A partial solar eclipse was visible over Manitoba on Monday afternoon, April 8, when the moon slowly passed in front of sun. The eclipse lasted a little over two hours from approximately 12:50 to 3:00pm with around 50 percent of the sun being obscured by the moon at maximum. Although a small track through eastern Canada experienced a total eclipse, Manitoba was outside the path of totality.

The next total solar eclipse visible in the prairies occurs in about twenty years. On August 22, 2044 Manitoba will again be outside of the path of totality, but not by much. Weyburn’s current city limits will lay only kilometres outside of the path. In Southwestern Manitoba, a little more than 99 percent of the sun will be obscured minutes before sunset. Only a thin sliver of the sun will be visible just above the horizon with the sky darkening a noticeable amount, only for it to re-brighten again into evening twilight. Not quite comparable to totality, but still a spectacular thing to witness.

It is hard to imagine how many lives a paramedic touches during their career whether short lived or long term.

Bev Huys of Deloraine made a difference in many lives during her 26 years of service as a paramedic. It all started in 1998 when she was a young mother of two, having moved from Portage la Prairie to Goodlands. In a casual conversation with Glen LePoudre, a paramedic from Deloraine, Huys mentioned she had worked as an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) in Portage but had let her licence go. LePoudre encouraged her to re-apply with the local health region.

“It has been my dream job, something I wanted to do since I was a little girl,” she said.

Huys began her career on February 28, 1998 as an EMR. A couple of years later the title was bridged to become Primary Care Paramedic (PCP).

By the end of the month, an important service club in Boissevain will see its work come to an end, with a strong legacy remaining.

Giving away what is left in its bank accounts, the United Commercial Travelers Boissevain Council #940 is contributing to the community one last time. Started in 1997, the organization has been a major part of the area, quietly giving to Boissevain-Morton for nearly three decades. Shutting down now, the UCT is seeing the impact of changes within and without their club.

Charter member Wendy Clyne said the timing was natural for the decision as it was their year-end.

“We’re all getting older, all the members we had,” Clyne explained. “We were down to around 20 members, and maybe 12 attended meetings. We had some members who didn’t attend meetings who would come and help us, but as for taking on the roles in the organization, we’d all done it a dozen times. It comes time.”

She added they were also a little limited in terms of their fundraising. The UCT was famous for working the lunches and pies at Wright’s auction sales. They were getting older, so this was more difficult, and Wright’s, due to COVID, changed how they did their sales. Clyne said they chose to try doing service in the community in lieu of fundraising, and did so, but the time had come to move on.

With help from an important community organization, a new element was added to car racing for young boys in Boissevain.

The boy’s club at the Mennonite Brethren Church held their annual car races and rally on Sunday, March 17. According to one of the leaders, Duane Thiessen, the event was a success, especially with a new piece of equipment.

“It went really well,” Thiessen stated. “The new track worked great and everybody had a great time.”

The club, which races wooden model cars, was able to pick up a new aluminum racing track this year. Theissen said they had been running the cars on an old wooden track that could be as much as 40 years old, used by other community clubs before the youth group. It was past its due date, and in need of replacement.

In September, there was the annual event at Boissevain School where kids’ groups collect registrations for the upcoming year. It was then that a form from the Boissevain & Morton Foundation was dropped off. The group decided they could not go wrong by applying for a new track. Thiessen said they applied for $1,200 for the new piece of equipment, not knowing how much if any they would receive. The total was $1,195, which they discovered when the cheques were handed out in November.

“We had no idea until they had the meeting at the curling club. We were very pleased. We’re very grateful to the organization.”

The new track, picked up from Iowa, not only runs very smoothly. Connected to a laptop with appropriate software, it can track the cars running in miles per hour. Using measurement techniques, it can turn the wooden cars to NASCAR on screen and sort of pro-rate their speed. Thiessen said the fastest car in the tournament was averaging 200.11 miles an hour. This feature makes the races that much more exciting, particularly as some races had the first to third cars only a mile and a half different in speed.

“The kids were super pumped,” Thiessen said. “They were cheering for the cars, running up and down the track. It was great.”

They are also able to easily calibrate points, and set up the races. Overall, it makes the rally that much more enjoyable.

Thiessen said the boys, in grades two to six, had nearly 40 entries show up for the rally. Each car was able to race in 12 heats.

The cars begin as blocks of wood. The participants make a car out of them, and weight will be added if needed to bring them to specifications. They also decorate them themselves, with Thiessen saying there was an array of different designs, some more elaborate than others. This is similar to Cub car races from an earlier generation.

The club meets Wednesday evenings starting October. They play games and have a storytime, and also do projects. This past year, with wood donated from Springhill Lumber in Killarney, they made functional gumball machines. They were a lot of work, but the kids were able to get some experience with handsaws and power tools. Thiessen said he is not sure why, but the club has become very popular recently, with around 45 boys registering the last three years.

The race day was their last meeting for this year, with a windup party also held.

Thiessen said the new track is a great asset for them. It can be run without the laptop, so he can see other groups getting some use out of it. Again, they are thankful for the assistance they received from the Foundation and feel they have something to benefit kids in the community for a long time.

“People who saw it said it was very impressive,” he stated. “Hopefully, the track will be well taken care of and will be good for decades to come.”

by PAUL RAYNER, Recorder staff

Expanding their academic knowledge is only one of the benefits of participating in the Boissevain School Science Fair.

The annual exhibition was held in the south gym at the school on March 8. Students were able to present their projects to their peers, teachers, judges and the larger community. Grade 5 and 6 teacher Bob Birch said there were 71 projects presented, with 100 students participating, similar to last year. He added he and co-chair Hannah Beghin, who teaches the same grades, were pleased with the result.

“Hannah and I were very happy with the day and the number and quality of projects presented,” Birch explained. “There was plenty of excitement, the community support was excellent, and the day ran smoothly.”

He said the fair is open to students from Grades 1-12, although Boissevain only had projects through Grade 8. It was enough to fill the gym with interesting discoveries. As Birch stated, the purpose is to instill a love of learning in a subject he teaches himself.

New enthusiastic board members and volunteers are getting Beckoning Hills Museum in shape for a 2024 opening.

The museum was turned over to the Municipality of Boissevain-Morton a little more than a year ago, and due to different factors, was not open in 2023. A meeting was held last fall to try to gauge interest in restarting the attraction, and many people stepped forward. Since that time, workers have been heavily engaged in getting the Mill Road museum back in shape for sharing the past with locals and visitors.

Board Co-Chair Sandra Pearce said the work started pretty much right after the public meeting. The board met, took a look around the building and discussed what they wanted to do going forward.

“We discussed what we wanted to do to get it open this year,” Pearce stated. “Long term, there is still some discussion.”

By the turn of the season, several local winter recreation facilities should have new, more efficient lighting with some help from a dedicated organization.

In Boissevain and Elgin, skating and curling facilities are receiving LED lighting thanks to Efficiency Manitoba, a Crown corporation committed to achieving significant annual energy savings by offering programs and services to Manitobans. Under a Community Rink Lighting Initiative, these facilities were able to access $2 million in funding for up to 100% of lighting equipment and labour costs.

Copperman Electrical in Boissevain is one of the suppliers involved in Efficiency Manitoba. Marc Loewen of Copperman said they receive emails about different programs under Efficiency Manitoba, and in the early fall, they received word of the Community Rink Lighting Initiative. He said he did more research and found it applied to curling as well as skating rinks.

“I found it could cover 100% of a project cost, including labour,” Loewen remembered. “We thought ‘whoa, this is a significant program.’ I went looking around for organizations that were interested.”

Daycare wait lists are a concern for many families. With both parents working being the norm, childcare is a top priority. Available spots vary among facilities.

Wee ‘R’ Special Daycare in Deloraine has four infants and 16 regular spots. A recent surge in births has caused a waiting list and parents seeking childcare spots in neighbouring communities.

The daycare board in Deloraine has received many concerns from parents about the waiting lists and lack of after school programs.

“It was time to have a conversation about childcare options. The board felt we should do our due diligence and address the concerns,” said Courtney Sunaert at a town hall on February 12 at the Prairie Skills Building.

Sunaert, along with board members Britney Forsyth, Marlee Langdon, Britney Stovin and Dani Bell delivered a well-prepared presentation.

They began with the “knowns”, which included enrollment, funding options, expansion needs and before and after school care.

A lake that may not really be a lake, one that can be dry or overflowing, but that always has an impact on farms and land around it, is the subject of new film by a local historical group.

The Turtle Mountain Souris Plains Heritage Association is working on a short film on Whitewater Lake. The lake, located between Boissevain and Deloraine, has almost a strange, mythical status in the area, with memories about it vastly different depending on what era one lived in. It makes for an interesting story, one that fit within the organization’s bounds.

“Whitewater Lake comes up in conversations with people and with our (municipal) councils,” explained TMSPHA member David M. Neufeld, explaining the decision to make a film on the subject. “There is some frustration in Deloraine and Boissevain with the inability to solve the problem with it. It seemed to us it would be helpful to make a film, to have conversations and listen to different perspectives.”

Local firefighters took advantage of an opportunity to add to their winter rescue skills last weekend.

Members of the Deloraine and Boissevain-Morton Fire Departments took to the classroom in the Deloraine-Winchester Municipal Office and the water at the Turtle Head Creek Dam by the golf course to work with Trans-Care Rescue Ltd. of Langham, Saskatchewan on February 3 and 4. They worked on skills related to helping victims out of freezing water and caring for them once out. Eight members of the Deloraine department participated, with two joining from Boissevain.

Andrea Mustard, along with Logan Graham, made the trip over from Boissevain. She said the course was organized from the Deloraine department, and they joined in.

“With our department, along with all departments, we try to continue our education and learn new things and skills we can use in our area,” Mustard explained. “This course came up, with Deloraine bringing the gentleman out, and there was room for some more, so a couple of us from our department were able to spend the weekend along with members of the Deloraine department learning.”