Prince Albert’s YWCA opens location for settlement services

Jayda Taylor
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Prince Albert’s YWCA opens location for settlement services

A Syrian refugee and YWCA client smiled big as he cut the ribbon for their settlement services grand opening on Thursday afternoon.

Omar Al Ali has been in Canada for two years with his wife Aisha Al Kadah, but their four adult children—who they’re trying to sponsor—remain in Syria.

Ali, speaking through a translator, expressed what it’s been like living in Canada.

“The YWCA services have been very well, but his wages and income, it’s very low because they don’t have kids (here) and they don’t get that child tax, so it’s like the minimum for him to just leave and pay for rent and food and everything. Bills, monthly bills,” translated Mouez Hnid with Settlement Workers in Schools (SWIS) for the YWCA.

Ali also spent two years in Jordan, just south of Syria, after escaping the war.

Omar Al Ali and his wife Aisha Al Kadah pose in front of the YWCA’s new settlement services location on May 23. (Jayda Noyes/Daily Herald)

He said he goes to English classes at the YWCA five days a week—which will now all take place at 65 – 11th Street East, previously the Wesley United Church.

Classes used to be scattered around the city in church basements or the YWCA’s location on Central Avenue.

The building is also used for filling out applications, meeting with clients, housing settlement counsellors and contains the SWIS office.

Settlement Services Manager Carolyn Hobden said their 90 funded spots for language classes are currently almost filled, and that the new building makes it easier for their clients.

“It’s one location that they need to learn how to get to,” she said.

She was touched to see Ali declaring the new location open.

“That was really special. He is one of our oldest clients who has arrived in Prince Albert and he arrived as a Syrian refugee with zero English, and even to hear him speak a few words in English and to be able to come here daily and do classes is a really nice reward,” said Hobden.

Ali cut the blue ribbon and put his hands up in the air for the several people who attended, all huddled around in a circle.

Everyone was invited to take a tour of the new building where there was also live music and food.

YWCA bought the Wesley United Church back in 2017.

Try Transit Day: city giving free bus rides for cleaner air

Jayda Taylor
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Try Transit Day: city giving free bus rides for cleaner air

The City of Prince Albert is encouraging residents to take advantage of public transit in hopes of helping the environment.

On June 5—the day of a national campaign called Clean Air Day—they’re offering free bus rides and giving away prizes for doing so or for learning about the city’s transit system.

By filling out a ballot when you ride the bus, you’re entered to win a Marley bluetooth speaker. If you post a photo to social media and use the hashtag #TryTransit, you’re entered to win an additional contest for a Prince Albert bunny hug.

From 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Try Transit Day, Transportation and Traffic Manager Keri Sapsford will be at a booth at the Transit Transfer Station downtown. You can also fill out a ballot there for a water park family pass and a transit prize pack.

There will be three food trucks on site.

“I know that a lot of people aren’t aware of how (transit) can work for them or that it is there even,” said Sapsford. “Because we are a small city, our routes aren’t going to be perfect for everyone. We can’t provide service like Toronto can, but we can get people to where they need to go.”

She encouraged people to use transit to limit pollution.

“You’re using one vehicle versus 20 vehicles on the road, so you’re reducing your emissions and cleaning the air,” she said.

Clean Air Day is in conjunction with Environment Week and the National Commuter Challenge, which encourages alternative forms of transportation to lower your environmental footprint.

Concert band concluding season with a broadway bash

Jayda Taylor
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Concert band concluding season with a broadway bash

The Prince Albert Concert Band will be filling the E.A. Rawlinson Centre with broadway music on May 30—a top of mind theme for this time of the year.

With the Tony Awards coming up at the beginning of June and plenty of talk throughout the city of the Broadway North Theatre Company, Director Kayleigh Skomorowski thought it was a perfect fit.

Skomorowski is also a music teacher at École St. Mary High School, which just finished their spring musical.

“It’s nice to finish the year with something that the general public is familiar with and people love broadway,” she said. “Musicals are just kind of on the brain.”

But, as she explains, it’s difficult to do a broadway themed show without vocals.

That’s why she invited the École St. Mary senior and junior choirs, as well as the men’s and women’s chamber choirs to take part, many of which she teaches music to currently or has in the past.

The concert features songs from Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, Hamilton, Carosel, Wicked, The Wizard of Oz, Dear Evan Hansen, Rent, Les Miserables and West Side Story.

“A lot of the songs we’re doing are medleys of a whole bunch of different songs, so it just feels like a lot of music we’ve had to learn,” she said.

Skomorowski emphasized people in the city may not be aware of the musical talent within their own community.

“It’d just be nice to have people come out that maybe don’t traditionally support these community groups just to see the really cool things that are happening.”

Ending the season with pop-style music is something Skomorowski is planning on doing in future years.

She will be announcing their plans for next season after the performance.

Their three other concerts from 2018-19, which started at the end of October, had a wide variety of inspirations: The first was based on Canadian people, places and composers, the second was their Christmas concert and the third consisted of wind band classics.

Admission to the concert, which starts at 7 p.m., is by donation.

Search and rescue team embarking on new opportunity

Jayda Taylor
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Search and rescue team embarking on new opportunity

Highway 55 North Search and Rescue has a four-legged volunteer in training—a five-year-old purebred border collie named Keena.

Handler Bree Hawrylak knew she wanted to work with dogs when she started volunteering for search and rescue 10 years ago.

At the time, no one in Saskatchewan used dogs for searches and there wasn’t many training resources, she said.

She would have trained both of her companions, but while the other had no interest in working, Keena was already at the door eager to learn.

“She picked it up almost instantly and she’s been doing really well with training. She’s got the focus. She’s got the drive,” said Hawrylak.

Handler Bree Hawrylak and search and rescue dog in training Keena at Welcome to the Lake on May 18. (Jayda Noyes/Daily Herald)

The team has taken a search and rescue seminar in Regina and a tracking class in Prince Albert, aside from training regularly with the Highway 55 North Search and Rescue group.

“The biggest thing is she can cover a lot more territory than I ever can and their sense of smell, their sense of drive,” she said.

“She will go for hours and I actually have to stop her in order to get her to take breaks, but I just think it’s an extremely (good) tool that we could be utilizing more in the province with searches.”

It will be another year at minimum before Keena is a certified search and rescue dog if Hawrylak continues in the process.

Highway 55 North Search and Rescue operates out of Candle Lake, which is about 65 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert.

Keena was greeting children and acting as the group’s mascot at Welcome to the Lake, a summer kickoff event held annually in the community.

Candle Lake summer kickoff supports local artists

Jayda Taylor
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Candle Lake summer kickoff supports local artists

“If it was perfect, it would be a photograph.”

– Freda Wantuck, Candle Lake Art Club

Every May long weekend Candle Lake hosts an all day event to support local companies, many of which are artists.

If you were at Welcome to the Lake on Saturday, you would have heard Willy Marcotte singing to the strum of his guitar while you were munching on your burger.

About 60 paintings from the Art Club lined the stage in front of him.

Freda Wantuck, who’s been with the Candle Lake Art Club since 2006, said it’s important that the club comes to community events.

“It just shows the people the talent that we have at Candle Lake—for a little village like this,” she said.

They have over 20 artists who mostly live in Candle Lake.

Members meet to paint every Tuesday from September to May. Some days they bring in someone to teach a class.

Wantuck said the classes show how everyone embraces their own unique style.

“Everyone’s looks different even though we all took the same class,” she said.

She emphasized part of the reason art is so enjoyable is because it doesn’t have to be perfect: “If it was perfect, it would be a photograph.”

Marcotte said this is his form of community service.

“Instead of setting up chairs, I’m singing songs,” he said.

Local singer Willy Marcotte gives a smile while performing at Welcome to the Lake at the Candle Lake Community Hall on May 18. (Jayda Noyes/Daily Herald)

Marcotte, a multi-genre singer, does solo gigs in bars and lounges. He’s also a member of the Prince Albert Country Music Association.

“I love to sing, so I sing at any opportunity I can. Sometimes I get paid for it, sometimes I don’t.”

“I’m retired, and as such I can afford to be a starving artist now,” he said with a laugh.

Chelsea Pitre with the Chamber of Commerce, which organized the event, said this year had a record turnout with at least 300 or 400 people only half way into the day.

“All the people that own businesses here really work hard to provide exceptional service and provide a business in such a small community that goes from a small population in the winter to a booming population in the summer, so it’s important that we promote them and keep them thriving,” she said about why the event takes place every year.

Welcome to the Lake consisted of a pancake breakfast, a BBQ lunch, a flea market and a Cabaret at night featuring a Prince Albert band called Gridroad.

P.A. Pride: 50 years of homosexuality decriminalization shows ‘small steps’

Jayda Taylor
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P.A. Pride: 50 years of homosexuality decriminalization shows ‘small steps’

“The nature of the law has prompted new social developments that we as a country have to address.”

– Marc Roberts, Prince Albert Pride

Up until 1969, homosexuality came in exchange with prison time.

Fifty years since the decriminalization of homosexuality sparked many emotions for Prince Albert Pride’s Marc Roberts, who came out as gay at eight years old.

He’s never felt marginalized, yet knows people alike in the early colonial era were even sentenced to death for having gay sex.

“Since then we’ve grown as a country, we’ve gone through more and more acceptance,” said Roberts.

Same-sex marriage was also legalized in 2005.

However, he said the laws don’t fix everything when it comes to discrimination of the LGBTQ community.

“It hasn’t gone away. It’s still there,” he said.

Many are still being abused, and even killed, for their identities.

When Prince Albert Pride began, Roberts said there were some incidents of vandalism on public properties.

He emphasized how more and more people are transgender, which national laws don’t acknowledge.

“At the time it was like, ‘Hey, we have a guy who wants to have sex with a guy…now all the sudden you have ‘I’m a biological female who identifies as a male because I believe that in my heart and in my soul,’” explained Roberts.

“With how the laws were originally set up, it talked about males and females, not men and women,” he said. “The nature of the law has prompted new social developments that we as a country have to address.”

One being the struggle with a lack of gender neutral washrooms.

Roberts said there’s a lot of misunderstandings surrounding the topic: “A lot of people say ‘Oh, it’s just men in women’s bathrooms who are perverts.’”

But there have been “small steps.”

Many provinces, including Saskatchewan, have made the option of putting an ‘X’ on your driver’s license instead of male or female.

Additionally, Roberts said Prince Albert is a fairly understanding community.

He said many schools have gender neutral washrooms and he has no experience with discrimination.

“I feel that it’s an accepting community no matter what your personal expression is, whether it’s a different race, a different heritage,” said Roberts.

“It’s just a matter of slow acceptance and understanding.”

On Tuesday evening, Prince Albert Pride hosted their own ‘Show Me Your Colours’ event to mark the milestone of half a decade of homosexuality being decriminalized.

The Pride Parade is coming up on June 1, which will start at Court of Queen’s Bench at noon.

Roberts emphasized that you do not have to identify as LGBTQ to participate or march and that they welcome allies.

Police investigating over 20 spray-painted properties in West Hill

Jayda Taylor
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Police investigating over 20 spray-painted properties in West Hill

Several residential and business properties in Prince Albert’s west end were hit with graffiti on Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

According to a police media release, officers responded to over 20 vandalized properties.

On the sound side of 6th Avenue West, many graffitied homes read the word ‘Crip’—The Crips are a gang founded in Las Angeles in the United States, although it’s unclear if there’s any relation.

Sharon Trautmann’s home was one of them.

Several of her close neighbours have bright blue paint splattered on the sides of their homes and fences as well. One had silver spray paint.

Trautmann phoned the police on Thursday when she realized her house had been hit, and said police suspect it was simply young kids.

If this is the case, she was empathetic to any situations they’re possibly in.

“In some ways I think it’s sad that there’s kids that maybe they don’t have parents that are aware of where they are, what they’re doing or maybe they don’t care, so I actually think it’s a very sad situation that kids are out at that hour of the night,” she said.

Trautmann added crime activity is uncommon where she lives.

“It’s always been very peaceful and quiet and we’ve always felt very, very safe here,” she said.

“Hopefully it’s just something random that happened and hopefully it won’t happen again, but there’s no guarantees I guess.”

Police have released security footage of the suspects from 12:48 a.m. on Thursday morning.

The photos show two individuals, one on a bike, in a parking lot.

(Prince Albert Police Service/Submitted)
(Prince Albert Police Service/Submitted)

Anyone with information on the crime is encouraged to call the Prince Albert Police Service at 306-953-4222 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Indigenous gathering for diabetes teaches healthy habits

Jayda Taylor
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Indigenous gathering for diabetes teaches healthy habits

“People can live well with diabetes. Not everybody has to be on dialysis or vision loss or amputation. There are ways to manage the disease, but there’s lots to learn.”

– Brie Hnetka, Diabetes Canada Regional Director

Esther Badger’s First Nations family has a history with diabetes.

Her late father and older sister were diabetic, and she had gestational diabetes while pregnant with her last child. The disease went away when she gave birth.

“For me, it was a shock because I tried to stay healthy, eat right,” she said.

But, because diabetes is primarily genetic, Indigenous people in Canada are three to five times more likely to get the disease than the general population and 85 per cent of Indigenous children will develop diabetes in their lifetime.

This is why Diabetes Canada hosts their Indigenous Gathering in Prince Albert.

The 16th annual event took place on Wednesday at the Exhibition Centre. It provided booths from health sectors and guest speakers for networking, information and support.

One of the guest speakers was Patrick Head, who needed a kidney transplant because of diabetes.

Badger said these are her favourite types of presentations.

“I love hearing stories of people who have been through it and lived it and that way you can meet them and ask them questions. I’d like to have speakers on people that lost a foot or their leg or their eyesight, things like that, to diabetes,” she said.

“It’d be nice for people to learn and see what could happen.”

This is her third year attending the event.

Other presentations were on diabetes medications and holistic approaches, nutrition and the new food guide and complications.

“The complications of diabetes is what kills people,” said Brie Hnetka, regional director for Diabetes Canada. “It’s the heart attacks; it’s the strokes, the amputations, the blindness and the kidney disease. Those all come with diabetes.”

She said the Indigenous gathering is usually held in Prince Albert because it’s close to many northern First Nations communities.

“The message that we want to get out is that there is hope and in these communities, people can live well with diabetes. Not everybody has to be on dialysis or vision loss or amputation. There are ways to manage the disease, but there’s lots to learn,” explained Hnetka.

She added there’s many misconceptions about Type II diabetes, which is when the body is not producing enough insulin or the cells aren’t accepting it.

“One of the most popular misconceptions is you ate too much sugar and that’s why you got diabetes, that people living with Type II diabetes or were diagnosed with Type II diabetes brought that on themselves by living an unhealthy lifestyle or they’re overweight,” she said.

Along with the Indigenous population, African, Filipino, and East Asian people are also more likely to get diabetes because of genetics.

Diabetes Canada also brought in Carlin Nordstrom, a former National Hockey League (NHL) player. He spoke to youth about starting healthy habits at an early age to prevent or delay the disease.

Women’s shelter says good morning to brand new beds

Jayda Taylor
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Women’s shelter says good morning to brand new beds

“Sometimes that’s the first good night’s sleep they’ve had in a long, long time—not sleeping with one eye open.”

– Lynn Martel, Sleep Country Canada Vice-President of Charitable Initiatives

Sleep Country Canada has donated 22 beds and bedding essentials to women and children who need a good night’s rest.

The Prince Albert Safe Shelter for Women is the busiest in the province, according to President Heather Sherdahl.

It gives women and children in situations of domestic abuse a place “to move beyond their current circumstances.”

Assistant Director Sherry Bates said the shelter is typically at at least 95 per cent occupancy. Being able to hold 26 beds, the donation replaces almost all of them.

“It will have a rippling effect for years to come,” said Bates. “It frees up money that we can put towards programming or other things that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to do considering the budget that we have to adhere to every year.”

She added the shelter gets adequate core funding, but not specifically for furnishings.

Sleep Country prepares for the donation to be hauled to the Prince Albert Safe Shelter for Women on May 16, 2019. (Jayda Noyes/Daily Herald)

Lynn Martel, Sleep Country Canada’s vice-president of charitable initiatives, guessed the donation costs $10-15,000.

Aside from the 22 beds, they’ve also donated mattresses, pillows, pillow cases, mattress encasements and waterproof covers and sheets.

During the announcement of the donation on Thursday morning, she emphasized the importance of sleep.

“In Canada, we know the safety of all citizens is imperative, yet not everyone is born into or lives in a safe or protective environment,” she said.

“Sometimes that’s the first good night’s sleep they’ve had in a long, long time—not sleeping with one eye open.”

Prominent members of the city attended the announcement, including police Chief Jon Bergen, Northcote MLA Nicole Rancourt, Ward 4 Coun. Don Cody and Ward 3 Coun. Evert Botha.

Ward 4 Coun. Don Cody speaks at Sleep Country’s donation announcement, with Sleep Country Canada’s Lynn Martel beside him on May 16, 2019. (Jayda Noyes/Daily Herald)

Prince Albert’s Sleep Country store opened last month. Shortly before, in March, Martel paid a visit to the shelter.

She said it’s important the company makes a charitable donation in small markets before they’ve made a ton of business.

“We really want to be part of the fabric of the community. We hire from within the community, but we don’t really want to be seen as a big national company coming in and stealing business,” she said.

Additionally, Sleep Country has their Counting Sheep for Mental Wellness campaign running throughout the month of May.

For every stuffed sheep the store sells, which costs $10 plus tax, all net proceeds are donated to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). For every weighted blanket, $5 are donated.

“Everyone deserves to wake up feeling well,” said Martel.

Their other two national campaigns are Give a Kid a Coat and Pyjamas & Storybooks for Better Bedtimes.

Saskatoon man shares creative passion for wood carving with P.A.

Jayda Taylor
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Saskatoon man shares creative passion for wood carving with P.A.

“I can give them personalities, so it’s basically a creation from my mind and I use realism as my reference material.”

– Doug Lingelbach, professional power sculptor

Doug Lingelbach learned how to make wood sculptures with a knife before competing worldwide as a professional—but with a chainsaw.

He loved spending time in the forest as a kid, which rippled into developing his own Saskatoon-based company called Earth Bling and competing internationally with the brand Husqvarna.

The rain on Wednesday didn’t stop him from housing himself under a small tent outside of Charles Repair and Service to showcase his talents.

While he was creating a perched owl on a log, he shared how he takes an idea from his mind and makes it reality.

“I have visions. My clients usually will have something they love and then I turn it into my vision and I get creative control based on the topic, whether it be a frog or an owl or a bear. I can give them personalities, so it’s basically a creation from my mind and I use realism as my reference material,” explained Lingelbach.

He mostly creates pieces revolving around nature, but also does fantasy.

(Doug Lingelbach/Facebook)

When a family asked him to do a carving of Winnie the Pooh for their kids, Lingelbach wasn’t certain he could do it.

“It kind of led me into try more stuff and I just eventually gravitated and now I travel the world and train by all the different masters.”

Charles Repair and Service was hosting a Husqvarna sale.

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