1946 to 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: Working together key to Steinbach’s growth

The Steinbach Credit Union was only one of any number of co-operative efforts that have helped mold Steinbach into the close-knit, ever-growing, community it became over the years.

Urban met rural at the Steinbach fairgrounds a number of times every year. Every June, all of Steinbach’s school children would march down Main Street to spend a day with parents at an end-of-the-year school picnic at the fairgrounds. The end-of-the-school-year event was so important that businesses downtown closed their doors for the afternoon to give their employees a chance to spend the day with their children.

The Steinbach Board of Trade (later the Steinbach Chamber of Commerce) organized a Dominion Day celebration every July 1, including baseball, a midway and wrestling in the evening, which drew thousands of visitors from all over the Southeast every July 1 for more than three decades. The tradition continued long after the fairgrounds became an industrial park. Today, multicultural festivities reflecting the diversity of the still-growing City of Steinbach are held on the grounds of the Mennonite Heritage Village every July 1.

An annual Hanover Fair was revived in 1946, with the organization of the Hanover Agricultural Society and a parade down Main Street, business displays, agricultural exhibits, garden produce and mouth-watering efforts by the area’s best bakers, all blended to give the multi-day event a real ‘Town and Country’ flavor.

Loeppky powers Lube into Italian league finals

For the third consecutive season, Steinbach’s Eric Loeppky will be playing in the Italian Superlega finals.

Loeppky was the key contributor for Cucine Lube Civitanova in their game four win over Rana Verona in the semi-finals, finishing with 15 points on 80 % efficiency with three aces.

“This is a wonderful moment for all of us,” Loeppky’s translated post-game comments posted to the Lube website reads.

“For the team, our families, the club, and of course, for our fans. We’ve worked so hard to reach this goal, and now I’m really excited to be playing in another Scudetto final in this jersey.”

PCs delay NDP government community wells bill

Progressive Conservative MLAs have delayed the NDP government’s bill to amend regulations on community wells, citing concerns about government overreach.

The PC’s, in an April 15 news release, announced Bill 21 will be one of the five pieces of legislation the Opposition will hold over until the fall legislative session for review.

“This provides time for meaningful consultation with rural Manitobans, agricultural producers, municipalities and technical experts to ensure the legislation reflects real-world conditions,” the news release said.

The province introduced The Drinking Water Safety Amendment Act on March 11. The bill would allow government directors and public health officials to designate the type of water source based on its intended use, water quality and use duration rather than only the number of connections it has.

Programs needed to teach young farmers

Many Manitoba farmers are worried there are less young people replacing retiring farmers because of the lack of access to the career, programs, and rising costs.

“It’s such a huge thing we’re coming up against, and there’s no proper plan to deal with this huge transition that’s coming up,” said Katie McInnes, a first-generation farmer near Clearwater, Man.

Less than one in ten, 8.6 percent, farm operators were under 35 years, according to Statistics Canada. Three in five, 60.5 percent, farm operators are 55 or older in 2021.

McInnes, 39, and her husband grew up in Winnipeg, and she had no ties to farming, land, or anything agriculture related — until 2013 when they decided to move.

Niverville partners with province on PR 311

The province and Town of Niverville are partnering to fund road improvements on Provincial Road 311, which also functions as the town’s Main Street, in hopes of serving more businesses and residents.

The $17.7 million project, with $9.7 million coming from Manitoba, will include expanding the roadway to four lanes on the western half of the project, adding a new roundabout and turning lanes. That work will be done from Wallace Road to Arena Road.

The improvements, announced on April 17, will also include road resurfacing and drainage ending at 5th Avenue. Businesses along Main Street will contend with two years of detours when work begins.

The Niverville Olde Tyme Country Fair, an August festival that happens on Main Street, currently remains unaffected, said Mayor Myron Dyck, noting the town will alert contractors about the festival.

Capital campaign nears end, hospice planned

A $22 million capital fundraising campaign is nearing its goal, strides are being made to connect Steinbach youth to health-care jobs and hospice planning is continuing for Bethesda Foundation.

Members of its board met with Steinbach city council at their strategic priorities committee meeting on April 14 to share what was a laundry list of positive news.

Board chair Chris Goertzen told council their capital campaign, dedicated to raising $22 million, has been a success.

“We have a lot of generous donors and we’re virtually complete,” he said, explaining they had only $400,000 left to raise.

Dauphin parting ways with MJHL head coach

Doug Hedley will no longer lead the Dauphin Kings in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.

The team announced April 15 Hedley and the organization, “have mutually agreed to part ways.”

Hedley joined Dauphin at the beginning of the 2018/2019 season for his latest stint for the Kings, moving from the Northern Manitoba Blizzard. Hedley, who is from Dauphin, has been the head coach for the Kings on three separate occasions across 15 total seasons.

“As the team looks to move in a different direction, the organization extends its sincere appreciation to Doug for his dedication and commitment to the program,” a Kings social medial post reads.

Regenerative farming: Overby shares his insight with neighbors to the north

A North Dakota grain producer has taken crop diversity to a whole new level with the addition of a wide variety of crops to a regular rotation, as he practises regenerative farming methods on his 1,800-acre farm, just south of the International Peace Gardens.

Paul Overby shared his insight with a large group of farmers at the fourth annual Regen Day hosted by the Seine Rat Roseau River Watershed District at Friedensfeld Community Centre in February.

Overby told farmers that regenerative farming practices were a way to enrich the soil and improve watersheds, while at the same time, increasing yields and resistance to climate instability.

Paul and his wife Diane operate a leading-edge regenerative agriculture farm, raising a diverse mix of canola, flax, field peas, hard red spring wheat, millet, oats, sunflowers, and soybeans.

Ritchot maintains mill rate, mayor said lowering rate “not a good thing”

The RM of Ritchot approved its 2026 budget last Wednesday with the mill rate remaining steady for the ninth year in a row at 7.95 mills, despite property value reassessments by the province last year that saw some residents’ values increasing.

“I don’t think we should ever see a lowering of the mill rate. It’s never a good thing in anything,” said Mayor Chris Ewen. “You don’t see your groceries ever go down. They continue to stay up or they stay the same. I think the same should apply for mill rates.

“We continue to keep that line. And we just take advantage of the assessment value going up and how we can implement that for a positive outcome for the municipality and the residents that are participating.”

Ewen said as the municipality continues to grow with residential, industrial, and commercial properties moving in, increased taxes collected through the increased property values will fund projects that need to be done in the RM. He said by keeping the mill rate the same, residents shouldn’t see their taxes change “dramatically.”

PHOTO GALLERY: Metal wrestling madness in Mitchell

Canadian Wrestling Elite’s “Rage in the Cage” fight night in Mitchell on April 18.

SPORTS FLASHBACK 1991: Manaigre leads Manitoba to silver at ringette nationals

Fifteen-year-old Gaetane Manaigre of Lorette was instrumental in helping the Manitoba Juniors win the silver medal at the Canadian Ringette Championships in Hull, Quebec.

It is the second silver medal Manaigre has won at the national championships in two years. As a 14-year-old at the nationals in Calgary last year, she won silver with the Eastman Flames Juniors. The Junior Division for girls, 15 and under.

Last week at Hull, Manaigre, who is a center, was the second leading scorer on the Manitoba team during the week, scoring six goals and setting up 10 others.

In the semi-finals, against Saskatchewan, Manaigre scored the tying goal, then the winner in overtime, as Manitoba won 7-6, to earn a berth in the gold medal game.

COLUMN: Tales from the Gravel Ridge – An oven that functioned well

Whether or not you need a well-functioning oven in your kitchen depends, to some degree, on the cooking and baking habits of those in your household, and more specifically, on the habits of the individual responsible for meal preparation. In our present context such responsibilities might vary from time to time and, of course, from one household to another. We have options today that weren’t always the case in the past.

In the community of my childhood, the responsibility for such an essential aspect of the needs and habits of a family fell to the mother of the home, or possibly the older daughters. During the first decade or so of my life, the community of Rosengard had no electricity. In large part, the cook-stove in our kitchen helped to heat our house. In addition to that important function, it was also vital for the preparation of all cooked and baked foods. The fact that our community did not have electricity until the late 1940s or early 1950s was not a problem for us. After all, we were not accustomed to having light and power provided to us. As long as we had a source of trees to harvest and a means of cutting them into suitable size pieces to stoke our stoves, we were set to go. Mr. D.D. Ginter was the man to go to for such services. He had a reliable wood-sawing business, and as far as I know, he was the only person in our neighbourhood who could provide that essential service.

All that to say, no matter how diverse your recipe library might be, nor to what degree your culinary skills have been developed, some source of heat is required to prepare most properly cooked meals. When you are accustomed to turning on a switch, and as a result your electric oven heats up, you are caught by surprise when no such magic happens. It’s quite intriguing how ingenious you can become if necessity asks it of you. Under such circumstances it becomes imperative that you make alternative arrangements, such as cooking a turkey on top of your electric stove. Of course that can happen only if the quandary you’re in doesn’t mean a loss of electric power altogether.

From my own experience, I can attest to the fact that my mother knew how to prepare delicious, nourishing meals. She did so day after day, and I have no doubt that the women of our neighbourhood in their own unique ways did as well. In the context of writing a paper some years ago, I interviewed members of my own family as well as others of the community regarding how their respective mothers, many decades earlier, had managed, within limited resources, to prepare satisfying meals. It was heart-warming how universally they responded somewhat along the line that, “She knew how to make it work”. Their replies and comments didn’t however come as a surprise to me. The families of our neighbourhood were not well off generally, and had managed to survive, and in their own way to thrive, during the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s. They simply kept on doing what they had always done. After all, what were their options.