February 2022
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The Premier’s plan
A tasty surprise!
Manitoba’s Metis musical heritage
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Audience of half a billion: Manitoba’s most listened-to radio broadcast 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of radio broadcasting in Manitoba. Over the course of the year, Lifestyles 55 will be publishing a series of articles featuring a few of the highlights of local radio history.
Is space the final frontier? Imagine . . .
Garry Moir
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ing George the VI had good reason to be nervous as he made his way in the rain to Government House, just across from the Manitoba Legislature. The clock was ticking toward 1 p.m. on May 24th, Victoria Day, 1939. The King and Queen Elizabeth were on a cross-Canada tour. The Winnipeg stop was to provide the King with one of his biggest challenges. King George VI was to address the Commonwealth that day via radio. Public speaking of any kind was not his forte. Since early childhood, George had suffered from a speech disorder characterized by a severe stutter. He was working to overcome the problem, but the prospect of addressing millions around the world must have been daunting.
The Royal visit to Winnipeg in May 1939. Not only was the speech a challenge for the King, but also for local broadcasters. Nothing was left to chance by technicians from the recently-formed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and radio station CKY, a CBC affiliate, owned and operated by the Manitoba Telephone System. Coverage of the event was to showcase the merits of public broadcasting. A makeshift studio was set up
in a small room at Government House. “Furnishings in the room will suggest relaxation,” the Winnipeg Tribune informed its readers. Those furnishings amounted to a desk, a chair and two small goldplated microphones made to CBC specifications. Only one microphone would be used. The other was there in the event of technical difficulties. u 6 ‘Audience of half a billion’
April 15 to 17, 2022 – first ever Living Green Show coming up at the Ex Dorothy Dobbie
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urrah! 2022 will mark the Year of the Garden in Canada, a celebration of our contribution to the horticultural world as well as a nod to the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association. And it will be extra special in Winnipeg, which has also declared 2022 the Year of the garden in Winnipeg, because the first ever Living Green Show will be held at Red River Exhibition, sponsored by the Exhibition, Kevin Twomey and Yours Truly, Dorothy Dobbie, owner of Pegasus Publications Inc., the publisher of Canada’s Local Gardener and your Lifestyles 55 magazine. We are very excited and delight-
ed to share that Keith Lemkey of Lemkey Landscape Design has volunteered to design a special demonstration garden to greet you as you come into the show. He will be partnered with Keystone Products of Warren MB who will supply the hard features. We are still working on the plant partner. The goal here is to present a down-home community garden exhibition and show that will invite local non-profits as well as vendors to take part. We want this to be very family- and garden-oriented and to kick start the garden
season with a lot of fun and joy! Garden clubs are welcome to set up booths and demonstrations this year as a courtesy to all the gardeners out there who make our lives better. Please contact Lisa Tully at the Red River Ex. Canada’s local Gardener will be at this show and at several others across the country for the first time in several years. Watch for our booths at major garden shows in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax, Charlottetown. This year will hopefully see the end of the pandemic, all the more reason to celebrate. And remember to plant red as the colour of the Year of the Garden! Visit our website at https://www. localgardener.net/ to learn more about Canada’s only garden magazine published right here in Winnipeg!
Randy Bolt
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ther than Covid-19, inflation, the collapse of Hong Kong as a free society, and a continuing bull stock market, the last two years have been a time of space development. We have also seen two companies offer space tourism, the development of the largest rocket in history, the landing of the Mars Rover, and the launch of the $10 Billion James Webb space telescope. These developments are likely to cost hundreds of billions of dollars – although critics question if such vast sums should not be spent back on earth helping the poor and disadvantaged. But if we look at the history of man, space exploration is inevitable and short of the collapse of modern civilization, it will continue. The history of Homo Sapiens is relatively new in evolutionary terms, perhaps only 200,000 years. In people terms, 200,000 years is only 2,500 lifetimes. And only 100,000 years ago did we leave Africa, about 1,250 lifetimes. Only 12,000 years ago – 150 lifetimes – we started to become farmers and herders. 600 years ago – eight lifetimes – the Portuguese and the Chinese started to explore the world through global ocean navigation. The Industrial age began in earnest 200 years ago – just 2.5 lifetimes. Space exploration began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1, not quite a full lifetime. Our big brains, bipedalism and highly socialized structure, allowed primitive peoples to conquer every continent in the world (except for the Antarctic). We see Bushman in the Kalahari Dessert, Sherpas in the Himalayas, and ancient tribes in the Amazon Jungle. None of these habitats is our natural setting: we were built for long distance running in the Savanah of Africa. So how is it that a hairless ape can u
6 ‘Is space the final frontier?’