Let’s Do Something — Aug. 27, 2026

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TODAY (Aug 27)

• Noon — Westman 365 Cancer Care Support Group meets the fourth Thursday of each month at noon at the Centre For Hope, located in Western Manitoba Cancer Care (300 McTavish Ave.) Providing information sessions to help cancer patients, caregivers and those who love them, navigate their cancer journey. For more information call Ron at 204-728-9728 or Darlene at 204-761-8570 or Anne 204-728-9958.

• 6 p.m. — Join us at Livingstone Outdoor greenhouse (1610 Byng Ave.) for a fun Cactus Garden Workshop at 6 p.m. (please arrive 15 minutes early). Included with your registration is a 7” planter. One grafted cactus, three assorted small cacti, a selection of ornaments and accessories, saucer, glass of wine or beverage of choice, snack sampler and VIP discount shopping. $20 deposit required to register.

Lucky to be a fan in the Ohtani era

Baseball fans alive during the Shohei Ohtani era — and that’s you — should consider themselves among the luckiest fans of all time. Getting to watch and appreciate the extra special talents of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ two-way star is an opportunity unmatched through decades of Major League Baseball.

What has Ohtani not done on a baseball field? So far, he has yet to pitch a perfect game, let alone a no-hitter. As a hitter, he has yet to have a four home-run game. He has not pulled a rabbit out of his ball cap, nor a quarter from behind his ear. He has not motioned for his teammates to stay in the dugout while he goes to the mound to pitch, nor has he pointed to centre field, a la Babe Ruth in the 1932 World Series, telling everyone in the stands and watching on TV that he planned to deposit the next pitch into the bleacher seats.

The 31-year-old Japanese baseball sensation has done almost everything else, though. He has dominated opposing batters on the mound, striking out more than one an inning, winning most of his starts (8-2 at last glance) and sporting a top five MLB earned-run average. He gives up roughly two hits for every three innings and strikes out more than one batter per inning. Hitters’ batting average against Ohtani is in the pathetic .170 range.

At the plate, Ohtani is among the best hitters in the game. He leads the Dodgers in batting average. He is top five in MLB on-base percentage and top three in OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage). In other words, he has few peers at the plate. His WAR number is the majors’ best. (WAR is a comprehensive statistic that estimates how many more wins a player contributes to their team over a season compared to a hypothetical ‘replacement-level’ player.) Simply put, he is the greatest player in the history of the game.

Popular Boissevain bash back on the street in September

By Wendy King

Small towns go big when it comes to a party and Boissevain is prepping for a bash of their own.

The sixth annual Boissevain Street Fest takes place on Saturday, Sept. 12 and kicks off the day with town-wide garage sales and a soapbox derby. The town festival was inaugurated in 2020 during the pandemic.

“Street Fest started as an outdoor celebration, a way that our community could come together to celebrate and see your friends and neighbours and showcase our local eateries, our shops, our small businesses, local artists, and even service groups,” said Melissa Perkins, executive assistant at the Municipality of Boissevain–Morton office.

Pork a versatile choice for a fall menu

By Wendy King

Family menus are shifting as summer turns to fall, and it’s nice to have a readily available mainstay that home cooks can count on. Pork tenderloin is an economical, easy-to-cook cut of meat and as the weather cools, it goes smoothly from the grill fire to the frying pan to the slow cooker or the roasting oven.

Susan Riese, director of public relations and communications at Manitoba Pork (manitobapork.com) shared some helpful information for home cooks starting with: what is a pork tenderloin?

“Pork tenderloin is a long, thin, and very lean cut of meat. Its shape is cylinder-like, and it comes from the full pork loin. It is the most tender cut of pork,” Riese said.

Rural Roundup for Aug. 27, 2026

BOISSEVAIN

The Boissevain Centennials reached a major milestone this summer when they won their fifth consecutive title.

The Cents shut out the Oak River Dodgers 6-0 in the third and deciding game for the South West Baseball League championship at home on July 30.

In game three, Connor Martin of the Centennials pitched a complete game (seven innings) shutout, allowing only two hits and one walk while striking out 10. In contrast, the Dodgers used three hurlers, with starter Riley Shamray taking the loss, allowing nine hits and five earned runs in three and two-thirds innings of work. Dylan Schroeder and Mitch Battersby finished up on the mound.

Stride Credit Union fills financial void in Carberry

Stride Credit Union cut the ribbon on its latest expansion, a new branch in Carberry, over a community barbecue on Aug. 12.

“We love the free lunch,” laughed Erika Henrikson, a town resident for eight years. She says events like these bring the community together.

“It lets us see people … and it lets us meet new people,” Henrikson said.

It was announced in November 2025 that Stride Credit Union would add a new branch to the town to “bridge the gap between Neepawa and Brandon area,” said Stride CEO, Brent Budz.

Festival wraps up busy summer in Killarney

It’s time for Westman music lovers to grab their lawn chairs and their dance shoes and make their way to Killarney to bid farewell to summer — the Killarney Lakeside Festival runs Friday through Sunday. The festival features loads of Manitoba talent, workshops, an artisan market, a Sunday brunch and more.

Giselle Baupre, arts administrator at the Killarney Turtle Mountain Arts Council, said the community is chuffed.

“The festival has created a new thing for people to look forward to. Our community is really busy in the summer one weekend after another, right from the fair at the end of June, to the Kick off to Summer to Prairie Pioneer Days. So after a nice few weeks of a little bit more calm and quiet, people look forward to ending the summer with something this fun.”

The festival audience has already established some favourites.

Canadian actor disrupts Jays’ season

Ever since Canadian actor Michael Cera started hanging around the Toronto Blue Jays’ clubhouse, and inviting players and management over to his house to see his man-cave shrine to the Blue Jays, Canada’s only Major League Baseball team has stunk.

Toronto went all the way to Game 7 of the World Series last year and was a pre-season favourite to repeat as American League champions, but then Cera, a Blue Jays’ superfan, started interfering.

Why can’t Cera just sit in the stands at Rogers Stadium, sip his Labatt Blue or a $23 latte and leave the Jays alone? But no, he has to interrupt the Blue Jays mojo by hanging around the clubhouse, having rookie third baseman Kazuma Okamoto say hello to Cera’s mother on a telephone FaceTime chat when the Japanese free-agent signee should be out in the batting cage working on his swing. Okamoto is closing in on 25 home runs, but his batting average in the .230 range would probably be .250 or better if he wasn’t being bothered by Cera.

Then there’s George Springer, one of the team’s biggest disappointments this year. Last year, Springer belted 32 home runs and averaged .309 and, alongside Vladimir Guerrero Jr., led the offence for the A.L. champs. This year, with Cera bragging to Springer about setting a viewership record on the livestream (11, when the old record was two. … hahahaha!), Springer is batting around .230 and won’t come close to even half of last year’s home run total. That’s Cera’s fault, because he took valuable time away from Springer’s workout program and batting practice regimen.

DELORAINE

The community of Deloraine came out in droves for the red carpet premiere of a short film made by a few of their own.

On July 23, “Whitetail” a film by Nick Dietrich and Laughlin McKinnon, made its debut at the Deloraine Theatre. The cast, crew and much of the town were out in full force to see a locally made movie. It was everything they were looking for, McKinnon said.

“It was awesome,” he stated. “We hoped to have a full house and we did. You couldn’t ask for more. That was the dream, to have a premiere of a movie in Deloraine, raise some money for the Ag Society, and we met those goals.”

U of M researchers studying ‘digital legacy planning’

WINNIPEG — A team of researchers at the University of Manitoba wants adults to take the cloud they leave behind into special consideration when they envision heaven and their afterlife.

Led by Cecile Latulipe, the new computer science department project has a self-imposed mandate to better understand and improve “digital legacy planning.”

“Western society is very good at avoiding death. We put our graveyards far away from our cities. We offload our caring of the dead to funeral homes and such,” graduate student researcher Simon Wermie said.

“And so, it’s not surprising that the same would be true for our digital information.”