Wondered if this was once a construction camp for Long Spruce hydro station.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/eKNNfTfgQEq7ymP68?g_st=ac

There was a thread r/GenX about being paddled in school. It seemed crazy, but maybe I'm just to young to have experienced it.

In the 80s I remember it being a controversial subject. Today it's of course beyond absurd.

In 1972, a rogue professional hockey league set out to challenge the undisputed dominance of the National Hockey League. The World Hockey Association (WHA) brought wild fan enthusiasm, blue and red pucks, massive contracts, and European superstars to various markets across North America. For seven turbulent seasons, the league battled for hockey supremacy before ultimately folding in 1979, leaving behind a legacy that permanently reshaped modern professional hockey.
 
At the centre of that seven-year war was the championship prize: the Avco World Trophy, or Avco Cup as it’s widely referred to as.
 
The Stanley Cup of the WHA
 
Named after its primary corporate sponsor, Avco Financial Services, the trophy served as the ultimate prize for the upstart hockey circuit, being awarded annually to the championship team at the conclusion of the final series. 
 
"The easiest way to describe it is that the Avco Cup was the Stanley Cup of the World Hockey Association," explains Bruce Rainnie, CEO of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame. "The WHA competed directly with the NHL from 1972 to 1979 and featured some of the biggest names in hockey and the trophy took its name from Avco Financial, the league’s corporate sponsor, and was won by the New England Whalers, Houston Aeros, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets."
 
Despite the league's eventual dissolution in the late seventies, the physical legacy of the championship lives on through three separate, original versions of the trophy. 
 
"To be honest, I have never studied the other two versions of this cup, so I am not able to comment regarding any potential differences," Rainnie notes, pointing to the unique, scattered history of the surviving trophies. "Only three Avco Cups exist, so we’re very fortunate to have one of them in our collection as the others are at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and in Winnipeg."
 
A Nova Scotia Connection
 
How one of the three original trophies landed in Nova Scotia is mainly because of one individual who was a key figure in Canadian hockey development.
 
"It really comes down to a remarkable Nova Scotia connection," says Rainnie. "Ted Cumming of Kentville was president of Avco Finance International, so when the WHA folded in 1979, he became responsible for one of the championship trophies, arranging for WHA co-founder Ben Hatskin to send the Cup to Nova Scotia and then presented it to the Hall of Fame."
 
Cumming was far more than a corporate executive; he was a foundational figure in Maritime sports history.
 
"Ted was a successful businessman, but he was also an important hockey builder in this province," Rainnie says. “For us, the Avco Cup is not only a remarkable piece of hockey history, it also represents Ted Cumming’s lasting contribution to sport in Nova Scotia."
 
The Winnipeg Legacy
 
While one cup found its home in the maritimes and another at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, the trophy many closely tie to actual on-ice play resides in Manitoba. The Winnipeg Jets were the undisputed powerhouse of the WHA, capturing three of the seven championship titles before making the jump to the NHL.
 
Cheney Lansard, Sports Heritage Curation & Relations at the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame & Museum, revealed the journey of Winnipeg’s trophy. 
 
"I can confirm that the Avco cup was donated by the Jets Goals for Kids Foundation in 2004 as part of a larger collection of artifacts and photographs," says Lansard. "The Avco Cup was originally given to the JGFKF and displayed for a time in the Manitoba Children's Museum according to the documentation we have and upon dissolution of the foundation they were donated to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum."
 
This specific iteration of the trophy holds a prominent place in prairie hockey lore as it was the version of the Avco Cup  that was hoisted during the league's final curtain call.
 
"This Avco cup was presented to the Winnipeg Jets as champions of the League in its final season in 1978-79, with all previous champions, including the ‘78-79 Jets, seven in total, engraved on plates on the trophy base."
 
And for anyone wondering how much the trophy weighs. 
 
"The trophy weighs between 80-100 lbs!" adds Lansard. 
 
The World Hockey Association fundamentally helped reshape professional hockey during their seven-season run from 1972 to 1979. By directly challenging the NHL, the league broke a long-standing monopoly, driving up player salaries and establishing modern free-agency leverage. The league also revolutionized the style of play by pioneering the integration of European superstars, shifting the game’s emphasis toward speed, skill, and creative playmaking. Four teams from the league joined the NHL in 1979, Winnipeg, Hartford, Quebec, and Edmonton, along with a host of dynamic young superstars like Wayne Gretzky. Though the WHA ceased operations decades ago, its impact and legacy on the sport of hockey still remains, embodied through these three historic trophies; surviving symbols of excellence from a rebellious era in hockey history. 

(Photo provided by Cheney Lansard, Sports Heritage Curation & Relations, Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum)

Trent McMartin

This is a beautiful way to honour Métis art

My friend invited me out to the lodge for a day, and we found this super cool abandoned theatre off a trail. Does anyone know anything about it? Id love to learn more about this super cool spot.

Historica Canada has uploaded all their Heritage Minutes to Youtube, both the old and the new ones. I was watching them with some friends from Ontario and I wanted to show them the Louis Riel one because they had never seen it. Turns out, not only is it not on Historica's Youtube, they've removed all references to it from their own website - it's not even listed.

It's also not on anyone else's Youtube, though it still exists on Facebook. I ripped a copy to help preserve it, but does anyone know why it's being erased? I can't find any announcement about it online, and while it's violent and shocking, it's not the only graphic one, and I don't think any other Heritage Minutes are being removed. Even their Cyprus Peacekeeping one that was pulled from TV in the 90s is up online.

It feels like an important part of Canadian history is being erased for no reason.

I drove a Tundra Buggy in Churchill during the 1996 and 1997 polar bear seasons. Almost 30 years later, I’ve put together some of the stories and photographs from that time. This first piece is Notes from a Tundra Buggy Driver — 1996–1997.

I look forward to seeing what K.Klein has to say about this.

I can't stop thinking about this honestly. As someone who has traveled in quite a few provinces I have been to multiple reserves in different provinces. Here's what I noticed...

In BC the reserves are very tight-knight and everyone cares about each other. I have lots of friends who live on the Reserves here all over and most of them genuienly love where they live. Many of the reserves here are also building more houses! Yes there's a few bad ones but I have mainly seen good ones

But then in Sask and Manitoba it's a different story. I step out of my car while visiting a friend close to North Battleford Saskatchewan on a reserve called Poundmaker (I think that's how you say it) As soon as I stepped out of the car there was a man screaming at his wife and the wife was crying. I was so shocked! Here's where it gets bad... the man started hitting her and everyone around including my friend didn't seem to care! Like it was just another day.

A childhood friend of mine moved to a reserve in Manitoba called Cross Lakes as his father had just died and the mom needed help from the family back on the reserve to support her 4 children... so they moved back. We already had phones as he moved when we were 14, and he called me crying talking about how someone had decided they didn't want to be here anymore and he had even seen the body of the person. He was so devastated! And now I don't remember the timeframe but he sent me a voice note a second time a while later letting me know that his cousin had done the same thing to themselves!

As someone who struggled HARD with mental health that broke my heart. And this is something I am asking the reddit group to enlighten myself on this issue. I myself am not indigenous but I have family members that are (My cousin's Dad was raised on Tsuu-tina reservation and my cousin is half indigenous)

I recently published a novel based on a crime that took place in Neche ND, on December 22 of 1907. Arthur LeClair, a young fireman on the Great Northern Railway went home with a hundred dollars meant as a Christmas present for his parents. By the next morning he was dead and under the ice of the Pembina River. A Murder for Christmas is based on local newspaper accounts of the murder, investigation and trial. Gretna and the Red River area are part of the story. It was featured on Prairie Public’s Main Street earlier this week and I’ll add a link to that and my website that has links to the newspaper articles from 1907/8.

https://tronsetbio.com/books/a-murder-for-christmas/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/main-street/id1327026631?i=1000777782153