Assiniboine marks 65 years with legacy tree planting at North Hill

Assiniboine College marked its 65th anniversary with a project intended to leave a lasting mark on its North Hill campus, planting 65 trees with the help of staff, students and a local nursery.

The planting took place earlier this month as part of the college’s anniversary celebrations. Evergreen Valley Nursery donated 40 of the trees, while the college purchased the remaining 25.

College president Mark Frison said the initiative reflects both the institution’s history and its future.

“These trees are a living symbol representing growth, our students, our people, and our impact in the communities we serve,” Frison said. “They will be a great addition to the North Hill campus, a cornerstone of our future.”

Tasting tips for International Beer Day

After a hot day mowing the lawn or digging in the garden, prairie folk hardly need an excuse to enjoy a perfectly chilled beer. But if you were looking for one, International Beer Day 2026 takes place on Friday, August 7. Your excuse would be even better if you made that cold one a locally produced craft beer.

Manitoba has about 26 craft breweries and brewers are highly creative. If you are wanting to expand your palate, a little know-how is in order.

Sidney and Laryssa Stevenson run Section 6 Brewery (section6brewing.ca) a craft brewery and taproom in Brandon and are happy to share their expertise on what is behind all those flavours.

To start, all beer has the same four basic ingredients: malt, hops, yeast, and water.

Scuba diver maintains new bubbler in Shoal Lake

SHOAL LAKE — The new aeration system at Shoal Lake received some underwater repairs last week when a team of environmental specialists scuba dived to maintain bubblers on the lakebed.

The new field of 18 bubblers off the shoreline on the east side of the lake were calibrated by technicians from AAE Tech Services during two hours of diving last week Monday. Technicians got their first underwater look at the bubblers that were installed last year in order to adjust the equipment to best promote fish health.

The company’s founder, Mark Lowdon, told the Sun that it’s an annual caretaking job to ensure the equipment oxygenates the lake evenly. The equipment counteracts environmental conditions at Shoal Lake.

“We are basically just diving, re-adjusting the bubbler heads to make sure that every one of them is functioning properly, and just doing the regular maintenance,” he said. “They have so much nutrients going into that lake, and there’s so much methane, it’s an environmental headache basically … It’s hard to keep fish alive, and so there’s two aeration systems on that lake.”

PGA Tour getting a new look

The ever-evolving Professional Golfers Association tour is undergoing another major change.

The tour in the past 19 years has featured the best golfers in the world competing for the Fed-Ex Cup, taking part in an autumn playoff system and, more recently, playing in big-money, no-cut ‘signature’ events, but is now entering a new phase that officials hope will streamline and improve the professional game.

New PGA Tour commissioner Brian Rolapp announced in mid-June the establishment of two distinct tours — or ‘tracks’ as he called them. Track 1 is the Championship Series where 130 of the world’s elite golfers will compete in 20 or so events with each tournament offering prize money of at least $20 million. Track 2 will be the PGA Tour’s secondary series, or ‘Challenger,’ where more than 20 tournaments each year will be played for purses in the $4 million range.

The Challenger series will be open to around 200 of the world’s best golfers who aren’t quite good enough for the Championship Series. Its tournaments will have fields of around 144 players and the top 20 point-getters each year will move up to the Championship Series for the next season.

Nurse practitioner wants province to cover visit fee

A private nurse practitioner in Rapid City is advocating for the Manitoba government to cover patient visit costs, which she said are a barrier to health-care access for people in the community.

The nurse, Michelle Weighell, called on residents last month in a community newsletter for RM of Oakview residents to sign letters and send them to Minister of Health Uzoma Asagwara. The letters advocate for the government to change its funding model for nurse practitioners outside of health authority employment.

Weighell operates a private clinic, where health-care services, such as lab testing, can be billed to the province. But she says she takes issue with the fact that patient visits are not publicly funded.

“I don’t like having to charge people, but I do have to be able to provide food and shelter for my child. So that’s a requirement,” she said. “What I am charging is $60 — and that was a rate set to not provide an unnecessary burden on the public.”

Tornado researchers visit Rossburn

The Northern Tornadoes Project used satellite imagery and on-the-ground staff and interns to document the damage of the tornado that ripped through a home near Rossburn this year.

A staff member from Winnipeg drove in with two interns to survey damage and interview community members and survey the area, NTP research meteorologist Dylan Painchaud-Niemi said in a recent interview. Painchaud-Niemi was the survey lead for the Rossburn tornado site, and spent two days in the area gathering information through difficult, rainy weather, he said.

“We’ll kind of zigzag our way through the roads. We may be on foot a little bit, just talking to property owners, and then we fly a drone around … to look at damage from above, which sometimes does help,” he said. “We’ll go through that, find the start and end points.”

Painchaud-Niemi is trained to associate certain types of damage with wind speeds according to engineering research, and he uses that knowledge on-site to categorize the magnitude of storms. In the case of Rossburn, the worst damage point was at the historic home of Brian and Bernadine Brown, where the roof and some upper walls were torn off by wind.

If you’ve ever walked by a home with a spectacular garden in Brandon and wondered what is beyond that garden gate, then Open Gardens is for you.

Open Gardens takes place on Sunday, July 19 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It’s a free self-guided tour where lovers of gardens are welcome to visit designated local gardens, both private and public, take in the beautiful sights and chat with the gardeners who have created them.

“Besides just being a great opportunity to have a good time on the weekend and see these lovely gardens, it’s really a chance to celebrate and recognize what some of our community members have created,” said Brady Dane, recreation coordinator, Parks and Recreation Services.

“I really love that we give credit to these gardeners who have put so much time and effort and passion into what they’ve created at their homes and allow them to share that with their community. It’s a lot of fun to see them answering questions and talking to the visitors about what they’ve done, their thought processes and some of the unique and cool things that they’ve got there.”

Local wedding venue hobbyists gearing up for season

RM OF CORNWALLIS — A ma and pa wedding venue outside Brandon is gearing up for six weddings in the backyard this season.

Lyla and Jeff Perkins have entered the busy season at their rural property east of Brandon. They will open their house to several bride’s parties, their gazebo to groom’s parties, and their acreage to hundreds of guests through the summer.

It’s the seventh year of hosting weddings as a hobby in retirement.

“It’s a joyous occasion, and for me, it’s kind of rewarding to watch their vision come to life,” Lyla told the Sun in a recent interview. “It’s nice to watch the excitement that comes with the weddings.”