Estevan

The weekend saw barrel riders converge in Estevan with the Fountain Tire Barrel X event happening in town.

Lindsay Collins is one of the organizers of the event, and she says that the weekend had plenty of entrants with 95 open entries, 52 youth entries, and nine peewee entries. 

She says the whole weekend was full of great events.

The Estevan Police Service was busy over the long weekend, with 82 occurrences being reported over a few days.

That included multiple fraud complaints, suspicious persons, theft of fuel criminal harassment, hit-and-run incidents, and several driving complaints.

One of the notable incidents saw a 19-year-old charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle and driving over .08 following a traffic stop on the 500 block of 2nd Street. The individual was lodged in cells until sober, with her driver's license suspended indefinitely and her vehicle impounded for 30 days.

The City of Estevan has put out another update on the 4th Street Downtown Revitalization project, this time dated July 23.

General:

ASL Paving continues to work on paving along with Turnbull Excavating who are acting as the underground utilities subcontractor for the project. Work is progressing westwards, with the road torn up currently halfway up the 1200 block. Crews are currently focused on underground sewer, storm, and water mains, and the services to buildings.

The ability to hear is about much more than enjoying sounds. As Melanie Tribiger explains, it’s an essential component of communication. 

“A person’s hearing is incredibly important, because hearing is what allows us to actually connect with people around us,” she says. “It allows us to have conversations, to communicate, and when that’s a struggle, it leads to isolation.” 

Estevan's farmers market has been enjoying the summer season, connecting the community with bakers, artisans, and more through the event.

With the summer season midway through, a new face has taken the reins as the site manager role has been switched out.

We talked with Erin McQuoid, the new site manager, about her taking over the role starting on the first market of August.

Every once in a while, when I'm out cruising in the country, I see an image where a photo needs to be taken. This is one of those moments, these horses just seemed so content and enjoying each other's company. They had the entire pasture to spread out, but they chose to gather together as if they were deciding something.

"Let The Meeting Begin"

Ranchers have observed an increase in woody species, such as western snowberry (or buckbrush) and wolf willow in their pasturelands. With the increase of woody species or brush density; comes reduced acres for livestock grazing.  With the loss of grazing acres, comes a large economic cost. With the increased density of woody species, the grassland is also negatively impacted through a shift in the desired plant community. Major barriers to addressing woody encroachment are, that it is time consuming and costly.

An annual and international campaign, Operation Safe Driver Week took place in North America from July 7 through 13. 

In our province, the week saw Saskatchewan Highway Patrol (SHP) members increasing traffic enforcement efforts. “It’s about essentially enforcement just going out and stopping drivers that are displaying unsafe driving manners," explained Sergeant Mathew Austin, commercial vehicle enforcement specialist with the SHP.  

The congregations or 'swarms' of Blue Darner dragonflies being observed over the past couple of weeks in the southeast area are the result of having an ample supply of food - smaller flying insects. 

This is according to Dr. James Tansey, the Provincial Entomologist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. 

Dragonflies, and their smaller, close relatives, damselflies, consume smaller flying insects that can bug anyone trying to enjoy the great outdoors, such as biting midges (also known as no-see-ums) and even mosquitoes. 

A new software system is being introduced in the healthcare sector in the province, and it has been causing some headaches for employees throughout Saskatchewan. The AIMS program, or Administrative Information Management System, which was originally introduced in 2022 before being rolled back due to issues, is being re-introduced starting with its use for payroll.