908

Present.......

SANTA’S SCAV ENGER HUNT! 2020 of Outdoor Christmas Decor Ready……Set …Go! Put on your Santa hats and pile into the car. Remember to maintain your Social Bubble.

The first Annual Santa Scavenger Hunt is about to begin Your mission: To find these decorations on houses throughout the Battlefords.

We would love to see you having fun, so please post pics of your Santa Scavenger Hunt on our Facebook page, battleford.newsoptimist Santa _______________________________ Candy Cane __________________________ Wreath ______________________________ North Pole Sign _______________________ Snowman ____________________________ Carolers _____________________________ Elf __________________________________ Giant Present _________________________ Angel ________________________________ Peace Sign ___________________________

Rudolph _____________________________ Spiral Tree ___________________________ Joy Sign _____________________________ Christmas Train _______________________ Disney Character ______________________ Polar Bear____________________________ Stocking _____________________________ Teddy Bear ___________________________ Snowflake ____________________________ Toy Soldier ___________________________

HOW TO PLAY:

Pointsettia ___________________________ Gingerbread Man______________________ Snowglobe ___________________________ Disney Character ______________________ Mrs. Claus ___________________________ 3 Deer _______________________________ Sleigh _______________________________ Paw Patrol____________________________ Snoopy ______________________________ Big Ornament _________________________

Name: ________________________________

1) Cut this out 2) Drive around town & find a minimum of 10 items on the list 3) Write down the addresses 4) Drop off at The Regional News Optimist, 892-104th St. North Battleford or Battleford Furniture 192-24th St. Battleford 5) Watch the January 8th issue The Regional News Optimist for the winner 6) Have fun #santascavengerhunt 2020

_______________________________________ Phone Number: _________________________

1ST PRIZE - $500.00 GIFT CARD TO BATTLEFORD FURNITURE • 2ND PRIZE $100.00 CASH 3RD PRIZE - $50.00 IN CO-OP GIFT CARDS Draws will be random. • Enter as often as you wish. • Entry deadline is Jan 4th 12 noon.

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

31

Jan 3

Jan 4

Jan 5

Jan 6

FRIDAY

Jan 1

9:00 am - 2:00 pm NEW YEARS EVE

CLOSED NEW YEARS DAY

Jan 7

Jan 8

SATURDAY

Jan 2 Closed, the staff is reCuperating from 2020!

Jan 9

JANUARY CLEARANCE ON NOW! SALE ENDS JAN 31ST CLOSED

8:45 am - 6:00 pm

8:45 am - 6:00 pm

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8:45 am - 6:00 pm

8:45 am - 6:00 pm

192-24th Street West, Battleford Phone 306-937-7474 Fax 306-937-7676 www.battlefordfurniture.com mail@battlefordfurniture.com

BATTLEFORD FURNITURE