Welcome to Wolseley
The Leaf is the community newspaper of Winnipeg's historic Wolseley neighbourhood.
We are supported by entirely local advertising and subscription revenue. We receive no government or foundation grants. Please support local businesses and organizations, so they can support us.
Advertisers: Contact Richard at [email protected] to book your ad.
Or check out a pdf of our ad rates here.
Since January 2013 we have helped foster community conversation about a host of issues of interest to local residents; from people profiles and political views, to gardening tips, the arts and much more. We are also proud to now serve the vibrant and creative West Broadway community and new writers are always welcome to make enquiries.
We are supported by entirely local advertising and subscription revenue. We receive no government or foundation grants. Please support local businesses and organizations, so they can support us.
Advertisers: Contact Richard at [email protected] to book your ad.
Or check out a pdf of our ad rates here.
Since January 2013 we have helped foster community conversation about a host of issues of interest to local residents; from people profiles and political views, to gardening tips, the arts and much more. We are also proud to now serve the vibrant and creative West Broadway community and new writers are always welcome to make enquiries.
More about The Leaf
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Home Delivery
The Leaf is delivered door-to-door 11 times a year by a dedicated network of carriers. The Leaf is FREE; however, if you live outside of the Wolseley or West Broadway areas you may subscribe for $30 per year and we will mail your copy of The Leaf as soon as it is published. Click here, and provide your delivery details; we will e-mail a PayPal invoice you can use to pay. |
Local Journalism
The Leaf provides a forum for both experienced and budding community journalists. All writers are paid, just like our carriers -- helping to foster local community economic development. Several times a year we host writing workshops where you can learn about writing articles. Check the paper for upcoming workshop schedules. |
Supporting Local Businesses
The Leaf provides a way for local businesses to engage in truly local marketing. Why waste money on high ad rates reaching neighbourhoods far outside your trading area? Target with The Leaf and save. Reach our advertising representative, Richard, at [email protected] or from our general Contact page. |
The Leaf
Wolseley, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
In Treaty 1 territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
204.771.3882
[email protected]
Wolseley, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
In Treaty 1 territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
204.771.3882
[email protected]
News from the community
The Leaf wins Canadian Community Newpaper Award
The Leaf took 3rd place in News Media Canada's 2023 Canandian Community Newspaper Awards in the Best Local Civic Journalism category. The award was given for Sean Ledwich's story, "Saigon Centre battles squatters, lack of funding". In granting the award, Paul Deegan (CEO) and Dave Adsett (Chair of the Board) of News Media Canada stated, "Your dedication, talent, and passion have enriched your readers' lives and strengthend the bonds of your community. Your work exemplifies the very essence of community journalism and is a testament to your commitment to the valuable role that community newspapers play in strengthening our society". The Leaf thanks the CCNA for the recognition and its continued work advocating for, and building, community journalism in Canada. You can learn more about news Media Canada here.
Community, Culture and Worldview: Woven into the
structure of Cree and Ojibwe classes
Story and photos by Mike Maunder
(Clockwise, from upper left) Grade 0ne student Braelyn with Cree teacher Lorraine
George. / Grade 1 to 3 students Abel, Mariah, Natasha and Kaydence with their
drawings showing the Ojibway creation story. / Grade 1-3 kids show Alma Bernier the
weeds they’re pulling from the garden beds as they prepare for planting.
Ojibwe teacher
Alma Bernier
uses Ojibwe
teachings of
the 13 moons
on the turtle’s
back.
Students are learning much more than just another language in the Ojibwe-Cree bilingual program at Isaac Brock School – they’re entering a world of stories and images and community and culture that’s woven into the very structure of those languages.
For instance, as part of the science curriculum, elementaryaged kids in Manitoba are taught about the four seasons. In Ojibwe/Cree classes the children learn the four seasons, but they learn them as part of the traditional medicine wheel – the great circle of life, the four seasons, the four directions, the animals connected with each direction, and much more.
The Manitoba curriculum lays out maths, science and all the outcomes,” explains principal Chris Goring, “And these teachers are showing how school can enhance a basic curriculum and build culture and community in language classes.”
“This is the season of Spring,” Cree teacher Lorraine George explained. “It’s new life, leaves, sun, birds coming home. But it’s also the Eastern direction, where the sun rises, every new day of the year. And it’s the direction of children, like these children in Grades 1-3.”
As a teacher, she has no favourites, but the grade 1-3 Cree class is her class, and it’s
Ojibwe teacher Alma Bernier uses Ojibwe teachings of the 13 moons on the turtle’s
back. It's hard to hide her love of these twenty-or-so kids. “They pick up the language like sponges,” she said.
Teacher Alma Bernier similarly teaches the grades 1-3 class in Ojibwe. She has built much of the Ojibwe curriculum around the 13 moons each year. One recent science activity was monitoring the phases of the moon.
June is Bashkinawe Giizis–egg-hatching moon. Among activities will be a feast celebrating the new season, planting the raised garden boxes in front of the school, and celebrating the community. Celebrating the Indigenous community comes naturally to Grade Six student Ava Meconse, who spends part of every summer powwow dancing and connecting with a family of strong Ojibwe roots. Ava’s mother, Renata, enrolled her in kindergarten when the Isaac Brock program began six years ago, even though they lived in St. Vital.
“I drove her to school for several years but now we’ve found a home in the West End,” she explained. (Students outside Winnipeg school division can attend, but transportation is not provided.) “It’s so much more than language,” explained Renata. “Ava learning her language is helping build our family connections. It’s connected us to resources in the Indigenous community and resources in the West End; parents and teachers are connected in our Facebook group.”
Wolseley mom, Amber Balan, enrolled daughter Bella six years ago to reconnect her with the Metis roots she feels have been lost for three generations. Amber’s greatgrandparents were the last to speak a mix of French and English, Cree and Ojibwe. Since she started at Isaac Brock, Bella and her family are reconnecting with their roots at Fisher River First Nation. Bella likes lots of things about the Cree program and Isaac Brock:
“I like my teachers,” she says; she liked performing in the APTN series, 7th Gen and singing “O Canada” in Cree with the school choir at Jets and Moose games; and she likes that McDonalds and Taco Bell are so close to the school at lunchtime.
Amber is most impressed by the way the program has grounded her daughter. “She’s very respectful; she has learned a lot of spirituality through the stories and abides by the Seven Sacred Teachings,” she explained. (The Seven Teachings: wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility and truth.) She also believes there’s an indefinable way in which the language itself seems to ground her. “It gets lost in translation,” she said, “But the language is animate and filled with spirit. When you say things in Cree, they have life and connection with you.”
Perhaps what she’s feeling is connected to the worldview interwoven into the languages. At some point, (probably not in elementary school) Bella will take science classes explaining the Big Bang and the search for a unified field theory. But, just as meaningful and in many ways far more grounding, she has already absorbed the traditional stories of Turtle Island’s creation, all the animals assisting in the creation of humankind, and humankind’s responsibility to the earth around us, “All My Relations.”
About a third of the students at Isaac Brock School – 107 kids from kindergarten to grade six – are in the Ojibwe / Cree program. Grade seven will start next year. New students are accepted in kindergarten and grade one.
The school is not developing its unique curriculum in a vacuum – they have borrowed from Winnipeg School Division’s two Indigenous schools, Niji Mahkwa and Children of the Earth. Along with these two schools, the Ojibwe and Cree language program at Isaac Brock is building a strong model of what reconciliation looks like.
For instance, as part of the science curriculum, elementaryaged kids in Manitoba are taught about the four seasons. In Ojibwe/Cree classes the children learn the four seasons, but they learn them as part of the traditional medicine wheel – the great circle of life, the four seasons, the four directions, the animals connected with each direction, and much more.
The Manitoba curriculum lays out maths, science and all the outcomes,” explains principal Chris Goring, “And these teachers are showing how school can enhance a basic curriculum and build culture and community in language classes.”
“This is the season of Spring,” Cree teacher Lorraine George explained. “It’s new life, leaves, sun, birds coming home. But it’s also the Eastern direction, where the sun rises, every new day of the year. And it’s the direction of children, like these children in Grades 1-3.”
As a teacher, she has no favourites, but the grade 1-3 Cree class is her class, and it’s
Ojibwe teacher Alma Bernier uses Ojibwe teachings of the 13 moons on the turtle’s
back. It's hard to hide her love of these twenty-or-so kids. “They pick up the language like sponges,” she said.
Teacher Alma Bernier similarly teaches the grades 1-3 class in Ojibwe. She has built much of the Ojibwe curriculum around the 13 moons each year. One recent science activity was monitoring the phases of the moon.
June is Bashkinawe Giizis–egg-hatching moon. Among activities will be a feast celebrating the new season, planting the raised garden boxes in front of the school, and celebrating the community. Celebrating the Indigenous community comes naturally to Grade Six student Ava Meconse, who spends part of every summer powwow dancing and connecting with a family of strong Ojibwe roots. Ava’s mother, Renata, enrolled her in kindergarten when the Isaac Brock program began six years ago, even though they lived in St. Vital.
“I drove her to school for several years but now we’ve found a home in the West End,” she explained. (Students outside Winnipeg school division can attend, but transportation is not provided.) “It’s so much more than language,” explained Renata. “Ava learning her language is helping build our family connections. It’s connected us to resources in the Indigenous community and resources in the West End; parents and teachers are connected in our Facebook group.”
Wolseley mom, Amber Balan, enrolled daughter Bella six years ago to reconnect her with the Metis roots she feels have been lost for three generations. Amber’s greatgrandparents were the last to speak a mix of French and English, Cree and Ojibwe. Since she started at Isaac Brock, Bella and her family are reconnecting with their roots at Fisher River First Nation. Bella likes lots of things about the Cree program and Isaac Brock:
“I like my teachers,” she says; she liked performing in the APTN series, 7th Gen and singing “O Canada” in Cree with the school choir at Jets and Moose games; and she likes that McDonalds and Taco Bell are so close to the school at lunchtime.
Amber is most impressed by the way the program has grounded her daughter. “She’s very respectful; she has learned a lot of spirituality through the stories and abides by the Seven Sacred Teachings,” she explained. (The Seven Teachings: wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility and truth.) She also believes there’s an indefinable way in which the language itself seems to ground her. “It gets lost in translation,” she said, “But the language is animate and filled with spirit. When you say things in Cree, they have life and connection with you.”
Perhaps what she’s feeling is connected to the worldview interwoven into the languages. At some point, (probably not in elementary school) Bella will take science classes explaining the Big Bang and the search for a unified field theory. But, just as meaningful and in many ways far more grounding, she has already absorbed the traditional stories of Turtle Island’s creation, all the animals assisting in the creation of humankind, and humankind’s responsibility to the earth around us, “All My Relations.”
About a third of the students at Isaac Brock School – 107 kids from kindergarten to grade six – are in the Ojibwe / Cree program. Grade seven will start next year. New students are accepted in kindergarten and grade one.
The school is not developing its unique curriculum in a vacuum – they have borrowed from Winnipeg School Division’s two Indigenous schools, Niji Mahkwa and Children of the Earth. Along with these two schools, the Ojibwe and Cree language program at Isaac Brock is building a strong model of what reconciliation looks like.
Grade six Cree student Bella Balan with her mom in front of Isaac Brock. Photo provided.
Old Grace Co-op members contribute to the Madison’s improvements
By Oluwadara Babatope
Carl von Baeyer hands a cheque to Darren Nodrick, director
of development, and Caedmon Malowany, Communications
Supervisor, of Siloam Mission. Photo Terese Taylor.
When Carl von Baeyer heard the stories about the old boiler in the Madison - a supported residence across the street, - Old Grace Housing Co-op member von Baeyer decided to send out an email.
“We've been doing band aid solution fixes for some years now, at significant cost,” says Darren Nodrick, director of development for Siloam Mission. Last year the boiler quit three times. “We're at the point now where, if that boiler fails in the winter, it could endanger the 85 residents that live here.”
Siloam Mission acquired the building - a former nurses’ residence for women who worked at the original Grace Hospital located across the street, in 2011. Recently, a campaign was launched to raise money replace the boiler - the original that was installed when building was first built in the 1940s - as well as for the installation of air conditioning, and renovation of flooring, lighting, and furniture.
“I thought Old Grace members might like to lend a hand in that campaign, so I emailed an invitation to contribute."
Individuals stepped up, and soon von Baeyer had a check for almost $1500 to donate to Siloam’s campaign. As a long-term supportive living environment, The Madison is a place where many residents choose to spend the rest of their lives. Seniors, who make up about half of the residents, benefit from access to home care services. Moreover, the close-knit community within the facility often results in lifelong friendships, with residents supporting one another like family.
While some individuals find solace at The Madison for only a few years as they work
towards greater independence the shelter remains a crucial stepping stone in their
journey, explains Nodrick. The campaign has received significant donations from
the Bueller Family Foundation, the City of Winnipeg and End Homelessness Winnipeg.
“But it’s really nice that neighbours across the street are making a donation.. every little bit is significant,” says Nodrick. “It has that extra meaning when its from across the stree. I hear lots of friendly stories about the people (at the co-op). We couldn't operate as an organization, do what we do without support like that."
Wolseley is such a unique neighbourhood within Winnipeg.” Its very meaningful. We are very grateful.”
To donate, visit siloam.ca or contact Darren Nordrick at [email protected]
“We've been doing band aid solution fixes for some years now, at significant cost,” says Darren Nodrick, director of development for Siloam Mission. Last year the boiler quit three times. “We're at the point now where, if that boiler fails in the winter, it could endanger the 85 residents that live here.”
Siloam Mission acquired the building - a former nurses’ residence for women who worked at the original Grace Hospital located across the street, in 2011. Recently, a campaign was launched to raise money replace the boiler - the original that was installed when building was first built in the 1940s - as well as for the installation of air conditioning, and renovation of flooring, lighting, and furniture.
“I thought Old Grace members might like to lend a hand in that campaign, so I emailed an invitation to contribute."
Individuals stepped up, and soon von Baeyer had a check for almost $1500 to donate to Siloam’s campaign. As a long-term supportive living environment, The Madison is a place where many residents choose to spend the rest of their lives. Seniors, who make up about half of the residents, benefit from access to home care services. Moreover, the close-knit community within the facility often results in lifelong friendships, with residents supporting one another like family.
While some individuals find solace at The Madison for only a few years as they work
towards greater independence the shelter remains a crucial stepping stone in their
journey, explains Nodrick. The campaign has received significant donations from
the Bueller Family Foundation, the City of Winnipeg and End Homelessness Winnipeg.
“But it’s really nice that neighbours across the street are making a donation.. every little bit is significant,” says Nodrick. “It has that extra meaning when its from across the stree. I hear lots of friendly stories about the people (at the co-op). We couldn't operate as an organization, do what we do without support like that."
Wolseley is such a unique neighbourhood within Winnipeg.” Its very meaningful. We are very grateful.”
To donate, visit siloam.ca or contact Darren Nordrick at [email protected]