Teams across northwestern Ontario, including Thunder Bay are in town this weekend for the Winter Blast Senior and Junior girls high school volleyball tournaments.
The tournament is being put on jointly by Beaver Brae and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Action began this morning for the junior girls and this afternoon for the senior girls.
Games will be played in both Beaver Brae gyms and the TA Gym.
The finals will take place tomorrow afternoon.
The Northwestern Health Unit is celebrating a major milestone this year.
It turns 75 years old.
The health unit was formed in 1948 to serve the Kenora area with six employees.
It now has 160 employees and services 82,000 people in the northwest region.
“This is a year to recognize the achievements of public health…safe water, vaccine-preventable diseases, tobacco-free spaces, and even seat belts all stem from the efforts of public health,” says Dr. Kit Young Hoon, Medical Officer of Health.
To celebrate, the Health Unit says it will be holding a special event each month in one of their local offices.
Just a couple of more days to comment on potential changes to the walleye fishery on Lake of the Woods.
January 9th is the final day to provide any input.
The preferred option would see catch limits for a sport licence to be two, down from four and the conservation limit from 2 down to one.
There would also be size restrictions for the fish caught.
Monitoring data on Lake of the Woods by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry indicates that the walleye population is vulnerable to continued high-levels of harvest.
The MNRF says it’s to the point where the current harvest poses a risk to the quality of the walleye fishery.
Season: January 1 to April 14 and third Saturday in May to December 31 (unchanged)
Limits (All anglers): Daily Catch-and-Retain Limit – Sport 2; must be less than 43 cm or greater than 70 cm and not more than 1 greater than 70 cm
Conservation 1; must be less than 43 cm
Possession limit – Sport 4; must be less than 43 cm or greater than 70 cm and not more than 1 greater than 70 cm
Conservation 2; must be less than 43 cm
Season: January 1 to April 14 and third Saturday in May to December 31 (unchanged)
Limits (All anglers):
Daily Catch-and-Retain Limit – Sport 2; must between 35 cm and 43 cm or greater than 70 cm and not more than 1 greater than 70 cm
Conservation 1; must between 35 cm and 43 cm
Possession limit – Sport 4; must between 35 cm and 43 cm or greater than 70 cm and not more than 1 greater than 70 cm
Conservation 2; must between 35 cm and 43 cm
39 year old Justin Desautels has been sentenced to life in federal penitentiary with no eligibility for parole for 13 years in the deaths of two Dryden residents.
Desautels was sentenced in Kenora Court by Justice John Fregeau Thursday morning.
Justice Fregeau says both second degree murder charges will be served concurrently as well as the assault charges laid against him.
Back on March 2, 2020, Desautels, in a drug-induced crime spree, killed Melvin Brownlee at the Arbour Jade Trailer Park and Dorothy
Brown died from her injuries later that month.
Justice Fregeau admits he would have imposed a stiffer penalty on Desautels, but agreed with the joint submission from the crown and the defense.
He says the opioid homicide rage disrupted what was thought to previously be a safe and secure community.
The Kenora OPP are seeking a suspect in connection to a robbery to gas station on Highway 17 east.
Officers responded to distress alarm last night around 9:37.
Police learned that someone had entered the premises with a gun.
The OPP’s Canine Unit, Emergency Response Team were called out, but were unable to locate the person after patrolling the area extensively.
The OPP’s Forensic Identification Services and Critical Incident Command were all called out to assist
The suspect is described as an Indigenous male, wearing a black hoodie, while face mask and camo gloves.
Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to contact the Kenora OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or 548-5534.
The Northwestern Health Unit confirms an increase in cases of HIV or AIDS in the Kenora area in the past few months.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kit Young Hoon says their figures are a little different that what was reported by a local doctor
last week in a presentation to Kenora City Council.
“The Northwestern Health Unit uses provincial standards for reporting of case numbers,” explains Dr. Young Hoon.
“So we only report on confirmed cases. Dr. Grek maybe basing his numbers on other clinical information, including preliminary testing, to points of care tests, which then require follow up confirmatory tests.”
Dr. Grek told Kenora City Council last week that there were 15 cases of HIV or AIDS in the last eight months.
According to the Health Unit there have been 9 confirmed cases in Kenora last year compared to just eight from 2013 to 2021.
Dr. Young Hoon notes that interventions like the needle distribution program and condom use are key to preventing the spread of HIV.
“With the long-standing higher rates of HIV in Manitoba and Thunder Bay, we have been anticipating an increase in HIV cases for over a decade. Key prevention strategies include consistent and proper condom use, as well as ensuring single use and no sharing of needles and drug preparation equipment.”
The Health Unit adds that HIV is a virus that is spread through certain bodily fluids including blood, semen, vaginal, and anal fluids. HIV cannot be spread through casual contact (hugging, kissing), or through touching common surfaces such as those found in public washrooms.
Highway 17 west of Kenora has been reopened after being closed for almost 8 hours.
The Ministry of Transportation says the whole section of the Trans-Canada, from the Manitoba Border to the Kenora By-Pass was closed to traffic.
The OPP say the accident took place near Clearwater Bay.
The Tran-Canada was finally re-opened around 9:00.
Traffic had been backed up beyond the Middle Lake turn off on Highway 17-A.
At this point the OPP have not released the cause of the accident.
(File photo)
Highway 17 has been reopened at the Ontario/Manitoba border.
The closure was on the Manitoba side of the boundary and took place around 2:00 Sunday afternoon.
The closure was the result of collision between two transports near West Hawk Lake, Manitoba.
Both lanes of Highway 1 are now open.
Starting April 1st of next year, you’ll have to dial all ten digits of a telephone number in northwestern Ontario.
Right now you only have to dial seven digits if you are making a local call.
The move was made mandatory in a ruling by the CRTC.
There’s a couple of reasons for the need for 10 digit dialling.
One, all phones need it in order to implement a 988 number for a national suicide hot line.
The second is there are so many phones, that new area codes have had to be created, and the 807 area code will be need to be included in all calls, including local ones.
The telecommunications Alliance says phone owners need to remember to add 10 digits to any of their programmed numbers.
Provincial police in the region are lobbying the LCBO for changes.
Inspector Jeff Duggan from the Kenora OPP Detachment says officers are called to constantly deal with theft and even assaults.
“You need to have a Manitoba model…you need to have somebody checking ID at the door,” Duggan told the Kenora Police Services Board in their inaugural meeting this week.
“We’re lobbied for them to actually close at least an extra day a week…so say if they were closed on a Sunday or Monday and Sioux Lookout was successful in it, we were not. But that would allow us a bit of a break, a bit of a reset.”
Duggan adds the local LCBO has been very receptive to their suggestions, but their lobby efforts have fallen on deaf ears at the provincial head office of the Liquor Control Board.
“We lobbied the liquor store to change their front door. They are getting thefts. They are getting assaults on staff. So we didn’t lobby it as a Kenora detachment, we lobbied it as a region, to say this is a problem at all of our detachment areas.”
Duggan says with the liquor store open seven days a week, officers don’t get a break.
He adds that in his 20 years, he’s never responded to a theft from the Beer Store.
