Construction season at Little Red begins Monday

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Construction season at Little Red begins Monday

Little Red River Park will be bustling with activity over the next several weeks as improvements to the area are scheduled to start on May 8, and the City is thanking the public for their patience as they visit the Park throughout the summer.

“It will be a busy construction season as City crews push to complete the remainder of 2022 and 2023 improvements,” said City Parks Manager Tim Yeaman. “Please be mindful of workers in and around the Park’s core area completing the work.”

The Rotary Adventure Park and Zip Lines will see the final equipment construction, with the beginning of landscaping and finishing work to follow. This includes improved pathways, picnic areas with benches, picnic tables, fire pits, garbage bins and signage.

Crews will begin milling the main road to the Cosmo Lodge from Highway 55 and additional parking will be added near the lodge.

The Toboggan Hill Parking area will see landscape finishing work and installation of stump posts, and the centre parking lot between the Cosmo Lodge and the Toboggan Hill will see improvements. Construction of a Warm-up Shelter is also scheduled to begin later this summer near the Cosmo Lodge.

“The legacy we are building through the improvements to Little Red will provide years of enjoyment for families and people of all ages and abilities,” said the City. “We extend a big Thank-You to all who have partnered on this project.”

According to a media release from the City, residents will be invited to a grand opening of Little Red later this year, once all the work in the park is completed.

Prince Albert business community ‘punching above its weight class’ says upcoming chamber speaker

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Prince Albert business community ‘punching above its weight class’ says upcoming chamber speaker

The Prince Albert community will be getting a visit from long-time Saskatchewan business advocate Paul Martin, where he will sharing knowledge on how local business and entrepreneurs can more effectively leverage assets to increase investment.

In an interview with the Herald, Martin said the province is in “Saskaboom 2.0” and that Prince Albert’s business community is “punching above its weight class”, in terms of attracting investment right now.

“It’s a real standout in the province on that one and its ability to do that,” he noted.

Martin said over the next 24 to 36 months, Prince Albert will see its business and infrastructure spending slightly outpace the rest of the province on a per capita basis.

Real business opportunity resides in thinking about the big picture trends, said Martin, adding that embracing agriculture is one to jump on right now.

“We’re going to see some very dramatic change and significant change,” he said. “And if we’re smart, we will get on that boat, and we’ll ride the crest of that wave.”

Another thing Martin wants to encourage businesspeople to do is become more discriminating consumers of national news, and shift more focus to what’s being said locally.

He explained that because the national news resides in Toronto, it influences how they cover subjects like the Canadian economy.

“When we’re up, Toronto’s down,” said Martin. “Right now, in Toronto, the service side of the Canadian economy is down, the commodity side is up. So, we’re up, but if you live in Toronto, you can see the economy is down, housing prices are falling and all that sort of stuff.”
Stats Canada recently reported that Saskatchewan had the fastest and largest growth rate of any province in the country, a performance in which Martin forecasts for 2023 as well.

“If you watch the national news, you don’t get that impression,” said Martin. “When you look up and down the street, you’ll find out that things are pretty strong here locally and that we have to be more discriminating when we listen to the national news and understand that those people live in Toronto and that’s the world they see.”

Martin said it’s important that small businesses are aware of the bigger picture, which is where he comes in.

“You’re head down, you’re in the trenches, you’re working every day satisfying customers. Demand is strong right now and you’re trying to keep up. Supply chains are what they are; they’re difficult,” he said. “The job for people like [me] is to take a look out over the horizon and see what’s the lay of the land out there, and then report back to them.”

Born and raised in southern Saskatchewan, Martin’s career as a business journalist has spanned various radio, television, print and electronic media channels across the province since the early 1970’s.

Currently, Martin is a partner in the public relations firm, Martin Charlton Communication, and chairs the Board of Directors of Des Nedhe, an Indigenous economic development corporation owned by English River First Nation.

In 2021, Martin was recognized for his contributions to Saskatchewan’s economy with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Saskatchewan Economic Development Alliance.

The Prince Albert Chamber of Commerce will be hosting Paul Martin at the Ches Leach Lounge in the Art Hauser Centre on May 9, as part of their 2023 Luncheon Series.

La Loche declares state of emergency as fire crews battle 226-hectare blaze in northern Sask.

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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La Loche declares state of emergency as fire crews battle 226-hectare blaze in northern Sask.

Residents of the Village of La Loche and Clearwater River Dene Nation have been placed under a mandatory evacuation order as a 226-hectare wildfire continues to burn between the two northern Saskatchewan communities.

Thirteen wildfires are actively burning across the province, but the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) said their biggest fire of concern is the one forcing up to 3,000 northern residents to leave their homes in search of safety in the south.

“There has been no growth in the last 36 hours,” said SPSA Vice-President of Operations Steve Roberts. “No homes, businesses, or infrastructure have been burnt or damaged by the fire. There have been some minor losses – a shed and an abandoned vehicle.”

As of Friday morning, 147 individuals have registered with the SPSA for evacuation and are travelling to or have already arrived at the designated evacuation spot in Regina. Roberts said the number of people that have self-evacuated is unknown.

The SPSA has seen some successes over the past 48 hours, as government type 1 response crews and local type 2 crews continue battling the blaze using heavy equipment, helicopter and air tanker supports.

While he was unable to say what specifically started the fire near La Loche, Roberts confirmed that all wildfires currently burning in the province are the result of human activity and will be investigated by the agency for cause and origin.

“We know they’re human-caused. We haven’t had [any] lightning this year so it’s pretty easy to calculate out,” said Roberts.
Hot and dry weather conditions are predicted to continue over the next 72 hours, increasing the risk of new fires starting and current ones spreading, according to the SPSA.

There have been 73 wildfires in Saskatchewan so far in 2023, with more than 190 grassfires reported in the first five days of May alone.

Arthur Pechey School cooking club combats food insecurity

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Arthur Pechey School cooking club combats food insecurity

A Prince Albert elementary school staff member wanting to do more for students that don’t always have enough to eat has organized a cooking club for children in grades six to eight to learn some new skills and more importantly, combat food insecurity.

Chelsey Honch, an Educational Assistant at Arthur Pechey Public School, said she wanted to come up with a way to better support students after seeing many of them come to school hungry every day.

When Honch told one of her friends, Kara Gray of Aurora Chiropractic, about her idea to set up a program that would both teach kids how to cook and send them home with food, Gray jumped on the opportunity to help out in any way she could. She also asked Desiree Hesson of The S2DIO to shop for groceries and teach the students some tricks in the kitchen.

“They’re absolutely loving it,” said Honch. “For those who don’t have food at home, we’re letting them take some home, so they’re all fed and we know that their bellies are full.”

As the cooking club runs strictly on donations, Honch and Gray came up with the idea to raise some money for the program by selling baked goods and taco-in-a-bag at Aurora Chiropractic during the upcoming car show in Prince Albert on Sunday.

“So far, we’ve had five weeks of cooking and this weekend, we’re going to take all of our baking that we’ve done and we’re going to attend our show at Aurora,” said Honch. “The students have prepped everything, they’ve cut everything, they’ve stored everything properly. They learned how to do all of the good stuff. So, we’re pretty excited.”

Support for the cooking club has poured in from all areas of the community. Meyers Ranch Beef donated the meat that will be used for the taco-in-a-bag and B&P Water has donated bottles of water for the event.

The money that is raised during Sunday’s fundraiser will go towards buying supplies and continuing the program into next year. It’s Honch’s hope that the club can eventually open up to more grades in the future, so that younger students can take part too.

The Arthur Pechey cooking club will be set up during the car show at Aurora Chiropractic on Sunday from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Food items made by the students will be available for purchase ranging in price from $0.50 to $10.

New method of accurately determining homelessness is needed as issue continues to grow, says research team

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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New method of accurately determining homelessness is needed as issue continues to grow, says research team

A research team looking to revamp the current method for determining the amount of people experiencing homelessness in Canada hosted a community forum in Prince Albert on Thursday, over a year since their first visit to the city in March of 2022.

Thursday’s forum provided an opportunity for community members to come together and discuss issues surrounding homelessness in the Prince Albert area and provide targeted feedback on the findings to date collected from the Homelessness Counts study.

According to Assistant Scientific Director at Lawson Health Research Institute Cheryl Forchuk, current numbers say there are around 230,000 homeless people in Canada over the course of one year, which is the number that government funding for supports and services is based on.

Forchuk said in reality, she believes there is much more than that.

The research team made up of Forchuk, Richard Booth and Sara Husni travelled to 28 different communities across Canada, both urban and rural, that face challenges with homelessness. They visited shelters and organizations to meet with service providers and those with lived experience.

Since January 2021, the team has held focus groups with 190 agencies and interviewed more than 400 people experiencing homelessness to get a better understanding of who they are, what barriers they’re facing, and what services are needed in their communities.

“The homeless population is incredibly diverse,” said Forchuk. “This is really important because we need to understand who is homeless so we can have appropriate services.”

She noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, they saw a rise in not only the diversity of those struggling with homelessness, but the number of people facing homelessness for the first time.

“We found more young people that were homeless than we’ve seen previously, including [more] people with neurodiversity. Kids with autism for example,” explained Forchuk. “Developmental handicaps that the homeless sector is really not prepared to offer appropriate services.”

The number of homeless people in Canada is determined through the access of services, and what the research team found was that people struggling with homelessness in rural and remote communities were being left out of the count due to the lack of a homeless sector in their area.

“The current system for counting homelessness across the country focuses on large urban centres,” said Forchuk. “There’re only 68 communities in the entire country that send data up to those federal estimates.”

The Homelessness Counts project proposes a method to count the amount of people facing homelessness more accurately, accessibly, and more cost-efficiently, using provincial health data.

“We found that looking at health data, rather than homeless data, we could perhaps triple the rate of the homeless estimates,” she noted.

The federal government provided the funds to make the Homelessness Counts research project come to life through the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Reaching Home program.

It’s Forchuk’s hope that with their continued support, housing will soon be viewed as a human right in Canada.

Conference on Murdered and Missing Indigenous people sparks idea for Indigenous support network

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Conference on Murdered and Missing Indigenous people sparks idea for Indigenous support network

A conference in Prince Albert inviting people from all sectors to discuss topics around Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls, 2Spirit and Gender Diverse People has inspired the creation of an Indigenous support network.

Residential Health Support Workers with the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) Health and Social Development Department organized the three-day long conference and forum at the Travelodge from May third to fifth to provide a platform for discussions on healing, support, and awareness.

On Wednesday, around 100 individuals from various community sectors shared dialogue surrounding both their hopes for the future and current concerns regarding support for Indigenous people following presentations on human trafficking by Meadow Lake RCMP’s Maryah Walker and University of Saskatchewan Professor Priscilla Settee.

The group all agreed on one thing; the Prince Albert area is severely lacking a network of supports for Indigenous men, women, and children, and something about it needs to change.

PAGC Health Support Worker Edith Kadachuk said the group will spend the next few days writing up their ideas, objectives, and concerns about what they want the network to look like.

“That’s the end goal of this conference, is to put together these people from all these different agencies and get them together in one kind of support network,” said Kadachuk.

Conference attendees also recommended more conferences of similar nature, more gatherings to learn about healing, and more groups for Indigenous people to come together for support.

Kadachuk said hearing from the crowd is an important part of the process.

“In order to really know what they want from the communities; we have to ask them,” said Kadachuk. “And who knows best? The parents, the kookums, [and] the mooshums.”

To ground themselves at the end of the first day, a few women were gathered together in the empty conference room making ribbon skirts, a tradition centred in healing, identity, and connection.

Malcolm Jenkins donates $10,000 to newcomer Ukrainian families

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Malcolm Jenkins donates $10,000 to newcomer Ukrainian families

Prince Albert’s newest community members have been blessed with a generous donation of $10,000 by Canadian Tire’s Malcolm Jenkins, with the funds going to purchasing necessities for the 68 Ukrainian families currently living in the city and the ones on their way.

Sonya Jahn, who oversees all of Prince Albert’s newcomers, said the donation from Jenkins is “just really incredible.”

Providing support to the newcomer Ukrainian families was a no-brainer for Jenkins.

“This is a world tragedy and any little thing we can do to assist these poor folks, we’re going to do it,” said Jenkins. “I’d encourage everybody else to get on board too.”

Canadian Tire currently employs around four to five Ukrainian newcomers and according to Jenkins, they’ve been nothing short of wonderful to have on board.

Some of the funds donated by Jenkins will go towards purchasing bike helmets and locks to go along with the City of Prince Albert’s recent donation of 50 used bicycles for the Ukrainian children and adults.

Jahn picked up the bikes from the City on Wednesday and will be distributing them out to the families after some minor repairs.

“We have some very excited families that will be receiving these bicycles,” said Jahn. “It’s something that will be very much appreciated and very much needed as well.”

Six more families are on their way to settle in the community and Jahn said they are desperately seeking homes for them when they arrive.

“I am in great need, and I’d like to put a plea out to the community for anyone who may have accommodations, rental properties, whether it be an apartment or house, to please contact me,” said Jahn. “We are really strapped for accommodations.”

Jahn asked that anyone who is interested in helping out with household items, furniture, or non-perishables reach out to her.

“Some people may not realize the Ukrainian families just come with the clothes on their backs and one small suitcase,” said Jahn. “So, they really need everything.”

Individuals interested in donating items can drop them off at the office of MLA Alana Ross at 7-598 15th Street East.

Christopher Lake man charged with murdering son’s alleged killer seeks bail

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Christopher Lake man charged with murdering son’s alleged killer seeks bail

The 64-year-old father facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of a Paddockwood man accused of killing his son in late 2016 is seeking bail.

Reginald Durocher appeared by video in Prince Albert Provincial Court on May 3, where his lawyer advised they are waiting for a judicial interim release order to be completed by the end of May.

Ryan David Clark died after being hit by a vehicle in the parking lot of a Northside business just off Highway 2 on April 4. The incident was caught on video by the nearby store’s surveillance.

The driver of the vehicle, later identified as Reginald Durocher, fled the scene and was located in the community of Little Red River around 11 p.m. that evening, where he was taken into custody by RCMP.

On Oct. 2, 2016, Reginald’s son, 37-year-old Christopher Durocher, was discovered beaten to death in a camper on his parent’s property near Christopher Lake.

Clark was found guilty of second-degree murder in relation to Christopher Durocher’s death in 2018, but he successfully appealed the conviction and was later ordered a new trial by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2022. Clark was released from prison and was awaiting a new trial when he was killed.

Reginald Durocher’s next court appearance is scheduled for May 31.

Council divided on allowing chickens in City backyards

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Council divided on allowing chickens in City backyards

The opinions of City Council were split during Monday’s Executive Committee meeting after a local resident brought forward a suggestion to allow chickens in Prince Albert backyards.

According to Lance McDougald, raising chickens is beneficial not only to the pocketbook, but also to the ecosystem.

Keeping chickens reduces the need to spray pesticides while also providing homegrown eggs to combat inflating food costs, he said.

McDougald noted a number of Canadian cities that allow chickens in backyards, such as St. Albert, Alberta, who’s City Council passed a bylaw in 2019 allowing for hen keeping in the community following a two year long pilot project.

Allowing backyard chickens is an issue that has been raised to Council twice in the last eight years, once in 2017 and again in 2020. City Planner Craig Guidinger explained that a report was created in 2017 that presented the pros and cons to allowing chickens and amending the City’s Responsible Pet Ownership Bylaw.

“With allowing four chickens or other types of animals, there are some considerations – the attraction of rodents, if not done properly it can equate to smells and disruptions in the neighborhood,” said Guidinger.

Currently, chickens are allowed within City limits but they’re required to be located on an acreage, said Mayor Greg Dionne.

“I believe there’s a place for chickens, but I believe that’s an acreage and I don’t believe it should be in our city,” said Dionne.

Coun. Blake Edwards said he’s not totally against allowing chickens in the future, but he doesn’t see the City being ready for right now.

“Our bylaw is extremely busy; our bylaw officers are all over the place,” said Edwards. “I think this will bring on a whole new set of concerns for the City.”

After a number of defeated motions and tied votes, City Council ultimately decided to move on from the discussion as they were unable to come to an agreement on whether to receive and file the information or pass it along to Administration for review and report.

National Homelessness Forum plans second stop in Prince Albert

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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National Homelessness Forum plans second stop in Prince Albert

A research team looking to get a clearer picture of the number of homeless people in cities across Canada is circling back to Prince Albert more than a year after their first visit to share their findings and learn more about the contextual issues impacting the community.

Since January 2021, the team from Lawson Health Research Institute travelled to 28 locations in every Canadian province and territory to meet with organizations, community leaders and those with lived experience to not only get more accurate numbers on homelessness at the local and national levels, but to learn more about who the individuals facing homelessness are and help work towards more targeted and accessible services.

During the initial phase, the research team spoke with hundreds of service providers and conducted focus groups around what the issues are and who they thought were being missed by their current approach.

“We believe the current method of estimating those numbers underestimates the size of the issues and often, the methods required that someone touches the homeless serving sector in order to be counted, but many people don’t,” said Scientist with Lawson Health Research Institute Cheryl Forchuk. “Once you get into the very small, rural and remote areas, they often don’t event have a homeless sector, so those communities end up being really left out of any equations.”

The research team has been working on an alternative method of identifying how many people are experiencing homelessness using health data information. After first experimenting with the approach in Ontario, they were able to find around three times as many people facing homelessness compared to the traditional method.

Forchuk said part of what they’re doing is seeing if this is an approach that could be applied nationally.

“Most of the communities we went to really thought what was happening was a local problem, but what we’re really trying to emphasize is it is in fact a national problem since every community we went to were experiencing these challenges and these increases,” she said.

After interviewing 400 people across Canada experiencing homelessness, Forchuk and her research team found that the current housing market, living in remote and rural communities, and the COVID-19 pandemic all had major impacts on the severity of the issue.

The Prince Albert homelessness forum will take place at the Prince Albert Indian & Métis Friendship Centre, starting at 9 a.m. on May 4.

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