Trina Flett has a lot to talk about, including her dad - a mostly unsung Manitoba musician - her extraordinary travel adventures and more...
In the last episode we talked about Territorial (or Land) Acknowledgements. Two young people, Mabel McManus and Sarah Fontaine-Sinclair shared about the efforts they made in their schools to uplift Territorial Acknowledgements. And with Niigaan Sinclair we talked about the difference between preformative and meaningful Territorial Acknowledgements. In this episode we go deeper into Treaty One with historian Jean Friesen. What was Treaty One all about, what was the context, what did Indigenous peoples and the Crown hope to gain from it etc...
In this episode two young people take the lead on promoting an understanding of land acknowledgements - one who leads a campaign in her school for students to stand up for the daily land acknowledgement and the other who, with her friends, wrote the land acknowledgement for her school. She, along with her father Niigaan Sinclair, share insights about the whys and hows of good land acknowledgements.
Afterthought host Erika Wiebe talks to her brother Bernie (aka Buck) Wiebe, a retired hospice physician and a current cancer patient, about his thoughts on aging and mortality - with references to the book 'Being Mortal' by Atul Gawande.
Jim Derksen was well known throughout Winnipeg. If you didn't know him personally, you would know him by his distinctive look as he wheeled his way around the community in his colourful caftans and ever-present beret. Jim died in July 2022. In this episode, Erika talks to Jim's sister Shauna and friend Harold about his early life, his quirky style, his parrots and his lifelong commitment to advancing human rights in Winnipeg.
Shauna Faye is a straight woman who is also a drag queen - 'Skirt Browning'. In this episode she talks about what draws her to drag, her relationship with Kurt Browning, what the process of becoming 'Skirt Browning' looks like, the comedy in drag, and what it's like being a woman in the Winnipeg drag scene.
Not a lot of people get to hang out in the Chamber at the Manitoba Legislature besides elected officials, except if you are among the 'nerds' (their word) who participate in Youth Parliament Manitoba (YPM) which takes place for 5 days every year between Christmas and New Years. We get two perspectives in this episode - one from first-time attendee, grade 11 student Loquin Warkentin, and the other from a YPM veteran Lien Huynh. Bonus content: Loquin talks about his experience as lead in the school play.
Erika talks to award-winning film makers Joel Penner and Anna Sigrithur, about their beautiful new short film "Wrought" in which Joel's penchant for filming 'rotting' things is taken to the next level. What can we learn by taking a (very) close look at things rotting, what does it say about human beings relationship with nature..... what are the mechanics of collecting and filming dead things...
Abortion was legalized in Canada in 1988. But this didn't happen easily. All across Canada women had been organizing and fighting for this basic health right, for decades. In Winnipeg, Ellen Kruger was one of the leaders of this struggle all through the '70s and '80s. In this episode she tells Afterthought co-host Lynne Fernandez about the organizing strategies, the set-backs, Henry Morgenthaler's influence, what barriers remain for women seeking abortions, and potential implications for Canada of the threats to Roe vs Wade in the US.
A new book 'Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada' makes the case for radical change in policing including eventual abolition, and lays out historical and current reasons for this. So.... really? How realistic is it to consider police abolition as a viable proposition, and if it is realistic, how would that work exactly? In this episode Erika discusses these questions and more, with two of the contributors - Kevin Walby and Ted Rutland.
Lynne talks to Shauna MacKinnon (Chair, Urban and Inner City Studies Program, U of W) and Kirsten Bernas (West Central Womens Resource Centre), about the many barriers to quality, affordable housing for low-income Winnipegers - and how this wasn't always the case. We wonder why so many people are homeless. Well, there are some very practical answers.
In Episode 1, Erika Wiebe talked to Ralph Friesen about the Russia experience of the Mennonites who ended up immigrating to Southern Manitoba in the 1800s. In this episode, they talk about the settler experience, with an eye to uncovering historical events which might help explain the response of Southern Manitoba Mennonites to the Covid pandemic.
Afterthought co-host Erika Wiebe has Mennonite heritage and grew up in rural Saskatchewan. During her 40 plus years in Winnipeg she noticed a difference in political and social norms between her Mennonite experience, and the Mennonites of Southern Manitoba. The Covid pandemic has highlighted some of these differences with the high rates of vaccine hesitancy and opposition to government mandates in Southern Manitoba. In a quest to find out if maybe these differences can be explained at all by different immigration histories between the two groups, Erika spoke to Ralph Friesen, author of three books which inform this issue. He also grew up in Steinbach. This episode is the first of two, and focuses on the Russian history, prior to the Mennonite immigration to Southern Manitoba.
Afterthought co-host Lynne Fernandez recently got on the genealogy bandwagon, and learned some new and surprising things about her family. In parts 1 and 2 of this episode, she talkes to two more genealogy enthusiasts, Gillian Glover and Blair Hamilton about what they've learned about their families, and more broadly, their own place in history.
Afterthought co-host Lynne Fernandez recently got on the genealogy bandwagon, and learned some new and surprising things about her family. In this episode she talks to two more genealogy enthusiasts, Gillian Glover and Blair Hamilton about why and how, and insights it has led to about important historical events.
Brothers 14 year-old Loquin and 12 year-old Ellis are Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts. In this episode they take on the task of explaining the ins and outs of it to 66 year-old Afterthought host Erika Wiebe including how it works, what skills a good Dungeon Master needs and some favourite story lines. Their mom weighs in with some thoughts about how the boys benefit.
In this episode Peter talks about terminology, what it's like to be out in public in a wheelchair, and infrastructure strengths and weaknesses for getting around in a wheelchair. As a special bonus, Peter performs a cover of a Norah Jones tune.
In September 2017, Peter Warkentin was a bike rider, hockey player and in general a regular young guy in Winnipeg. An accident changed all that in an instant. In this episode he talks to Erika about that transition and what he's learned about barriers for people trying to navigate the world in a wheelchair.
Winnipeg labour leader Paul Moist, talks to Lynne about the state of the labour movement within the context of the trucker convoy, Paul Stastny, the 1919 Strike, Steve Bannon and more...
Winnipeg labour leader Paul Moist, talks to Lynne about the state of the labour movement within the context of the trucker convoy, Paul Stastny, the 1919 Strike, Steve Bannon and more...