Julia-Simone Rutgers

2 weeks ago | winnipegfreepress.com | Julia-Simone Rutgers

On the afternoon of May 12, Larry and Leta Lee packed their grab-and-go bags and drove the 25 kilometres from their home, nestled in the boreal forest around Flanders Lake, to the junction with the sole gravel highway in and out of Manitoba’s Nopiming Provincial Park. They’d seen smoke rising on the horizon and knew wildfires were encroaching from the north, west and southeast. The nearest fire had already grown to more than 500 square kilometres and burned through swaths of the park.

3 weeks ago | winnipegfreepress.com | Julia-Simone Rutgers

Last summer, the world’s attention turned to the famed Seine River to watch as a parade of ferries, tourist boats and yachts carried Olympic athletes through the heart of Paris for the opening ceremony of the Summer Games. The pageantry of the floating, four-hour saga was punctuated by persistent rain that drenched athletes and spectators as the parade cruised past landmarks like the Notre-Dame cathedral and the Eiffel Tower.

1 month ago | thenarwhal.ca | Julia-Simone Rutgers

Get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s environment and climate reporting by signing up for our free newsletter. Winnipeg was built around its iconic Prairie rivers. The Red and Assiniboine weave through the city — wide, flat and muddy brown — and meet at the Forks, right in the centre of town. They are the heart and pulse of the city. And yet, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone swimming, playing or basking or in their waters. Why?

1 month ago | thenarwhal.ca | Julia-Simone Rutgers

Get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s environment and climate reporting by signing up for our free newsletter. This is the first of a series of articles about Winnipeg’s sewage issues — and possible solutions. Two or three times a week, when the weather’s nice, retired teacher Dave Taylor picks one of the three boats — a red European kayak, one steel and one fiberglass canoe — from the rack attached to the side of a shed in his yard.

1 month ago | winnipegfreepress.com | Julia-Simone Rutgers

Two or three times a week, when the weather’s nice, retired teacher Dave Taylor picks one of the three boats — a red kayak, one steel and one fibreglass canoe — from a rack in his yard. If he’s kayaking, he’ll load it onto a makeshift golf cart, otherwise he’ll hoist a canoe onto his shoulders and make a short portage across the road, through the soccer field, a small patch of riparian forest and down the muddy bank to a little pallet dock on the Red River.