This year marks a very special occasion for this paper – in October, The Boissevain Recorder will celebrate its 125th anniversary. It is one of those rare birthdays many people can take credit for.

There are the staff members, past and present, who put out a paper for the nearly 6,500 weeks of The Recorder’s lifetime, the people who make the news and the people who read it. The beauty of being in a rural community is that these roles often overlap.

This publication marks another anniversary. April 19 marks the 25th year that I have been editor-publisher of The Recorder. It is a milestone in my career, but my relationship with the paper stretches back even further. It begins over four decades ago in July 1980. I was seeking my first after-college graduation job and I was sitting across a desk in a job interview with Miles Phillips, editor-in-chief of The Boissevain Recorder.

Phillips offered me a full time position at the Recorder and on July 16, 1980 my career with The Recorder began at a starting wage of $3.50 per hour.

It is ironic to look back knowing my life could have easily went a diffferent route as I had another job offer with the Royal Bank, who were opening a new branch in Deloraine. I was not even 19 years old and still undecided what I wanted for a career, but saw the newspaper as an opportunity to be creative and to meet a variety of people. Secretly I thought it might provide a stepping-stone to work in a big-city daily someday. As it turns out, this community stole my heart.

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

It is easy to enjoy Turtle Mountain Provincial Park in the winter, as this Boissevain group did on Sunday, January 21. (L-R) Ross Wilkinson, Les Houston, Milt Stobbe, Steve Cann, Rosa May, Patti Unrau, Judy Stobbe, Gene Unrau and Doug May enjoyed the warming hut at Lake Adam. As can be seen, between the bikes and skis, there is plenty to do out there. Although it was cold for more than a week, temperatures have improved and Environment Canada forcast a high of +6C by mid week.    Photo by Doug Gray      

Where to have fun with winter....

Winter might have come a little slowly to the Turtle Mountain Provincial Park, but the site is seeing a lot of outdoor adventurers now, with a major annual event coming in a month.

Snow sports obviously need snow, and at times this winter, this has been absent. With a dump just before Halloween in 2023, it looked like there would be no shortage. However, everything warmed up and it looked like skis, snowshoes and snowmobiles would stay in the shed. More recently, the white stuff has returned, which has meant the coming of winter fun. Casey Guenther, who operates Turtle Mountain Adventure Huts in the park with his wife Christina, said it has been a different season this year.

“It has been a challenging winter,” Guenther explained. “We thought we would be on the skis early and then the snow disappeared. It affects what folks do out there.”

The huts opened up two years ago this past Christmas. Located a short walk from the Winter Recreation Trailhead at Lake Adam south of Boissevain, there are two huts that pack a lot into their 160 foot space. Guenther said each could easily sleep five people, with a king-size bed and a double. They have a wood stove and a propane cook top, with both fuel provided by the operator. There is a little solar panel to provide electricity. Each has an outhouse, but they are close enough to the rec park there is hot water and toilets for those less adventurous. Visitors really only bring bedding, food and equipment for activities.

The huts have proven popular.

History is the past, present and future. It is happening every day and it is important to record it through storytelling, the written word, education and sharing.
Turtle Mountain Souris Plains Heritage Association (TMSPHA) held its ninth annual local history seminar on March 16 in Deloraine.
Jan McClelland, TMSPHA chair gave words of welcome and called on Kelly McMechan, Head of Council for the Municipality of Deloraine-Winchester to bring greetings. He thanked the hosts and welcomed the speakers.
“I’ve always had an interest in the local history. It is good to preserve and catalouge it and keep learning along the way,” he said.
Dan Furlan, president of the Manitoba Historical Society was also in attendance. He was impressed with the TMSPHA website, all the work being done to record and promote local history and provide education.
McClelland gave a brief review of TMSPHA yearly activities. Melita was welcomed back after a four-year absence. The fifth volume of Vantage Points was published in 2021 and Volumes one to four were distributed to all schools and families in the catchment area. The website www.vantagepoints.ca was revamped, the elder interviews were made into podcasts and there was continued outreach to museums. The film “The Chain Lakes Barn” by filmmaker Julie Watt was completed and available on the website. She also spoke briefly about potential plans for this year. This included a film about Whitewater Lake, establishing a recognition wall on the website and updating by-laws, to name a few of the activities.

The Boissevain Centennials completed a near perfect season at home on Thursday evening, August 18 as they defeated the Deloraine Royals 6-0 to wrap up the best of five series, three games straight to capture the SWBL Championship.

The Cents dropped just two games during the regular season before sweeping both Oak River in the semi-finals and Deloraine in the finals.

The Royals followed close behind the Cents with a 11-3 record in regular season, which earned them and the Cents 1st round byes in league playoffs, along with provincial berths played in Rivers earlier this month.

In the first round of league semi-finals the Royals went the distance and defeated the Hamiota Red Sox 8-1 in the 5th and deciding game. However they were not able to out play the Cent’s fielders or their winning pitcher Zach Sawyer and conceded the series in three straight.

Two Centennials were also honoured on Thursday evening. Ben Cains was awarded top batter of the league with an average .517, 33 plate apperances, 15 hits and 3 walks.

Zane Sawyer was awarded top pitcher, 4 wins, 31 innings pitched, 26 strike outs, ERA 1.35.

Boissevain Centennials, 2022 South West Baseball League Champions

Back row left to right: Coach Corey Billaney, Tyler Wood, Josh Wood, Jordan Foote, Skylar Canada, Zane Sawyer, Dallas Foote and Coach Jr. Brake.

Front Row: Matt McCorrister, Jay Pringle, Tanner Clyne, Ty Pringle, Dason Hole and Ben Cairns.

Missing: Jared McCorrister and Austin Clyne

STORY AND PHOTO BY LORRAINE HOUSTON

If you are prepared and have done the work when opportunity knocks, dreams can come true. This was the case for Ashton Bell during the past seven months. She was captaining the University of Minnesota Bulldogs Women’s hockey team when she was selected to centralize with the Canadian Women’s hockey team in Calgary to prepare for the IIHF World Championships. She made the cut for Team Canada and they went on to win the gold over the US. Then it was back to centralization and choosing the Olympic team. Again Bell made the cut and another dream was realized. The dreams kept coming as Team Canada went undefeated in its round robin play and through to the finals. They faced their longtime rivals the US and edged them 3-2 to win the gold medal.
Throughout the competition Team Canada could always be seen smiling, though it might be said it is easy to smile when you are winning. Bell said the team was a very special group who loved being around one another every day and had so much fun together.