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Two people were arrested and a shotgun was seized after Spruce Plains (Neepawa) RCMP responded to a suspicious person complaint last Thursday, September 15th, at around 5:05 p.m.

The RCMP say that after receiving a report of a suspicious man and woman walking around the community of Gladstone, officers conducted a patrol in the community and located the man walking along Regent St.

They say an officer then approached the suspect and when he was asked for a piece of ID, he dropped his backpack and coat and ran off.

Police went on to say that the officer chased the suspect down several streets and behind several homes before the suspect surrendered to police in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex.

After arresting the man, the RCMP seized his jacket and backpack and they found a loaded sawed-off shotgun inside the jacket.

According to the RCMP, a further investigation into the suspect's activities led to the recovery of a stolen pickup truck out of Virden as well as a stolen motorcycle from Landmark, in the R.M. of Taché.

41-year-old Sean Paul Connors from Brandon was remanded into custody on numerous firearm-related charges as well as for the Possession of Property Obtained by Crime, Possession of a Controlled Drug and Resisting Arrest.

Officers later located the 21-year-old female, from Brandon, in Minnedosa. She was arrested, but later released, and is scheduled to appear in court on November 22nd.

Spruce Plains RCMP continue to investigate.

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UPDATE (Sept 20th, 2:56 p.m.): According to Dauphin Recreation Services, the tree has been cleared from Main St. N.

Update contributed by Nicholas Iatropoulos

The original article follows:

A fallen tree is currently blocking Main Street North in Dauphin, near Fusion Credit Union. Dauphin Rec Services crews are on the scene to remove the tree.

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While the summer season has come to an end at the Fort Dauphin Museum, there is still a lot planned for the fall. Museum Manager/Curator Theresa Deyholos says they're currently preparing for a number of tours that come through town.

"The fall brings in group travelers to visit, learn, and experience the rich culture and heritage in our community. These tourists travel in their RVs from across Canada and the USA, and they stop in Dauphin to visit our museum."

Deyholos says the museum is having trouble finding volunteers to help with a number of important tasks around the museum.

"We depend on volunteers to help with a number of activities at the fort such as setting up tables, decorating for an event, maintenance and repairs, helping with games and fundraising activities, conducting tours, digitizing artifacts in our collection, and baking and other jobs in the kitchen for tours and events."

The museum will work with people who want to volunteer to ensure they're helping with something they're interested in. Anyone that wants more information, or to volunteer can call the museum at (204) 638-6630.

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Today is Co-op's Fuel Good Day.

The Dauphin Co-op will donate 10¢ per litre of gasoline or diesel sold at the Main Street or Mountain Road Gas Bar to the Bridge Youth Drop-in Centre in Ochre River. The Gilbert Plains Co-op Gas Bar is also taking part and will donate proceeds to the Gilbert Plains Drop-in Senior Centre.

In addition, there will be fundraiser barbecues from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at both the Dauphin Gas Bars with all proceeds going to the Drop-in Centre as well.

Joan Chetyrbok, marketing and community relations manager at the Dauphin Co-op, says that she expects to have a great turnout.

"The community is amazing supporting organizations that are trying to do good... It's an amazing community," she adds.

According to the Dauphin Co-op, the Bridge Youth Drop-in Centre provides local youth with a place to go after school to learn new skills and gain experiences.

“The funds raised during Fuel Good Day will help with programming and building maintenance so we can better serve our youth and the Ochre River community,” Keith DeVries, volunteer at the Youth Drop-in Centre, adds.

Chetyrbok says that they will be serving hotdogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, drinks, and some snacks at the barbecues.

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Manitoba saw a few cases of avian flu in the spring, but it was a quiet summer as all of Canada only had seven cases in July and August, none of which were in Manitoba. Recently, however, the entire country has seen an uptick in cases says Manitoba Chicken Producers Executive Director Wayne Hiltz.

 "There have been outbreaks in several provinces across the country in the last few weeks, and last week we did have two more cases in flocks in Manitoba, with a third one that has actually just been confirmed today."

Hiltz says the most common cause of transmission is through wild birds, and Manitoba Chicken Producers are doing everything in their power to limit the spread of avian flu.

"They're carriers of the disease, while they themselves are immune to it, they're carriers of Avian Influenza. So any direct contact with birds or any direct contact with wild bird manure is the most common way that it spreads. The big risk is outdoor flocks or birds that have access to outdoors, that's the biggest risk of this landing in the poultry industry."

Biosecurity is extremely important when trying to stop the spread of avian flu says Hilts, and while it's important to stick to the basics, he says they've had to step it up as well.

"We certainly have all of our producers on upgraded biosecurity, which would mean no visitors into your yard, locking gates if available, making sure you're doing multiple changes of clothing or footwear before you enter into your barn. Which again, a lot of that is standard biosecurity, but it's upgraded now to a higher degree."

Avian flu was detected in Canada for the first time since 2015 in December, and there have now been over 120 cases across 9 provinces.

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Curbside recycling pickup in Benito has been discontinued since the end of August.

According to the Municipality of Swan Valley West, Benito residents must now deposit their recyclables into the bins on the east side of the Benito Maintenance Shop at 87 Railway Ave.

Grant Schneider, chair of the Local Urban District (LUD) Committee for Benito, says that it had to be discontinued because they didn't have the financial means to sustain it and that they weren't able to properly budget for recycling pickup because they were missing critical information, including what the rates would be from OSS, the waste management company that serves the area.

"We never got any hardcore evidence of what we were going to get [back from the government] for our MSN tipping fees... They basically are going to give us $5,000 out of whatever grants we're going to get from that, so we can't really sustain [a recycling program] when last year, our cost was $38,000 to have recycling pickup in Benito," he adds.

According to Schneider, they also explored the idea of transitioning to picking up recycling once a month, instead of twice a month.

"We were struggling to understand what it was going to cost. We [didn't] know what the additional fuel surcharges were going to be. Nobody gave us information in regards to that, so that we can make a proper decision on how to go about it...Even at... $40,000 and there [are 200] households in Benito... each person would have to pay an additional $200 for curbside pickup," he adds.

Schneider went on to say that it would be unreasonable to go ahead with that, since most Benito residents are seniors living on a fixed income.

He also points out that although residents are able to bring their recyclables to the maintenance shop themselves, many seniors living in the area would struggle to get them there.

Furthermore, Grant Schneider believes that the amalgamation of the former Village of Benito into the Municipality of Swan Valley West has made it more difficult to get funding.

"It makes it tough on these little communities to run the programs... If you don't get the proper grants, like we did when we used to be the Village, of course, it makes it harder to facilitate these programs [and] make them run," he adds.

Schneider says that curbside recycling pickup could return to Benito in the future, but there are no concrete plans for that at this time.

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The Winnipegosis Fire Department is raising money to bring a fuel cache to the area for STARS Air Ambulance. Currently, when STARS responds to a call in the area, they drop off the trauma team and then have to leave and refuel in Dauphin or Gypsumville.

The extra stop can add significant time, in a situation that's life or death, and the department wants to make calls to the area more efficient. Deputy Chief Brent Benson says with the right equipment, they'd arrive on the scene before stars, and immediately start helping with the process.

"We would meet them at the scene where they're going to be helping the patient. The flight from Winnipeg is just a little bit longer than it would take for us to get to the scene. That would allow us to have a landing zone ready for them, or assist the local fire department in having a landing zone ready for them, as well as having the fuel there so they could land, the trauma team would go help the ambulance crew get the patient ready for transport, and we would start refueling with the pilot."

Having the fuel on the scene means that once the trauma team has the patient ready for transport, they'd be able to immediately leave the scene, rather than have to wait for the helicopter to return from refueling.

"It really improves how far they can go, because currently, we're on the outer range of where they can operate from. To go much further north than Winnipegosis, it's kind of hard for them to even get there in the first place, and then have enough fuel to even get to a fueling station. So for us to be able to refuel them on-site would save an immense amount of time for them, and potentially save the lives of the patients they're helping."

Benson says the project will cost around $15,000, and while they have some donations of equipment already, they're raising money to purchase a trailer. Sponsor logos will be placed on the trailer, which will also be used at public education events.

"It's only a few incidents a year right now where they've been called out, but these are in remote areas, and even though we have fabulous ambulance personnel, with incidents to sever they basically have to go straight to Winnipeg anyways, so this would save three to four hours of travel time for the most severe trauma's that occur in these rural areas, and we think it'll save lives."

People interested in donating, or looking for more information about the project can contact the Winnipegosis Municipal Office at (204) 656-4791.

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Today marks the start of Tim Hortons' Smile Cookie Week fundraising campaign.

The Dauphin Tim Hortons will be participating again this year, with all the proceeds raised from selling Smile Cookies this week going to support Maamawi Park and the 4 Season Toboggan Run.

This year, Tim Hortons teamed up with six local businesses, which have each been assigned a day where they'll be matching and donating funds from each Smile Cookie sold at the Dauphin Tims; today's Smile Cookie sales will be matched by the Dauphin Home Hardware.

Last year's Smile Cookie Week was able to raise $27,174 for the Dauphin Friendship Centre and the Parkland Humane Society, which allowed the Dauphin Tim Hortons to be ranked as one of the top 10 locations in Canada.

Anyone interested in pre-ordering Smile Cookies can do so by calling 204-638-3299.

More information on Smile Cookie Week can be found on the Tim Hortons website.

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The Terry Fox Run is tomorrow this year, and there's an event going on in Dauphin open to anyone that wants to participate. Registration for the run is at 10:30 tomorrow at Vermillion Park, and the run gets underway at 11 a.m.

"You can go to the website, TerryFox.org, or just come to Vermillion Park and we'll have registration forms."

Local Organizer Stephen Roznowsky says people are able to register online beforehand, and donations can also be made at the Dauphin Terry Fox Run webpage here.

"It's a very good organization to belong to, it's done a lot for cancer research since 1980 when Terry Fox started, and I'm proud to be a part of it."

There's also a Terry Fox Run being held in Winnipegosis from noon to 2 p.m. starting at the Boulevard, and you can register here. You can find out more about why the Terry Fox Run is held, and the history of the Marathon of Hope on the organization's website here.

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Dauphin's Fire Chief Cam Abrey has a new designation after completing the Executive Chief Fire Officer program through the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. Abrey says he's been working on the program for a while, and it's nice to have finally completed it.

"I started the program actually four years ago, upon return from a Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Fire Rescue Canada conference in Vancouver. I had come back and signed up for it and was ready to get going, and they assigned an assessor to me from the council. I started submitting my assignments but the assessor retired without me knowing about it, and I just kind of put everything on pause."

Abrey says once the pandemic hit, there were other items that came to the forefront rather than the assignments.

"After a little bit of a delay and a pause, and a lot of hard work, I finally got it done and submitted in time to receive my designation at the conference this past Tuesday evening."

Abrey says a lot of work went into the program, with 30 different assignments, but it allowed him to take a better look at the work he does.

"It helped me discover a lot of the stuff that I've done, but never thought about, because it was just my ordinary everyday duties that I've been doing. When they're asking for examples of how you've dealt with human resources, as a part of my assignment I had to submit various things that we've had to deal with, within the fire service."

Abrey says he had to look at how he dealt with governing the department, how they've found other sources of revenue, prepared budgets, and different fire prevention techniques.

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A project aiming to preserve the history of McCreary is currently underway.

The McCreary Oral History Project is centred around capturing the voices of McCreary residents through a series of recorded interviews.

Pam Little, the director of the project, says that they are starting by interviewing the oldest in the community.

"We've already actually interviewed three 100-year-olds... And then we have some targeted just for where they lived or what they did in McCreary... Sometimes it's younger people we're interviewing because the other people are no longer with us... For example, we interviewed a woman in her seventies, who's relatively young compared to a 100-year-old, about her life living in the railway station in McCreary. Her dad was a station manager, so they lived... where we have our museum, so that was pretty neat to hear," she adds.

Little says that people can get involved by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., by calling her at 204-835-2529 or by messaging McCreary Heritage Advisory Committee on Facebook.

She expects the film to be completed by March 2023, but says that they need more volunteers to accomplish that.

"They can get a hold of those same contact places to volunteer," Little adds.

Pam Little went on to say that they need people who can interview, type up the transcript, be the cameraperson, or scan pictures that can go into the film.

The project is funded by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.

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