Hundreds of volunteer firefighters from across Saskatchewan met this weekend in North Battleford to get hands-on training led by the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association ahead of the wildfire season.
“When the province needs support, it’s the volunteers of Saskatchewan who are always stepping up to do that,” said Aaron Buckingham, the City of Melville fire chief and president of the volunteer firefighters association.
“Everything that we do here, we hope that they take back to their home departments and share what they have learned. It makes the whole province stronger and better.”
The year’s training session was made up of 14 courses including firefighting basics, wildfire supports and vehicle fires. Volunteer firefighter Fiona Mcrae has attended the fire school five times now and say hands-on training is crucial to prepare new members and refresh veteran firefighters.
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“There is a lot of new firefighters still coming on to these departments in the province, so it’s great for them to get that exposure, to have this hands-on training with a whole bunch of other people.” she said.
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Volunteer firefighting efforts wouldn’t be possible, however, without community support.
“The price of everything we do has gone up,” Buckingham said, noting that volunteer groups need to sell a lot of hot dogs or hamburgers to buy a set of fire gear or to replace a truck. “So, supporting our firefighters throughout the province is very, very important.”
Moreover, volunteer firefighters are simply people from their community looking to help their neighbours. “We’re farmers, we’re doctors, we’re teachers, we’re nurses. We’re every scope of it.” Mcrae said.
The Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association will hold its next fire school in the fall.
Watch the video above to see the volunteer firefighters in action.
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Saskatchewan’s Denare Beach bracing for wildfire after last year’s destruction
Calling Lakes Wellness Centre is planning to open in Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask., with the aim of allowing people to remove themselves from the struggles of everyday life and ground themselves.
Before the mental health facility opens its doors, there will be three phases to its programming. Phase 1 will begin with online treatment, which aims to help those who seek remote guidance, followed by referrals to the facility and ending with the facility opening in late summer.
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The building will offer resources that aim to help staff treat addiction and mental health, including counselling, gym, yoga, massages and lectures, and is based in Fort Qu’Appelle to surround people with nature.
Steve Low, Calling Lakes Wellness chief operating officer, hopes people reach out to the organization and wants people who are struggling to know that there is always hope.
Weyburn is like any other small town in Saskatchewan, but one thing sets it apart from other cities across the country: it’s home to the last KFC All-Day Buffet.
Since 1988, Larie Semen, Weyburn KFC’s Manager, brought in an All-Day Buffet option — a move that initially ruffled some feathers. But after bringing in more business than ever, it was deemed a success and 27 KFCs across the country followed suit.
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With other locations closing down their buffet options for a variety of reasons, Weyburn’s KFC is now the only KFC in the country that offers all-day buffet, and hopes to keep it that way.
At the special centre,dogs like Percy (above) can run around, negotiate obstacles and navigate their wheelchairs at speed on tarmac before being promoted to the park (Picture: Supplied)
In the heart of the Lincolnshire countryside, there is a learner driver centre unlike any you have ever seen. Here, you won’t find any examiners, provisional licences or emergency stops (hopefully) – just excitable dogs racing around practising with their new wheels.
That’s because it is home to Broken Biscuits, a disabled animal rescue charity and sanctuary where poorly and recovering pups are given a new lease of life at what the founders say is the ‘world’s first disabled dog park’.
Here, disabled dogs are initiated at the learner driver centre, where they can run around, negotiate obstacles and navigate their wheelchairs at speed on tarmac before being promoted to the park, where they yip, chase balls and run without a care in the world.
Tim Giles, co-founder of Broken Biscuits, tells Metro: ‘A lot of times, when you get a dog fitted into a wheelchair, if it’s in strange surroundings, like a park, the dog will just stand there. But we found the best place to take a dog to do a fitting was a tennis court, because there is tarmac, a fence around it and they have space to run around.’
Tim with some of the dogs that use the exercise space at Broken Biscuits (Picture: Supplied)
After their discovery, Tim, 58, and co-founder and wife Cassie Carney, 49, built the racetrack to get the dogs running again.
The seven-acre park enables dogs to pass their learner driver’s test on hard surfaces, before graduating to a grassy area alongside stables and small houses where timid dogs can hide or take a break and grassy mounds which more advanced wheelchair users can climb up and race down.
The couple set up the charity 18 years ago after going on holiday in Europe and seeing how many stray puppies were paralysed then euthanised after being hit by cars.
Cassie, a veterinary nurse, and Tim started working with clinics, providing spaying and neutering in Moldova, Bosnia and Romania, when they came across Otto, a shih tzu-yorkie cross whose back legs were amputated after he was hit by a car and was due to be put down.
Tim and wife Cassie, a veterinary nurse, launched the charity 18 years ago after going to Europe and seeing how many stray puppies were paralysed and euthanised after being hit by cars (Picture: Supplied)
They brought Otto back to the UK in 2009, along with two other dogs, and set up a sanctuary that is now home to 20.
Cassie admits that working with disabled dogs, they made ‘a lot of mistakes’, because fitting wheelchairs is a complicated art. They often require a lot of adaptation, and dogs in shelters are frequently undernourished, so the fit needs to change as the pups gain weight.
‘If you get the wrong equipment, you then put the dog off. If you put them in a wheelchair that’s rubbing on their body or becomes too hot in the sun because the bars heat up, you lose that trust with the dog. So you’ve spent all this money on a wheelchair, and you feel like you failed them,’ she explains.
For the past few years, the couple have been working alongside Rachel Wettner, founder of dog charity Winston’s Wheels. She knows just how valuable a wheelchair can be after she was told her beloved Staffordshire Bull Terrier Winston would have to be put down in 2017 due to a spinal tumour.
Rachel Wettner named her charity, Winston’s Wheels, after her own dog (Picture: Supplied)
‘We [she and husband Sydney who passed away last year] took him to the vets and after scans and tests they said – just take him home and enjoy him, and when you’re ready, put him to sleep. And that was it,’ Rachel, from Suffolk, tells Metro.
‘It was heartbreaking because even though he couldn’t use his back legs, he was exactly the same dog down to his waist. He was cheeky and playful and he just wanted to carry on. And we were devastated – we’d had him from a puppy so we had such a close bond. We were just determined we weren’t going to give up on him.’
In desperation, Rachel, a learning mentor for young adults with special needs, asked for advice on social media and a kind stranger got in touch offering to loan her a wheelchair.
‘That was a real blessing because Winston took to it straight away and did everything he did before – like dog shows and paddling in the sea. It was a total game changer. He really was amazing. And the cat was fascinated by him,’ she recalls.
Rachel with her dogs Ernie, Winnie and Dino (Picture: Supplied)
Every time the wheelchair came out for a run around the garden or a walk, Winston’s tail would wag like crazy, Rachel remembers, and he enjoyed three extra years sniffing around and playing in his wheels before passing away in 2020.
Inspired, Rachel, went on to home two further disabled dogs and set up Winston’s Wheels in his memory, which has helped thousands of dogs.
The charity loans out wheelchairs to pets, which are returned when they are no longer needed after the dog has either recovered or passed away. They have even provided wheelchairs for disabled sheep. And the charity has enlisted the help of Team Tactics, who run corporate days building the wheelchairs to help spread awareness and raise funds.
Rachel’s charity loans out wheelchairs to pets (Picture: Supplied)
Blueberry the black lab
‘It’s fantastic, because people get to see these special dogs and they fall in love with them instantly. People’s reaction to them is amazing and for them to see how the wheelchairs transform dogs’ lives is brilliant, Rachel says.
Disabled dogs can live a long time – as Otto is living proof. Although now aged 13 and going through heart failure, he ‘still looks and acts like a puppy’, Cassie says.
Care for disabled dogs has come a long way in recent years aided in part by the popular TV show Colin from Accounts.
The Australian comedy tells the story of Gordon and Ashley who were catapulted together by a stray terrier (Picture:CBS Studios Inc)
Disabled dogs can live a long time – as Otto, now 13, is living proof (Picture: Supplied)
‘It’s not unusual to see a dog in a wheelchair now. When we first started, we would have Otto in his chair and cars would stop, people would point, say it’s cruel,’remembers Tim.
Cassie adds: ‘Disabled dogs are put into a “freak show” – “too difficult” category. But we want to normalise it. It doesn’t have to be that difficult or scary. Nearly all pet parents will have their dog become disabled at some point in their life – by being hit by a car or having a stroke.
‘But also, they will become disabled as they age. They will lose bladder control, their sight, their hearing, or there are diseases like cancer, arthritis and Cushing’s that will affect their mobility. It’s just a normal part of life.
‘Life rolls on and we’re glad to be able to help dogs and their owners as they navigate that.’
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When families lose a loved one, making decisions is filled with emotion and now, increasing costs are making those choices all the more difficult.
With funeral arrangements running upwards of $20,000, people are finding it harder and harder to afford an end-of-life ceremony.
“A full-service funeral with a casket and buying a new cemetery plot and a luncheon, sometimes those funerals can be upwards of $15,000 to $20,000,” said Morgan Edwards, president of Saskatoon Funeral Home.
To cut costs, people are finding unique alternatives to celebrate their life, with DIY funerals becoming increasingly popular. Cindi McAuley-Michaud, a doula, works with families to make their end of life plans a reality through her business Love’s Final Journey.
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McAuley-Michaud also helps people come up with lower cost to honour their loved ones — from planting them in a tree, to assisting those at the end of their life to write cards for future holidays they may miss.
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“Maybe grandma has that special recipe that she’s never really shared with anybody, maybe she wants me to video her recipe, her making that special dish and give it to her to grandkids,” says McAuley-Michaud.
For those with no extra funds to spend, the Prairie Hospice Society provides people with supported quality of life in their final days by assisting around 130 people per month for free.
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“Some of the things we can provide these individuals in the community is we can provide rides. So sometimes it is getting to that appointment, having that friendly voice to talk to when you get in the car or out of the car after an appointment,” explains Kristi Chisholm, executive director for the Prairie Hospice Society.
“Maybe it is getting into the library to pick up some more audio books because you are a bit isolated. Maybe it’s just having that friendly voice talking about what they want to do next. Maybe those bucket list items. Or maybe it’s to just focus on something and not about dying.”
When talking to experts on the subject, every person said planning ahead, if possible, is the best way to have your celebration of life to be exactly what you want it to be.
An Ontario woman who first put on skis more than 80 years ago is still making her way down the slopes, and inspiring generations of skiers along the way.
Doris Pierson, 95, has been a familiar sight at Sir Sam’s Ski hill on Eagle Lake in Ontario’s Haliburton Highlands for decades. And despite her age, she says the hill is where she still feels at her quickest.
“I am slowing down now,” she joked. “Except on the hill.”
Pierson took up skiing as a teenager after her brother bought her a pair of skis at 13.
Global News/Doris Pierson
Pierson first learned to ski as a teenager. She says her brother bought her a pair of skis when she was 13, partly to keep her busy and out of trouble. Skiing quickly became a family tradition. Her daughter, Leslie Currie, told Global News that her parents worked as ski patrollers when she was young, which gave their four children a chance to ski every weekend.
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Today, that family legacy spans four generations. Pierson says her children, grandchildren and great‑grandchildren all ski, and some of them continue to join her on the slopes.
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“I have two great‑great‑granddaughters skiing here with me today,” she said at the ski kill.
Doris Pierson (right), now 95, has skied across Europe, the United States and Chile, and even taught at Whistler.
Global News/Doris Pierson
Around Eagle Lake, many regulars know Pierson by name. Fellow skiers describe her not just as a skilled athlete, but as someone who brings energy and warmth to the hill.
“Doris is so inspirational. Not just because of the way she skis, but for so many other reasons,” said friend and skier Barb Bolin.
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“She’s an all‑around great person,” said another friend, Chris Bishop. “She brings a lot to the hill.”
Pierson’s love of skiing has taken her far beyond Ontario. She has skied across Europe, the United States and Chile, and even taught at Whistler. She says she still considers Sir Sam’s her second home.
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“The people, the families I love, the friends I’ve made here — it means everything,” she said.
Even after having both knees replaced several years ago, Pierson says the surgery allowed her to keep doing what she loves, and she says she has no plans to stop.
“It gives you a reason to get up in the morning,” she said. “It’s what I do every day that the sun shines.”
Because of her eyesight, Pierson skips cloudy days. But regulars say one thing is certain: if the sun is out, so is Doris.
For the full story, watch the video above.
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But they aren’t just any pet puppies — they could one day be working police dogs — deployed to RCMP detachments across Canada.
Thirteen soon-to-be-born puppies at the RCMP Police Dog Service Training Centre in Innisfail, Alta., need names, and this year they must begin with the letter ‘B.’.
Courtesy: RCMP
Canada’s national police force holds a contest every year to provide names for puppies being raised at the RCMP’s Police Dog Services Training Centre (PDSTC) in Innisfail, Alta., about 120 km north of Calgary.
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Children between the ages of four and 14 are invited to submit their “original and imaginative” suggestions for the puppies being born this year at the training centre.
The puppies born and raised at the RCMP Police Dog Service Training Centre could have future careers in such areas as search and rescue or narcotics and explosive detection.
Courtesy: RCMP
The prospective names must meet a number of criteria, including:
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The names must all begin with the letter B
They must be usable for a male or female puppy
It must be no longer than nine letters
It must be only one or two syllables
Contestants must be between the ages of four and 14
Contestants must live in Canada
Only one entry per person is permitted
All entries must be received by March 26, 2026
The RCMP encourages children who do enter names to ensure they are suitable for puppies serving with Canada’s national police force, keeping in mind that they will be working police dogs, not pets.
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A drug sniffing dog shows off its skills at the RCMP Police Dog Service Training Centre in Innisfail, Alta.
Global News
The winning names will be selected by staff at the police dog training centre, and in the event that there are multiple entries of the same name, a draw will be used to determine the winning contestant.
The 13 children whose names are selected will each receive a laminated 8×10 photo of the pup they named, a plush dog named Justice and an RCMP water bottle.
Names that aren’t selected as winners for the contest will still be considered for naming other puppies born during the year.
The deadline for the RCMP’s puppy-naming contest is March 26.
Thousands of families gathered at Wanuskewin for the sixth annual Kôna Winter Festival on Saturday. The festival featured a full day of winter activities that embrace Indigenous culture.
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The popular events included snowshoeing, dog sledding, storytelling and dancing.
For anyone unable to brave the winter weather, trail tours were still available through a virtual reality experience made by students at Saskatchewan Polytechnic.
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To find out more about the festival, watch the video above.
A Quebec costume designer is stepping into the global spotlight at the 2026 Winter Olympics, dressing some of the world’s top figure skaters as they compete on the sport’s biggest stage.
Mathieu Caron, a former ballroom dancer from Quebec, has been creating elaborate costumes for more than a decade. He says his fascination with glittering fabrics and dramatic designs began early.
“I was very fascinated by the costumes, all the bling-bling and the fabrics. So I decided to go to fashion school,” Caron told Global News.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.
(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
After studying fashion at LaSalle College in Montreal, Caron launched his company designing clothing for ballroom dancers. His work soon expanded into the figure skating and ice dancing world.
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By 2018, his creations had reached the Olympic podium. Caron designed the costumes worn by Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir during their gold medal-winning performance set to Moulin Rouge.
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Now in Milan for the 2026 Winter Games, Caron says 28 athletes from 10 countries are wearing his designs. Among them are American ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, as well as Japanese skater Ami Nakai.
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Caron says each costume can take up to 150 hours to complete, from the first sketch to the final rhinestone. Caron says the process involves close collaboration with athletes, coaches and choreographers to ensure the design complements the music and enhances movement on the ice.
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“We have meetings with athletes, but also with the coaches, choreographers. We talk about the music and the vision of the program,” he said.
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His studio team includes other designers, cutters, seamstresses, pattern makers, and painters — all working to bring the garments to life.
The price reflects the labour involved. Caron says costumes typically range from $3,500 to $8,000, depending on the hours required and the complexity of the design.
While figure skating remains a central focus, the designer said he hopes to expand into other creative fields, including Broadway musicals and designing full looks for touring artists.
For now, Caron says he feels fortunate to see his creations glide across Olympic ice, and in some cases, onto the podium.
For the full story, watch the video above.
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After having reactions to two different jabs, Zoe has decided she doesn’t want her son to have any more (Picture: Getty Images)
Following her son’s third round of baby vaccinations, Zoe Nichols felt helpless as she listened to his endless cries. Even though the little boy had been given the suggested doses of Calpol, he just wouldn’t settle.
‘He was just crying and crying,’ Zoe, 39, tells Metro.
She wanted to stay with him following the vaccinations, but Zoe had compulsory training at work the next day, so that afternoon the beauty therapist bundled her baby into the car to take him to his grandparents, a two-hour drive away.
‘For the whole journey, he mainly slept – he loved being in the car,’ Zoe remembers.
After dropping her son off with his grandparents, she made the two-hour drive back to Dorset, only to receive a worrying phone call as soon as she walked through the door at around 11pm.
‘His grandparents were saying that he wasn’t right – he wouldn’t stop crying, and he had a fever that wasn’t coming down with medicine,’ Zoe remembers. ‘They were going to take him to the hospital.’
The doctors tried to reassure the family that it was probably just a common virus, but Zoe couldn’t help but feel eaten up with ‘mum guilt’, because she couldn’t do anything to help. Eventually, her son was put on a drip for the night and, as she tried to sleep, Zoe kept her phone close by in case of an update.
Thankfully, the next morning, she received a smiling photo of her baby, who was all back to normal.
As a child, Zoe remembers having all her vaccines, and yet, at 15, she still got measles. She says that two years later, at beauty college, half of her class — some who had been vaccinated and some who hadn’t — were off with mumps.
‘You take all the information that you’re given as gospel,’ says Zoe (Picture: Supplied)
The experience always made her question the point of vaccinations and whether they actually worked, she says. So when Zoe became pregnant at 31, she started to think about what she should do for her baby.
At her NCT class, she remembers being urged by the leading midwife to give children whatever vaccines are offered by the NHS. ‘You take all the information that you’re given as gospel,’ Zoe explains. ‘But all pros and cons should be made available.’
Although a couple of acquaintances had said there were ‘lots of warnings on side effects’ when it came to jabs, she eventually decided to go along with NHS guidelines and booked the MMR vaccinations for her baby.
While her son’s eight and 12-week jabs were uneventful – he had just a mild fever manageable with Calpol – it was the 16-week shots that Zoe believes landed her baby in hospital.
‘I thought that it came and went too quickly to be a virus,’ she says.
After his initial jabs,Zoe’s son hasn’t had any of the vaccines offered through the NHS (Picture: Getty Images)
Just before he turned one, it was then suggested that her little boy have a Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine to protect him from picking up tuberculosis from abroad, as his father’s family from India often visited. Again, Zoe did what the doctors recommended.
‘But the vaccine injection site got scabby and pussy. It took ages for his skin to heal, and he still has a big scar from it,’ she says, adding that it was the last straw for her. ‘I wasn’t going to put him through that anymore.’
Since then, Zoe’s son hasn’t had any of the vaccines offered through the NHS to children, at one year, 18 months, three years, flu, or Covid vaccines.
‘I’m not a scientist, but I know what happened for me and mine,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to look at stats and figures, because those can be easily manipulated by pharmaceutical companies.’
But her choice has raised eyebrows, with several healthcare professionals and acquaintances warning the mum that she should ‘protect’ her little boy by getting him vaccinated.
‘I don’t want to look at stats and figures, because those can be easily manipulated,’ says Zoe (Picture: Supplied)
Zoe remembers one occasion in early spring 2023, when her son was rushed to the A&E because he couldn’t breathe at nursery.
‘Initially, I was asked if he had received all his jabs. When I replied no, the nurse gave me a look as if I had sneezed in her face,’ she claims. ‘She then told the doctor with an attitude, and acted as if I hadn’t fed him for a week or had committed some other form of neglect.’
The toddler ended up being diagnosed as having both enterovirus and rhinovirus and recovered within days.
Zoe insists that she feels cautious when anyone pushes her into making a decision, not just whether it involves vaccinating her son. Anyone quick to judge anti-vaxxers, she’d like to know the ‘primary experience’ that led them to think the way they do.
‘Why are they so for vaccines?’ Zoe asks. ‘My child was in the hospital overnight directly after having had a vaccine. That’s why I’m against it. My primary experience has led to my decision.’
News that measles cases have been found in the UK doesn’t scare Zoe, either. In fact, what frightens her is thinking about the children who do get vaccinations and what they are having put into their bodies.
She wonders why we question what is in our food and water, but don’t ask what the vaccines are, and the harmful impacts that they could have on adults and children.
‘I think there are pros and cons to everything,’ she says.
Zoe believes that there are better ways to stop disease spreading than vaccinating people (Picture: Getty Images)
Zoe believes that if her child did get measles, he would get ill and then get better, just like she did when she had measles at 15. However, recent statistics have shown that measles is on the rise across Europe, with nearly 130,000 people contracting it last year, double the number in 2023 and the highest rate since 1997. Last June, a child from Liverpool died from contracting the disease, while London is currently seeing a fast-spreading outbreak infect dozens of schoolchildren.
While Zoe acknowledges the pain families who have lost children due to measles must feel, her personal experiences mean she will not sway her decision. Instead, she asks: ‘Why in 30 years has nobody managed to find a cure for when you actually have measles?’
The mum insists she doesn’t throw caution to the wind either, but takes precautions to keep herself, her child, and the people around her safe from any virus. When her son comes home from playdates and school, or is about to eat a meal, Zoe makes sure he washes his hands.
‘In my opinion, there are better ways to stop disease spreading than vaccinating people,’ she explains. ‘It can just start with safe measures like washing your hands or using a bit of sanitiser. If clients are under the weather, I don’t see them, and I wear a mask during my treatments.
‘I just don’t feel that mass medication will help. If you look after your body and your mind, I really don’t think you need a vaccine.’
Zoe is also keen to guide her son away from injections until he can make a fully educated decision for himself.
‘I’m not a radical conspiracy theorist,’ she insists. ‘I’m just being mindful and conscious. It’s my choice and I don’t want myself or my child to be an experiment.’
‘When vaccines are missed, children lose a vital layer of protection against diseases that can spread quickly in schools. Viruses like measles are highly contagious — one infected child can spread it to 9 out of 10 unvaccinated classmates. For children, these infections can cause serious complications, from pneumonia to long-term neurological problems.
‘Vaccines use tiny, safe fragments of a virus or bacteria to ‘teach’ the immune system how to defend against the real thing. This training means that if your child is exposed, their body is ready to fight it off without them ever becoming seriously ill. It’s not just about protecting one child — high vaccination rates create herd immunity, which shields newborns, people with medical conditions, and others who can’t be vaccinated.
‘When vaccine uptake drops, we see outbreaks. Measles, once close to elimination, has resurged in parts of the UK and Europe because people are missing their jabs. Without widespread vaccination, diseases can re-establish themselves, leading to avoidable illness and hospitalisations.’
A version of this article was first published in October 2025.
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