Dreams dashed

Young couple pans Hydro project

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/08/2014 (3505 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Perhaps it is fate how Will and Ina Hammer met.

Their families had each moved from Kazakhstan to Germany on separate paths. They left for greater opportunity in Canada in 2008, but it wasn’t until the next year when Will and Ina’s paths converged in Winnipeg.

Immigrants of the same age, finding love in a new country.

IAN FROESE | THE CARILLON
Ina and Will Hammer walk along their property south of Anola that they say will be worthless to them if the Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project crosses their land.
IAN FROESE | THE CARILLON Ina and Will Hammer walk along their property south of Anola that they say will be worthless to them if the Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project crosses their land.

They tied the knot last year.

Not long before, they got a small place in Winnipeg but realized they didn’t want to stay.

“She knew it from the beginning,” said Will Hammer, now 27. “I hated to live in the city. I just hated it. I’m a country boy.”

Soon, Will found a 160-acre parcel in the countryside, eight kilometres south of Anola. He loved it.

Ina was more sceptical but she soon became convinced.

Her husband took her by the hand and showed her where their house would be. The backyard where their children would play. The forest in the back where Will would take his kids hunting and snowmobiling.

Those plans have now changed.

In July, the Hammer’s found out they are paying a mortgage on a property they likely will never will build a house on, or be able to sell.

Their parcel is smack dab in the middle of a proposed route for Manitoba Hydro’s controversial Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project that will occupy swaths of southeastern Manitoba land if the project proceeds.

Read more on this young couple’s story, and how a vocal opposition is fighting back, in the Aug. 21 edition of The Carillon.

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