Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 will run its 40th indoor games April 24: Annual event for Thompson’s elementary schoolchildren began in January 1975

Photos courtesy of Jeanette Kimball

Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 and Sir Albert LaFontaine Assembly #1739, composed of fourth degree sir knights from Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas, will run their 40th indoor games in 41 years – since its debut in 1975 – April 24 for elementary school students in Thompson in the C.A. Nesbitt Arena at the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC).

Hundreds of students will compete with a schedule that begins at 8 a.m. Friday and wraps up with an awards ceremony at 9:45 p.m. Daytime events take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.   Evening events are from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The annual K of C indoor games here incidentally have included two future Olympians. The Westwood Elementary School Vikings, which has been a powerhouse at the indoor track meet in recent years, took the overall title last year on May 9 for the most combined points at the event. The Vikings finished first in five of seven event categories last year to finish with the most points for the 12th consecutive  year, winding up with 259 points, 121 more than the second-place Deerwood Elementary School Dragons, who were runners-up for the fourth consecutive time. The top five teams finished in the same order last year as in 2013, with the Riverside Rams winding up in third place with 130 points overall, the Burntwood Bobcats fourth with 105, and the Juniper Jaguars fifth with 55 points. The only difference last year from 2013 was that La Voie du Nord finished sixth with 11 points and the Wapanohk Wolves were seventh with a total of four points.

The first Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 indoor games was held Jan. 18, 1975 and the cost of the original plywood track was $7,500. The Knights of Columbus had promised to sponsor the indoor event a year earlier. For the inaugral event in 1975, the knights brought in some notable track and field stars to launch it, including 27-year-old Abby Hoffman, the Canadian record holder in the women’s 800-metre event.  Hoffman competed in four Olympic Games for Canada in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976; four Pan American Games and two Commonwealth Games and was Canada’s flag-bearer at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. Ann-Marie Davis, the Manitoba record holder for the 800 and 1,500-metre events, and Bruce Pirnie, the 309-pound Canadian shot put champion, who also competed in the 1972 and 1976 Olympic Games, were also on hand in Thompson on that January day in 1975 for the first such track and field meet in Northern Manitoba sponsored by Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961.

Pirnie, born in Boston, had already won a silver medal in 1973 at the Pacific Conference Games in Toronto and bronze medal the following year at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand and would go on 10 months after his visit to Thompson to his biggest victory, winning a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Mexico City in October 1975. Today, Pirnie, now 72, is the throws coach for the University of Manitoba Bisons.

All told, about 22,100 plywood sheets were used at the Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 indoor games between 1975 and 2009, the last year they were used. More than 15,000 local students have taken part in the annual track meet since 1975. Above and beyond thousands of volunteer hours contributed by local knights, they have spent more than $200,000 in cash on the indoor games over the last 40 years. Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 was chartered with 59 members on May 6, 1967 and reaches its 48th anniversary next month. The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic fraternal benefit organization headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut. Its origins date back to an Oct. 2, 1881 meeting organized by Father Michael J. McGivney, the assistant pastor at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, who founded the order. Today, the Knights of Columbus is the world’s foremost Catholic fraternal benefit society. The order’s founding principles are charity, unity and fraternity. Patriotism is the added later principle that marks fourth degree knights.

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Ry Moran, director of the new National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NRCTR), will be at UCN in Thompson March 11 for a ‘community engagement session’

Ry Moran, director of the new National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NRCTR), based at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, will be in Thompson March 11 for the launch of the centre’s community engagement sessions in Lecture Theatre Room 302A at the University College of the North’s new Thompson campus at 55 UCN Dr., adjacent to the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC).

More community engagement sessions are scheduled for The Pas on March 12; Iqaluit on March 19; Vancouver on March 25; Prince George. B.C. on March 26; Montreal on March 31; Saskatoon on April 16; Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia on April 21; Edmonton on May 5 and Toronto on May 15.

Moran will meet with survivors of Indian residential schools here in Thompson Wednesday between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and inter-generational survivors between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.  Health supports will be available on site and refreshments and a light supper will be provided.

Moran wants to learn what Northern Manitoba survivors’ “hopes and dreams” are for the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Establishing a national research centre and archive to forever preserve the truths of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools was one of the most important responsibilities given to the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As part of its legal mandate, the responsibility is spelled out in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, signed in 2007 by representatives of survivors, aboriginal groups, including the Assembly of First Nations (AFM) and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the federal government and the churches.

In order to carry out the national research centre and archive part of its mandate, the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission convened an international gathering of experts on aboriginal community control, and on national and international principles, protocols and best practices for indigenous and human rights archiving.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has a 10-person staff and is located in Chancellor’s Hall at 177 Dysart Rd. on the University of Manitoba’s Winnipeg campus. It will work in co-operation with a wide network of partners across Canada and is set to officially open this summer. Current partner organizations include the University College of the North; University of British Columbia; Lakehead University;University of Winnipeg; Red River College; Université de Saint-Boniface; St John College; St Paul’s College;Legacy of Hope Foundation; National Association of Friendship Centre’s; Canadian Museum for Human Rights; Archives Manitoba; Manitoba Museum; Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources and the Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will operate within the academic and administrative structure of the University of Manitoba with Moran reporting administratively to the office of vice-president (research and international), as he manages the day-to-day operations of the centre.

The centre was established in a June 21, 2013 National Aboriginal Day agreement between the university and the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which will wind up its six-year mandate in June. The centre’s archives will hold millions of documents collected by the commission including nearly 7,000 video-and audio-recorded statements from survivors, inter-generational survivors, and others affected by the schools and their legacy; millions of archival documents and photographs from more than 20 departments of the Government of Canada and nearly 100 Canadian church entities archives; works of art, artifacts and other expressions of reconciliation presented at Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission events; and research collected and prepared by the commission. Justice Murray Sinclair, who chairs the three-member commission, has said the research centre is an important part of the commission’s legacy.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is guided by a seven-member governing circle, who have two-year terms. The current members are Eugene Arcand; Andrew Carrier; Catherine Cook; Grand Chief Edward John; Gregory Juliano; Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux; and Jennifer Watkins.

The governing circle ensures Indigenous control over the materials held by the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. It provides guidance on the centre’s policies, priorities, and activities, on ceremonies and protocols, on methods and sources to expanding the center’s holdings and resources and on prospective partners.

Three members of the governing circle represent survivors, their families or ancestors (one First Nation, one Inuit and one Métis), two represent the University of Manitoba, and two represent the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation partner organizations. At all times, at least four members of the governing circle must identify as aboriginal.

Moran was appointed director of the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation on Feb. 3, 2014, coming directly from the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where had served as director of statement gathering since January 2010.

Before joining the commission, Moran, who is Métis, was the founder and president of YellowTilt Productions, delivering services in a variety of areas including aboriginal language presentation and oral history. He had hosted internationally broadcast television programs, produced national cultural events, and written and produced original music for children’s television. Moran’s awards including a National Aboriginal Role Model Award, and a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. Moran is a Masters of Business Administration candidate, and holds a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree from the University of Victoria.

The first Indian residential schools opened in the 1880s in western Canada and eventually, they operated in every province and territory except Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. The system was at its height in the 1920s with compulsory attendance under the Indian Act and over 80 schools in operation. Most Indian residential schools were run by entities of the Roman Catholic church, with others run by the Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and later the United churches.

Here in Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas was involved in four residential schools at Beauval, Sturgeon Landing, Guy Hill and Cross Lake. Through the Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement (CCEPIRSS), created in 2006 to oversee the undertakings of the group of 54 Catholic dioceses and religious congregations under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), the Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas was obliged to provide $1 million in cash over five years, $1.6 million of in-kind services and community work over 10 years, as well as support the fundraising Canada Wide Campaign (CWC).

The archdiocese met that obligation by paying out $200,000 a year, beginning in 2007 until the $1 million was paid. The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement ended litigation facing the federal government and the four churches that ran the schools, where rampant abuse occurred, for more than a century, and which former Archbishop Sylvain Lavoie, who resigned for health reasons July 16, 2012, called, “a system that is now acknowledged as a flawed policy of colonization and assimilation.”

In a Dec. 17, 2009 pastoral letter, Lavoie wrote: ” We would encourage those from our archdiocese who attended the schools, or had family members and relatives who attended, to contribute to the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] process, so that the historical record can be accurate. Whereas over the past few years many held back from sharing positive experiences out of fear of being politically incorrect, now is the time to speak your truth so that it is heard and recorded.”

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in its current incarnation, was appointed by the federal Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper through orders-in-council on June 9, 2009.

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission was originally established on June 1, 2008. Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Harry LaForme, a member of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation in Southern Ontario, was appointed by the Harper government as the first commission chair, but resigned in October 2008. Claudette Dumont-Smith, of Gatineau, Que., a native health expert, and Jane Brewin Morley, of Victoria, a lawyer and public policy adviser, were also appointed originally as commissioners, but announced in January 2009 that they would resign, too, effective June 1, 2009, leading to the entire three-person commission to be replaced by the current commissioners.

The chair, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Murray Sinclair, from near Selkirk, was Manitoba’s first aboriginal judge. Sinclair was appointed associate chief judge of the provincial court of Manitoba in March 1988 and elevated to the Court of Queen’s Bench in January 2001.

Commissioner Wilton Littlechild is a member of the Ermineskin Tribe Cree community, near Hobbema in central Alberta. He was the first Treaty First Nation person to acquire his law degree from the University of Alberta in 1976. His law firm is located on the Ermineskin reserve. He also served as a Progressive Conservative MP for the Alberta riding of Wetaskiwin from 1988 to 1993.

Commissioner Marie Wilson grew up in Sarnia in Southern Ontario. Wilson, who lives in Yellowknife, is a well-known former CBC broadcast journalist and manager, who spent most of her career in the North, and is a member of the United Church. She served as CBC’s senior manager for northern Quebec and the three northern territories of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.

A component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the commission is an independent body that oversees a process to provide former students and anyone who has been affected by the residential schools legacy, with an opportunity to share their individual experiences in a safe and culturally appropriate manner.

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission is unique from other commissions around the world in that its scope is primarily focused on the experiences of children. Its focus of research spans more than 150 years, one of the longest durations ever examined.

It is also the first court-ordered truth commission to be established in Canada. As such, the court plays an ongoing role in the implementation and supervision of the commission.

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360 Extremes Expedition’s Ben Weber and Natalia Almeida regroup in Thompson as they get ready to switch from winter bicycling to skiing north from Gillam to Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut

Photos courtesy of Jeanette Kimball

It is summer back home right now in São Paulo, Brazil. It is hot. It was still 30°C in São Paulo at 10 p.m. Brasilia Summer Time (BRST) tonight. But Ben Weber and Natalia Almeida don’t have to worry too much about that. Not at all in fact. Because for the last several years, come summer in Brazil, they’ve been in the northern hemisphere, here in Canada, or the United Kingdom three years ago, as part of their 360 Extremes Expedition they launched on Dec. 1, 2011 where they are traveling round-the-world in a series of annual treks, exploring big chunks of geography, not from east-to-west, which is the norm, but instead along the north-south polar axis.

While Antarctica and the South Pole closer to home are their ultimate adventure goals, which Weber and Almeida are spending years training for, this year they’ve just begun their Cetaphil Arctic-Canada Challenge, which began Dec. 20, 2014  at the Canada-United States international border crossing at Emerson, Manitoba, and will end 2,175 miles north at Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut, the second northernmost community settlement in Canada, next to Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island. Only Eureka, which is a weather and scientific outpost, and Alert, a Canadian Forces military station, are farther north still than Resolute and Grise Fiord. Weber and Almeida hope over the course of their expedition to eventually be the first to complete the polar axis circle traveling largely by land, cycling through the heat of the Gobi and Australian deserts,  climbing the high altitudes of the Himalayas and Mount Everest, completely traversing the North Pole and South Pole in one expedition.

Before leaving South America, Weber and Almeida trained late last year for their Cetaphil Arctic-Canada Challenge by completing a cycling trip from São Paulo to Santiago, Chile, via Buenos Aires in Argentina. Weber picked up their windsuits and bicycles for their Cetaphil Arctic-Canada Challenge in England in late November.

Photo courtesy of 360 Extremes Expedition

On Jan. 7, Weber and Almeida rode their  26-inch wheel size Oxford Bike Works chrome-molybdenum steel alloy frame bicycles, built by British bicycle builder Richard Delacour, whose one-man shop in Oxfordshire in the Midlands is famous for neither over-engineering or over-pricing its touring bikes, up Highway 6 and into Thompson to hang out for a few days and regroup, staying with Tim and Jean Cameron on Campbell Drive, as they get ready to make the switch at Gillam, which has a population of 1,281 and is 302 kilometres northeast of Thompson by road, from  winter cycling to skiing the rest to the way to Resolute Bay. They rode in on regular non-studded tires, although they do have Schwalbe Marathon winter studded 26-inch tires with them if needed. Tires are always something of a trade-off. The thicker they are, the more puncture proof and longer-lasting they are usually are, but thicker tires also adds to rotational weight and increases friction, which slows you down.

Tim is the province’s chief natural resource officer, with Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship, while  Jean is the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) branch manager here. As the hosts of the Home Routes Borealis Trail house concerts here for the last three years –  and for three years before that in Ashern – the Camerons are used to having some of the more interesting house guests passing through Thompson, as they provide hospitality, including food and lodging for the musical performers in town for a show.

Weber blogged they arrived in Thompson Jan. 7 “after a hard couple of weeks and some of toughest cycling we’ve done! Now we will change over to skis: a little bit of a transition period as we have to sort them out together with our pulks and supplies, so there will be a week or so of relative inactivity, but then we will hop over to Gillam to ski north for over 2,000 kilometres to the Arctic Circle and the town of Resolute. We will cycle the part from Thompson to Gillam after we manage to finish that part: the sea ice up north won’t wait for us and starts breaking up in June, so we have to start making headway on it as soon as possible. The road to Gillam will be waiting for us for when we get back!!”

Weber grew up in the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland, and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Brazilian Adventure Society. When he’s not training, he works as a consultant, supporting companies coming to Brazil, helping them deal with a complex business and political environment.

In an interview at the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC) Jan. 9, Weber said he quit his full time job almost a year ago and now freelances, so he can train better. He said he had worked in Brazil for about 10 years before Almeida and he began their 360 Extremes Expedition in December 2011.

More than three years later, Weber said, he’s a few pounds lighter than when they began, but what’s changed more is his ratio of body fat to muscle mass, with not surprisingly more of the latter now.

Does he miss São Paulo, a global metropolis of almost 12 million residents, making it Brazil’s most populous city, and the world’s 12th largest city by population, even in the heat of their summer? Weber smiles and says sometimes when’s he’s eating from the camp rations in the tent at night after a day’s winter bicycling through Northern Manitoba, he wistfully recalls briefly some of his favourite São Paulo’s restaurants.

Almeida is a veteran television editor, who has led the editing teams of many mainstream TV programs in Brazil, such as those covering the Brazilian car rally, the Rally dos Sertões – going through the dry back country of the Brazilian northeast, and Policia 24h – a program accompanying police in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro on the job.

Photo courtesy of 360 Extremes Expedition

While it is their first time in Thompson, Weber and Almeida are no strangers to the Canadian North and Arctic. Last March and April they undertook polar survival training near Iqaluit with NorthWinds Arctic Adventures Limited’s Matty McNair, and Sarah McNair, the youngest person to reach both the North and South poles, before Weber and  Almeida embarked on their Auyuittuq Expedition through Auyuittuq National Park, starting out in Qikiqtarjuaq, well north of the Arctic Circle,  and working their way south to Pangnirtung.

In 2012, they traded some of their Brazilian summer for a United Kingdom winter, spending 20 or so days cycling the famed Land’s End to John O’ Groats bike route, where riders traverse the entire 1,500-kilometre length of Great Britain, from  Land’s End, the extreme southwestward  point of Great Britain, situated in western Cornwall at the end of the Penwith Peninsula, and John O’ Groats, the traditionally acknowledged extreme northern point of mainland Scotland, in northeastern Caithness.

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Local baseball legend Red Sangster given Key to the City of Thompson on 90th birthday

1968-69 Manitoba champion Thompson Reds. Back row left to right: Red Sangster (manager), Vern Bentley, Keith Redman, Earl Hodges, Doug Bentley, Forbes Stewart, George Goghill, Barry MacLean, Steve Sobko, Dale McDougall, Ross Papineau (president). Front: Bernie McLellan, Marcel Champagne, John Stewart, Russell Zushman, Jerry Holmstrom, Ken Hanke, Jack Sangster and Alex “Suds” Sutherland – Photo courtesy of Jack Sangster and Canadian Baseball Network

For the second time in 10 days, the City of Thompson has presented a Key to the City, the city’s highest and usually infrequently bestowed honour,  this time giving it to the legendary local baseball promoter Alexander “Red” Sangster on the occasion of his 90th birthday Oct. 15.

Dr. Alan Rich, the city’s longest-serving physician, who now lives in Swan River and practices there and here part-time,  was presented with the Key to the City of Thompson Oct. 6 (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/dr-alan-rich-the-citys-longest-serving-physician-sent-packing-into-retirement-in-2011-presented-with-the-key-to-the-city-of-thompson/)

The honour was again presented by Mayor Tim Johnston, in his final nine days as mayor after eight years in office, on behalf of the City of Thompson. A Key to the City hon ours those who have made major contributions to the community and its surroundings over an extensive period of time. Johnston was joined in the presentation to Sangster by deputy mayor Dennis  Fenske, Coun. Stella Locker, the longest-serving member of council, and city manager Gary Ceppetelli.

Sangster’s named is so synonymous with baseball in Thompson, the Red Sangster Ball Field, constructed in 1968, was named after him in 1992. The ballpark was built mostly by hand and required clearing trees that were then used to make a fence for the Thompson Zoo, which Sangster had paired up with Hawley Duncan and Len Fenske to start.

Engraved on Sangster’s Key to the City of Thompson are the words,  “In recognition of your outstanding commitment and dedication to the advancement of Recreation and Sport in the City of Thompson.”

In an official Oct. 16 news release announcing the honour, the City of Thompson noted, “It is said that many of the City of Thompson’s early employees were recruits of Red’s not only for their professional skills, but also for their athletic abilities.” Unofficially, it might well be said that “Red’s Ringers” were the stuff of local, indeed provincial, sports legend in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Born in 1924 on a farm near Walkerburn, Sangster, told started playing baseball when he was 15. He first came to Northern Manitoba by way of Snow Lake and later Thompson in 1960 as an employee of Paddy Harrison, working as a mechanic underground at the Moak Lake site. He returned to Thompson in 1961 when Inco began production, and worked as a mechanic at the mill for six months. Soon after, he would begin working the Local Government District of Mystery Lake as a grader operator, grading roads in the summer and plowing snow in the winter. He did that for 18 years.

Sangster  wore many work hats over the years. As well as being appointed as director of recreation for the Town of Thompson in October 1968,  he also had a long tenure, extending to recent years, first with Carling O’Keefe Breweries, and later with  Molson Canada, as their representative in Northern Manitoba.

He was inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, while the Thompson Reds, also named for Sangster, from the period between 1968 and 1973 were inducted in the special team category in 2003.

Baseball, however, has not been Sangster’s only local sports interest. As far back as 1968, Sangster, who managed the Thompson Midget Aces, was named Minor Hockey Volunteer of the year by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. He was also helped guide the Thompson Hawks, a men’s senior amateur team, coached by Terry Grindle for the 1972-73 season, which played in the Canadian Central Hockey League (CCHL) from 1972 to 1974. Dr. Rich was the team doctor. Made up of a good number of semi and minor pros,  the roster included Jack Sangster, Red’s son; Gerald Fenske; Keith Redman; and Alex “Suds” Sutherland, who would also one day go on to be a City of Thompson recreation director.

In 1970, he won a Manitoba Historical Society Centennial Medal with the citation reading, “For his great contribution to sports and recreation in Thompson.” In 1983, he was named Citizen of the Year Award by the Thompson Lions Club.

Even so, Sangster faced a big curve ball when the University College of the North (UCN) wanted to build its new campus student housing behind the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC), which would have meant the ball field would have to be obliterated in its current location and moved elsewhere.

For a five-month period between October 2009 and March 2010, UCN, the City of Thompson and Province of Manitoba were intent on moving Red Sangster Ball Field.

Following a public outcry, UCN backed off and relocated its student housing slightly to the southwest, saving the Red Sangster Ball Field.

Sangster also received one of the 60,000 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for presentation to civic-minded Canadians, created by the Royal Canadian Mint to mark the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty’s accession to the throne, on Oct. 20, 2012. As well, he was named by Our Foundation Thompson, formerly known as the Thompson Community Foundation, which was formed in 1995,  on Sept. 28, 2012 as  as the recipient of  its third annual Order of Thompson award.

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