Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press

A specialized RCMP team that deals with high-risk situations was not immediately available to respond to a stabbing rampage and hunt for a mass killer in Saskatchewan because of contract negotiations, internal emails show.

Documents obtained under freedom of information laws show Ottawa’s Emergency Response Team-Special Activities Group, also known as ERT-SAG, was initially offered to help as Mounties responded the stabbing attacks on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the nearby village of Weldon on Sept. 4, 2022.

Eddie Head felt a deep pull toward his Saskatchewan First Nation as it was enveloped in devastation. 

He had been a community leader for decades for James Smith Cree Nation and served a term as chief. But as he learned about the horrors of a stabbing rampage over the Labour Day weekend last year, an even more difficult connection became clear — the killer was his nephew. 

"I felt obligated to come back home," Head says from the band office in the community northeast of Saskatoon.

A chief in Saskatchewan says her heart is broken after ground-penetrating radar located 93 areas of interest at the site of a former residential school.

English River First Nation Chief Jenny Wolverine said it’s believed 79 of the areas of interest at the Beauval Indian Residential School could be the size of possible children’s graves and 14 could be the size of ones for infants.

"It breaks my heart that there's likely more, or even that there's even one," Wolverine said Tuesday in Saskatoon. 

"The experience of residential school is horrific." 

The legacies of some of the 16 seniors killed in a bus crash are living on in a western Manitoba community, as their clothing and leftover food are donated to those in need. 

“It’s a huge benefit from the loss that has happened to the help that it brings other people,” said Wayne Olson, a community minister for the Church of Christ in Dauphin, Man. 

“That’s a tremendously amazing thing when you think about the big picture of things, how what they have now will help many other people.”

Weather maps hang on the walls and precipitation reports flash across screens in the Winnipeg office where major decisions about Canada’s battle against an unprecedented wildfire season are made. 

Inside the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre headquarters in Manitoba’s capital, just east of the exact longitudinal centre of Canada, there are discussions on how best to battle blazes from coast to coast.

“It's definitely an unprecedented season," Jennifer Kamau, communications manager for the centre, said Tuesday.

The head of the Native Women’s Association of Canada says it’s clear there's an ongoing emergency nearly four years after the final report into missing and murdered Indigenous woman and girls was released. 

“We are in a crisis,” said Carol McBride. 

Red dresses are set to be on display across the country Friday to recognize the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People. It has become known as Red Dress Day and the empty garments serve as a symbol of lives that have been lost.

Kevin Garinger says it feels like the passage of time is inexplicable. The five years since a deadly bus crash changed his city, his hockey team and his life sometimes feel like a lifetime. Other times it feels like yesterday. 

"I don't know if anyone ever heals from significant loss or tragedy,” Garinger says after a moment of deep thought in his Humboldt, Sask., office. 

“You eventually just learn to live with this."

The federal government has signed an agreement in principle with Saskatchewan to invest nearly $6 billion into the province's health-care system over the next 10 years. 

"This agreement in principle with the federal government is a positive step that will accelerate and enhance work already underway," Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman said in a news release Wednesday.

Bail has been set at $300,000 for a former actor in the movie "Dances With Wolves" who is facing eight sex-related charges in Nevada as police in Canada say more complainants there have come forward. 

Information from the North Las Vegas Court website says if Nathan Chasing Horse can post bail, he could be released on house arrest and would be electronically monitored. He cannot have contact with the complainants or any minors. 

Under Nevada law, Chasing Horse would have to pay 15 per cent of the bail — about $45,000. 

Two sisters who have spent nearly 30 years in prison for what they say are wrongful murder convictions hugged and smudged before walking into a courthouse for a bail hearing Tuesday.

Odelia and Nerissa Quewezance were convicted in 1994 of second-degree murder in the death of 70-year-old farmer Anthony Joseph Dolff, near Kamsack, Sask.