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U of M at Kin Games 2026

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U of M at Kin Games 2026

While most students were settling into the second half of the winter semester, a group of kinesiology students at the U of M were flying to Sudbury, Ontario to compete in Kin Games 2026 from March 28 to 22.

The Kin Games are said to be the largest undergraduate student kinesiology conference in Canada. This year, 25 universities showed up to compete across four pillars, including spirit, academics, athletics and dance over four days. At the end, one team walked away with the shoe, a trophy painted in the winning university’s colours. Jonathan Hiebert, Naomi Hudson and Abigail Mitchell-Lawson captained U of M’s team, Toba, through Kin Games 2026.

The team consisted of 16 to 18 kinesiology students drawn from all four programs in the faculty — kinesiology, athletic therapy, recreation management and physical education. Hudson explained that tryouts were held at the beginning of the school year, and from there, the team practiced once or twice a week all the way until the conference.

“We don’t charge for the trials at all,” Hudson said. “Anybody who wants to try out is more than welcome to come try out.” The cost comes in the form of conference and travelling fees. This year, with Kin Games being hosted in Sudbury, Mitchell-Lawson noted the total per-person cost climbed to roughly $1,600, out of which the $650 conference fee covered accommodations, some meals, the closing gala dinner and sponsor merchandise, while flights from Winnipeg ran close to $1,000.

Hudson noted that costs vary significantly depending on where the conference is hosted, taking into context the flights and a train ticket which came at a hefty price. She added, “that’s strictly because of the fact that Sudbury is a bit of a difficult place to get to.”

To offset costs, the team ran several fundraisers throughout the year. Mitchell-Lawson said their social event at VW’s, a bake sale, a climbing event at The Hive and individual pizza and cheese fundraisers allowed team members to raise money for themselves directly. Between all of it, Hudson confirmed that they raised approximately $4,100.

This year’s conference theme was The Great Outdoors, and the events reflected it. On the athletics side, teams competed in wheelchair basketball, Kho Kho (a traditional Indian tag-and-chase sport), flag football and a surprise Hunger Games-style free-for-all flag tag match. Kickball, originally planned as an outdoor event but cancelled due to weather, was replaced with dodgeball, while flag football and the pre-conference Team Ironman Challenge went ahead as planned.

Mitchell-Lawson highlighted wheelchair basketball as standout. “That was a really cool experience for us as kin students especially,” she said, “to put ourselves into that position and see what that’s like.”

Hiebert was equally taken by it. “I’m probably never [going to] play wheelchair basketball again,” he said. “It was great. It was fun.”

On the academic side, events included KinTank, similar to Shark Tank, where participants pitched research projects, a secret challenge called Cash Bus revealed only once teams boarded, a canoe portage relay where distance determined question difficulty and a 20-minute escape room set inside squash courts where teams solved a missing person’s case using kinesiology knowledge.

Spirit challenges ran throughout the year, including community acts of kindness and pen pal letters. Hudson explained that this year Toba was paired with the University of Ottawa. Team members exchanged postcards with photos and stickers in February, then got to meet their pen pals face-to-face at the conference. “It was nice to have that familiar face,” Hudson said.

Dance opened the conference at the opening ceremonies on day one. “Regardless of if you can dance or not, everyone puts 110 per cent in,” Hudson said. “And that’s all I can ask for from the team.”

Toba finished 14th out of 25 teams overall — eighth in dance, 14th in academics, 16th in spirit and 18th in athletics. “It’s not just about the outcome,” Mitchell-Lawson said. “We’re proud as captains for all the work that everyone put in.”

Hiebert put it plainly, “Kin Games in general more so focuses on fostering intrinsic motivation, just having fun and enjoyment rather than winning.”

Hudson pointed to something bigger. The team started this year with three brand-new captains and an almost entirely new roster. “I’m incredibly proud of everybody,” she said, “and just being able to still make that community within our team, these guys are going to be my friends forever.” Hudson compared the energy to a high school gym but at a university level. “We say at Kin Games, we’re all best friends,” she said. “You go around, you meet everybody, you make so many friends across Canada.”

For Hiebert, finding that energy was something he had been looking for since starting university. “I struggled to find people who are like me, who just enjoy playing sports, having fun, trying new things,” he said. “And then all of a sudden I found Kin Games, and I realize there’s a whole group of people who like to do that, and then you go to the conference and there’s 400 people who like to do that.”

Four days of minimal sleep have its side effects. Hiebert said one of the running jokes at every Kin Games is catching people asleep mid-event. “Everybody’s playing sports over here, and there’s someone fast asleep,” he said.

Mitchell-Lawson added that the kinesiology folks have a shared social media page where they post photos of teammates napping. “All of a sudden I see them over in the corner, they’re bringing the spirit,” she said. “It’s crazy how you can go from one personality to another all within an hour.”

Hudson described watching shy team members completely transform once they arrived at the conference. “Who are you and what have you done?” she said. “You have no choice but to feed into the energy because it’s all around you.”

The journey home was its own experience. “You leave and you get hit with the most severe case of tinnitus ever because you’ve just left your 500 new best friends,” Hudson said. The exhaustion is real too. “You’ve screamed for four days, you’ve gotten 10 hours of sleep over four days,” Hudson added.

Mitchell-Lawson put it simply as coming back to campus and seeing teammates bring it all back. “It just brings a smile to my face,” she said. “[Remembering] what we just did last week.”

Hudson summed up what the whole conference experience was. “The relationships that you make and the conversations that you have and the networking experience, that’s what really stands out. Not the ranking.”

Next year’s Kin Games will be held in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Liv Valmestad exhibits Ma(r)king Space in Dafoe Library

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Liv Valmestad exhibits Ma(r)king Space in Dafoe Library

U of M art librarian and artist Liv Valmestad concluded her exhibition Ma(r)king Space last week at the Dr. Paul H. T. Thorlakson Gallery on the third floor of the Elizabeth Dafoe Library. Using soft shades of blues, pinks and lilacs, her artwork depicts serene but stirring landscapes of the North Atlantic coast and the Prairies. 

Valmestad’s artistic practice is deeply shaped by her love of nature, describing it as a place of inspiration, solace and refuge. Her work is also informed by her identity as a Norwegian Canadian, and she has spent much time in Norway and the Prairies. In the past decade, she completed artist residencies in Norway, Iceland and recently Newfoundland — the focus of this exhibition.

“In my latest series, I explore the raw beauty of Newfoundland’s Atlantic coast, continuing my inquiry into Nature’s emotional and spatial presence,” she wrote about Ma(r)king Space. “Newfoundland: Peaches and Cream,” for example, depicts swirling purple skies juxtaposed by a calm sea, evoking an undulating landscape. 

Valmestad’s coastal paintings contrast with the prairie landscapes in the exhibition, but the theme of the sublime unites works in Ma(r)king Space. 

“The whole notion of a sublime as an aesthetic framework [is] where nature or landscape inspires a sense of awe in the viewer […] They’re rendered awestruck, either from nature’s power or the scale or the expanse of nature. So I was very much interested in that,” she commented. 

The sublime can also be terrorizing, according to Valmestad, invoking a kind of horror or unease.  

“There [are] different definitions for the sublime, but one of them is this infinite space and vastness, and we feel dwarfed by that.”

This can be seen in “Alone,” a painting where a dusky sunset and globular clouds rest on a long prairie highway with the headlights of a lone car in the far distance.

Other than the sublime, Valmestad writes that her work is guided by deep ecology, a theory developed by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and author George Sessions advocating for the intrinsic value of all lives and the importance of biodiversity. 

“[Naess] talks about how important nature is and how we need to respect it, and how it has inherent rights and needs to be respected in that way,” the artist stated. 

Valmestad wishes her art will inform people on what our place in nature should be. 

“We need to be stewards of nature. And if we [aren’t], we won’t have any of these spaces to find refuge in or to even depict,” she said.

For more information on Liv Valmestad and her work, visit livvalmestadart.wordpress.com.

Artwork by Liv Valmestad in the Dr. Paul H. T. Thorlakson Gallery. Ebunoluwa Akinbo / The Manitoban.

The many homes of The Sheepdogs

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The many homes of The Sheepdogs

Canadian roots rock band The Sheepdogs released their eighth studio album, Keep Out of the Storm, in late February. The band began a Canadian tour in March and will perform in Winnipeg on April 16 and 17. “We want to create music that […] is positive,” bassist Ryan Gullen described. “Songs that make you feel cool or songs that empower you.”

He continued to say that listening to the classic rock music which inspired The Sheepdogs was a form of uplifting escapism for the band members as young adults, and that he hopes to facilitate the same escape for others who need it. 

The musicians now reside in different places, but they formed in Saskatoon in 2004. At the start of their career, they were reliant on taking trips to play in other cities for exposure. Notably, Winnipeg was the first city where they found receptive fans. Gullen even calls Winnipeg The Sheepdogs’s second home. He calculates that out of any non-Winnipeg-based bands, The Sheepdogs would likely hold the record for performing at the most venues in the city. 

“What was really interesting about when we started coming to Winnipeg and meeting different musicians and getting to play lots of different shows with different people is that we got to discover what other people were doing.” Gullen explained, “Saskatoon has a very strong music scene, but there [weren’t] a lot of people that played in rock bands, and so it felt a little bit insular for us. And so when we came to Winnipeg, we started meeting all these people at [Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club], and all these different bands that we kind of became friends with. And it inspired us.”

The Sheepdogs have collaborated many times with local band Waking Eyes’ multi-instrumentalist Rusty Matyas. They first bonded when Matyas worked as the audio technician at The Cavern for The Sheepdogs’s first-ever show in Winnipeg. In addition, Boy Golden supported The Sheepdogs on their last tour.

However, The Sheepdogs were surprised and somewhat jealous seeing that many Winnipeg-based musical acts of the late 2000s were well-established in the music industry and still able to keep living here, like the Waking Eyes.

The founding members of The Sheepdogs grew up in the early stages of online music discovery through websites like Napster, which is how they became fans of classic rock, rather than the music of their own generation. When they first had their songs played on the radio, they were often criticized for playing an old-fashioned style of rock, rather than embracing the post-grunge music that was more popular at the time.

Gullen appreciates changes the internet has brought to the music industry. As demonstrated, younger people can enjoy older music. He noted that the internet also allows for more diversity in the industry and for fans to more easily find others who enjoy the same music.

The Sheepdogs are set to perform at the Burton Cummings Theatre on April 17. They will also play a sold-out show at the Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club the night before, with all ticket sale proceeds going to the charity Home First Winnipeg.

Songs of surviving cancer

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Songs of surviving cancer

Local musician Tired Cossack released his latest album on March 26. The title, Zima, is the Ukrainian word for “winter,” matching the album’s cold Eastern European style of post-punk as well as the larger lyrical themes of debilitating loss and searches for existential meaning in the aftermath. Under his stage name, Stephen Levko Halas composed songs while undergoing chemotherapy after a cancer diagnosis in early 2024.

Halas remarked that starting the treatment would have been harder on him if he had known the full extent of the process. As the traumatic experience was prolonged, he began to lose his own sense of self.

“Everything in my life felt upside down and abnormal [and] poisoned in a lot of ways, because I was being poisoned, basically, very regularly. And it was physically and mentally destroying me, which is ironic because it’s the thing that saved my life,” he said.

The process was far from a straightforward path, and there were many periods of perceived progress only for symptoms to return. Despite everything, his intense focus on composition provided escapism.

“When everything else felt wrong or felt tainted, I could run into the arms of making music,” Halas recalled. “To just hyperfocus on making a song, or whatever it is, for four hours, and I would just forget where I was.”

“I’m piecing things together using music,” Halas described. “It’s kind of like this golden thread that connects [the] before and after […] I’ve been clinging to that quite hard, and so it’s like a reminder that I’m the same person, [and I] dictate [who] I am.”

Halas recorded an estimated 40 demos of his compositions on his laptop, when he could during weeks between medical interventions. After the second line of treatment, he began to recover. As he listens back to Zima now, Halas can feel compassion for himself as he struggles to return to his life before cancer and fulfill others’ expectations of his recovery.

The song “Dexsomnia” is one of the most vivid depictions of his experience. As the portmanteau suggests, the song describes Halas’s struggle to endure the insomnia caused by dexamethasone.

“[‘Dexsomnia’ is] very specific […] but I think that feeling is universal,” he related. “There are some things that are horrible that you just have [to] let go through you, because it’s going to happen anyway.”

The closing track, “Gran Turismo,” is an even more bleak representation of the fluorescent-lit treatment room. The lyrics contain an overt reference to a struggle with suicidal ideation. Halas was hesitant to include the line for fear of reaction from others in his personal life, but he ultimately decided it was better not to censor himself. Now that the song is out to the public, he hopes the honest portrayal of his mental state can provide comfort for potential listeners with similar experiences.

The presence of Ukrainian culture is another notable element of Tired Cossack’s music. Halas’s youth was spent surrounded by his Ukrainian heritage, so as a longtime fan of post-punk music, he was intrigued when he first heard the band Kino and discovered the genre’s prominence in Eastern Europe. Tired Cossack takes strong inspiration from them, and some songs are even sung in Ukrainian. The stage name itself was inspired by a motif of Ukrainian folk art.

Track two of Zima, “November 14,” also features vocalist Zagublena of the Kyiv-based post-punk band Sportcafé. Halas reached out to her as a fan to propose the collaboration.

“Something I’ve always wanted to do [is] celebrate being Ukrainian independently [of] ‘fundamentalized’ ideas around the Ukrainian identity in Canada. [Everybody knows] Folklorama, the dancing, the vyshyvankas (embroidered shirts), the food. And I’m not saying those are bad or anything, [but] I know all that. I don’t care about it anymore,” Halas explained.

“I want to think about [what] it means to me [now], and [what] contemporary Ukrainian culture means that is dictated by ourselves […] not dictated by anyone ‘fundamentalizing’ or saying what it should be.”

RMTC’s The Last Wife a moving take on royal history

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RMTC’s The Last Wife a moving take on royal history

One can remember King Henry VIII’s wives with the rhyme, “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,” based on their ultimate fates. However, many would not be able to state anything else about the “survivor,” Catherine Parr, other than the very fact that she was Henry’s final wife. 

Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s (RMTC) latest production places Parr front and centre in the play The Last Wife. Written by Kate Hennig and directed by Cherissa Richards, it follows Parr, known as Kate, as she agrees to marry Henry on her own terms, asserting her own agency and fighting for the rights of Henry’s daughters, Mary and Bess. The play reimagines these historical figures through a “contemporary lens.” 

“[Kate is] this smart, confident and passionate woman who’s thrust into this world of intense competition, in a world that is rife with threat, with the threat of violence, and the lure of deceit,” said Richards. “Every choice she makes, even getting married to Henry, could send her to an early grave because you never know with King Henry VIII.” 

Richards graduated from the University of Winnipeg with a degree in theatre and has worked as an actor for over 20 years, appearing in shows such as Sense and Sensibility and The Mountaintop. She began directing in 2015, something that she said happened by accident. 

“I had been touring a kids’ show with MTYP [Manitoba Theatre for Young People], and we were touring in Montreal with [a co-production] with [MTYP] and Black Theatre Workshop,” she explained. 

Having been with the production for many years, Richards was asked if she wanted to direct MTYP’s production of The Power of Harriet T! At first, she resisted. 

“I turned them down flat,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘No, no, I’m an actor. I’m not a director.’ And then […] I thought about it, and I was like, ‘Oh, should I do this?’ And a friend of mine, who was a director, I called him and asked his advice, and he was like, ‘Yeah, give it a whirl. I think you might like it.’”

Richards took the leap and has not looked back since. After spending time interning for and assisting experienced directors, she eventually began to direct on her own, leading to jobs across the country and winning two Dora Awards for her work on Red Velvet. 

As a director, Richards expressed that she loves collaborating with and nurturing other artists. 

“The thing I love most about directing is the collaboration process […] Being of service to artists, as a director, is something that I am really passionate about,” she reflected. 

In her approach to directing The Last Wife, Richards has focused on creating an opulent atmosphere, befitting the play’s setting and themes. She aimed to convey the setting as a “billionaire’s playground” and blend a contemporary look with nods to the Tudor era.

“I just wanted [it] to be […] a very dark and oppressive world, and danger lies around every corner. But we have this brave woman who is in a man’s world daring to make change,” she said. “So the juxtaposition of this beautiful, feminine woman who is passionate, but is in Henry’s dark, oppressive world, and how she manoeuvres through that […] was my inspiration for where I wanted to start with the play.” 

Richards has loved working with the cast and crew of the production. She highlighted the design work done by Brian Perchaluk (set design), Hugh Conacher (lighting), Torquil Campbell (composer and sound designer) and Joseph Abetria (costumes). 

Amelia Sargisson leads the cast of The Last Wife as Kate. Richards praised her work in the role, saying, “[Sargisson] is just a phenom of an actor. She’s so incredibly connected, her connection to her craft is just excellent.” 

Alongside Sargisson in the cast are Sébastien Heins as Thom, Blake Beachell as Eddie (the future King Edward VI), Katie Welham as Bess (the future Queen Elizabeth I) and two U of M alumni, Desautels alumna Julie Lumsden as Mary (the future Queen Mary I) and faculty of education alumnus Cory Wojcik as King Henry. 

“I’m so lucky,” said Richards. “We have an exceptional, exceptional cast.” 

In casting, Richards highlighted the complexity in the actors’ interpretations of roles, noting that some, like Wojcik, are playing against type. 

“[Wojcik] is a Winnipeg favourite and has played lots of silly, goofy, funny characters on our stages […] We’re getting to see a real darker side of him,” Richards commented. 

The Last Wife has received acclaim during its run so far. On RMTC’s website, one audience member called it “one of the best this year,” while another said, “I was captivated from beginning to end.” 

When asked what she thought audiences would love about the production, Richards highlighted the mix of dark drama and humour, calling it one of the most dangerous and sexy shows to be staged on RMTC’s stage in some time. 

As for what she hopes audiences will take away, Richards said that they can expect to be challenged by the show’s perspective on events. 

“I really want audiences to come away with how personal it is, how daring it is, and that it will challenge them,” Richards stated. “The playwright is challenging the audience to see things in different ways. That’s going to be exciting and maybe a little scary at times.”

RMTC’s production of The Last Wife runs through April 18 at the John Hirsch Mainstage. For tickets and more information, visit royalmtc.ca.

Met School students build community through theatre

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Met School students build community through theatre

Winnipeg may not have the biggest theatre scene, but that did not stop these high school students from building a community around it. Nearly at the center of it all is Marley Passante, a grade 12 student at the Maples Met School and one of the original founders of Theatre Hub.

Theatre Hub is a student-led group where students in grades nine through 12 across all three Met Schools collaborate to produce plays. Passante said that students are able to participate as cast and crew, and students in grades 10 through 12 make up the managing roles of the productions. 

The group also invites mentors to guide fight choreography and vocal warm-ups, Passante said.

Passante started the theatre group after they performed in She Kills Monsters in grade 10 and wanted to form closer bonds with students from the other Met Schools. That was when Passante’s teacher suggested making a theatre group spanning across all three Met Schools. From then on, Passante started reaching out to and collaborating with Met School students, including Ehrian Lane Federis, Jaxon German and Tatiana Tuazon. With advisors Emma Gehrs-Whyte from Maples Met School and Terri Willard from Seven Oaks Met School, they started Theatre Hub.

The hub produced CLUE in 2025, and this year they will be performing a celebrated play — A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. 

Passante said the Met School students involved in Theatre Hub are interested in putting on plays that are less mainstream for their age group. 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream may be well known, but the students are setting themselves apart from other student productions by using the original language, promising an entertaining production to audiences. 

“Not a lot of people like to do [A Midsummer Night’s Dream], especially in the Shakespearean language that we are doing it in, because we did not grab a modern translation,” they said. 

“It’s going to be a fun time,” Passante promised.

Theatre Hub’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will take place at the Seven Oaks Performing Arts Centre at 7 p.m. on May 6. Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for adults.

Supplied by Marley Passante.

A day in the life of Agatha Bock

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A day in the life of Agatha Bock

For many Winnipeggers, life without cell phones, internet access or even running water is practically unfathomable, but this is how Agatha Bock lives on her 54-acre farm in rural southern Manitoba. 

Agatha’s Almanac, a documentary directed by Bock’s Manitoba-born and Saskatoon-based filmmaker niece Amalie Atkins, captures the life and everyday gardening wisdom of this 90-year-old solo dweller. Filmed over six years by an all-woman crew on a 16 mm film camera, the result is a colourful meditation on simple rural living — an antithesis to the hustle culture that seems to permeate much of urban life. 

“We have spent a lot of time together in the last six years, more than ever before, and that was part of the impetus for making the project, because she is the last remaining [woman] in the family […] It seems important to spend time with her,” said Atkins about the film’s conception.

Bock might lead a slow life, but she is anything but idle. She spends her time tending dozens of crops by hand, and she is seen sowing seeds, picking strawberries and threshing beans by herself. Bock has a certain thoughtfulness when preparing dishes, and she partakes in what Atkins calls “the pierogi ritual” where she methodically makes large batches of pierogies. 

Bock’s lifestyle has allowed her to cultivate a special relationship with food that not many can relate to. In an article for CBC, Atkins wrote that the crew once filmed Bock carving the rind off of a watermelon she grew for over two hours. They later discovered that the watermelon grew from heirloom seeds that have been in her family for over 40 years, making each fruit a vestige of a loved one.

“These connections would emerge, and it would make sense exactly why it was important to her,” Atkins explained.  

“I remember once she was irritated with me that I cut half a watermelon up for the guests, [and] she’s like, ‘I do not want to see that wasted,’ because she’s grown it, it’s taken months. And it’s not just any watermelon, it’s watermelon seeds from her mother, and so there’s so much care and intention put into growing that watermelon that I think just cutting up half a watermelon seems maybe careless to her or not giving it enough attention or respect,” she added. 

“I learned [to] respect the watermelon and respect the time it took to grow something and pick something and harvest it and package it. All of this, it’s so much work,” Atkins said.

The rural gardener is resourceful, explaining tricks she uses to deter pests and using tape to fix virtually anything from broken buckets to leaking windows. Although she is Atkins’s aunt, she is unmistakably grandmotherly, giving her niece saskatoon berries and leaving her voicemails to check up on her.

Bock’s life was not always easy. Born during the Great Depression, Atkins described her as thick skinned, resilient and unstoppable. She experienced the deaths of her sisters, naming each one in the film and describing how their passings have affected her growing up. 

“I did talk to her about it in advance to make sure she would be comfortable discussing these things on camera, but it wasn’t hard for her to share. She is the monologue queen,” Atkins commented.  

“She takes on a lot of responsibility in the family, being the oldest sister, and then having gone through these early deaths. Back then, the deaths were part of your domestic life […] The family is the one caring for the body, and so she would have had these early life experiences dealing with lost sisters.”

Agatha’s Almanac is screening in seven countries, winning the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs last year, but the now 92-year-old is unbothered and has been living the analogue life since long before it became a Gen Z trend. 

“It doesn’t affect her. It’s sort of outside of her world, all of what’s happening, because she’s not on a phone. She’s not online,” Atkins said.

“What’s important to her is her life in the moment […] Her friends and her family, those are the things that are really important to her […] It could be the wildest thing happening, but it would not faze her.”

When asked about what Atkins hoped viewers will take away from the film, she responded, “I hope they run out and get some seeds and plant something, whether it’s a little garden or a huge garden […] and then also talk to their elders, talk to their grandparents […] or any older person if you don’t have a grandparent, like older neighbors.”

Agatha’s Almanac is being screened at Dave Barber Cinematheque until April 15. For more information on the project, visit @agathasalmanac on Instagram.

Students rally against 4 per cent tuition increase

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Students rally against 4 per cent tuition increase

UMSU held a rally in front of the U of M Admin Building on April 2 to call on the university’s leadership to stop the four per cent increase in tuition fees and advocate for a more affordable and accessible education.

Tharindu Kottegoda, an undergraduate student and an attendee of the rally thought the rally was “pretty effective.”

“We talked more in depth about how this is going to affect students, how it might lead to them going into debt,” Kottegoda explained. He also mentioned how the increase affects mature students who will have less time and money to spend with their kids. “It’s really [going to] affect students in a negative way and reduce the accessibility of education for students overall.”

Hunter Reynolds, another attendee of the rally, also thought positively of the event. “It felt like there [were] a lot of different people coming together and it did feel like there was a lot of unity in the crowd.”

Kottegoda currently works a part-time job, but on reflecting on the impact of the increase, he believed that it would lead to working more, studying less and “doing the opposite of what [one wants] to do, which is to get an education in order to give yourself a better opportunity.”

Reynolds mentioned his friends are struggling to afford university. “That worries me a lot,” he expressed.

Kottegoda believed that the best way to move forward is to let members of parliament know. Hunter suggested awareness — to speak to friends and family about it.

For more information and follow-up questions, visit @myumsu on Instagram.

U of M PACS celebrates 20 years of its PhD program

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U of M PACS celebrates 20 years of its PhD program

The U of M’s peace and conflict studies (PACS) program will mark the 20th anniversary of its PhD program with a two-day conference, Small Peace, Petite Love, from April 17 to 18 in a hybrid format at St. Paul’s College.

Jessica Senehi, director of the PACS program, said the conference is intended to create space for exchange and collaboration. It is “a great opportunity for graduate students to share knowledge and network,” she said, adding that it allows participants to connect across programs, universities and with alumni.

The PACS program was launched in January 2006, emerging from the work of the Arthur V. Mauro Institute for Peace and Justice at St. Paul’s College.

Sean Byrne, a pioneer of the program, said, “The vision was to advance human rights, conflict resolution, global citizenship, peace and social justice through education, research and practice, and to prepare leaders in a multiplicity of contexts who make a difference locally, nationally and globally.”

Byrne said graduates continue to contribute across sectors. “PACS alumni are working in key roles in the public and private sector,” he said. “PACS doctoral alumni are contributing to scholarship, working with government agencies and NGOs, and some are leading PACS and other academic programs.”

The conference will also serve as a platform for scholarly works to be presented. Ha (Cassie) Dong said it brings together participants across areas of study. “I hope everyone knows this conference is interdisciplinary,” she added.

She said, “I think this will be a wonderful opportunity for students, researchers and community members to share ideas and learn from each other and perhaps find people you want to collaborate with in the future.”

Jessica Laus, president of the PACS Students’ Association (PACSSA), said the anniversary carries significance in the current global context. “I am reminded time and again how far I have come, how far our discipline has come and how we both continue to persevere,” she said.

Saad Ahmad Khan, chair of the PACS Joint Master’s Program and an alumnus, said the conference responds to current global conditions. “Our contemporary world is witnessing the crumbling of the rules-based world order,” he said. “I hope that this conference will be one such step toward discovering those novel and innovative solutions.” The conference will also serve as a space for reflection and continued dialogue within the PACS community.

Byrne said the 20th anniversary conference creates space for alumni to “return and share their innovative insights about practice and scholarship and create an ongoing dialogue.”

Khan hopes participants leave with a sense of possibility. “My deepest hope is that both participants and attendees see the immense good there is in this world, and those who want to change it for the better.”

Further details about the conference will be shared in the coming days. To stay updated, follow PACSSA’s page on Instagram at @umanitobapacssa.

 

High-stake calls, higher-stake lifts

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High-stake calls, higher-stake lifts

Winnipeg-based Royal Canadian Air Force firefighter Evan Yaworski won the title in the World’s Strongest Firefighter competition in March, bringing home a historic win not only for the city but also for the country.

The 2026 World’s Strongest Firefighter competition took place in Columbus, Ohio. It welcomes firefighters from around the world to compete for the title in challenges such as carrying hydrants, lifting ladders and even pulling a truck with a harness and rope for 50 feet.

“It’s an interesting feeling, going from such a high of competing on a stage like that, and then going back to regular life the following week. So, it was more of an emotional rollercoaster than I was expecting,” said Yaworski about his accomplishment.

Yaworski admitted that his nerves crept in before the opening event, but once the first event was done, something clicked in him. “It primes your body for the rest of the events,” he said. “You just get into a groove for the competition.”

Yaworski’s journey to the championship was not a short one. Originally from Saskatoon, he first joined a firefighting college “on a whim,” feeling like it was something he could do. He wanted to pursue aircraft rescue firefighting when he laid eyes on the firetrucks and then joined the military in 2017.

In 2024, Yaworski relocated from Edmonton to Winnipeg, working on a crash response base. Yaworski sometimes spends his shifts only training, maintaining trucks and testing fire alarms, but he reflected on the challenges and risks of firefighting.

“Highway accidents [and] medical calls for mental health, those kinds of situations […] can be quite stressful. There’s a lot of unknown, a lot of factors to consider there, but it’s what you train for,” he said.

Yaworski also highlighted the overlap between competition and firefighting. The same fitness and athleticism nurtured through competing carry over to firefighting, and the composure required for high-stress emergency calls translates to the mental strength needed in sports.

Yaworski aims to continue competing this year and return to the Arnold Sports Festival in 2027. Impressively, the strongman does it all himself, creating his own program and occasionally drawing perspectives from those around him, including his wife. “She approaches training differently than I do,” he said.

When asked if there’s anything he would go back and change in his firefighting and strongman careers, he stated, “I don’t think I’ve experienced something yet where I’ve gone back to the hall and was regretful for how it went.”

Yaworski stressed the value of persevering through hardships and seeing where it leads you.

“When things are tough, they won’t always be tough, so you just have to endure it, make the best of it and come out on top […] At the end of the day, what I find most motivating is getting up to what I think my potential is or surpassing it,” he remarked.

“When I started this part, I never thought I would be a competitive person on a world stage. I just started one thing at a time, eventually more opportunities came, and that kind of thing is pretty motivating.”

Yaworski shared a piece of advice for U of M students.

“Try something new. You never know where it’s going to take you.”

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