FortSask

Utility crews in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick are still working to restore electricity to thousands of customers who have been in the dark for days after last week's fierce winter storms knocked out their power.

As of Tuesday morning, power is still out for nearly 33,000 Hydro-Québec customers and more than 13,000 Hydro One customers.

New Brunswick Power has restored electricity to a majority of customers who were impacted by the storm, which it has said was one of the largest provincewide outage events of the last 25 years.

Canadian Blood Services says it's in need of blood and plasma donors after the winter storm disrupted donations over the holidays. 

Severe wind, snowfall and icy conditions that hit many parts of the country meant that about 10 per cent of expected blood and plasma donations did not happen. 

There's a critical need for platelets for patients undergoing cancer treatments and O-negative blood for newborns and emergencies. 

Canadian Blood Services says it has lost thousands of regular donors since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Fort Saskatchewan Food Bank is celebrating after surpassing its Christmas Hamper fundraising goal. 

On December 17, 94 community volunteers helped to deliver Christmas and toy hampers to families in need around Fort Sask. 

Kassandra Gartner, the executive director of the food bank, says hamper delivery day went as well as it could have gone. 

"We provided 280 holiday food hampers to 280 residences in Fort Saskatchewan and 431 toy packages for children," said Gartner. "[This helped] bring Christmas to more than 900 people in Fort Saskatchewan." 

A Fort Saskatchewan woman is safely at home recovering from a nasty fall earlier this month. 

On December 9, Rebecca Collins, 31, was out walking her dog near Woodbridge and Chestnut when she slipped on the ice. 

"I was about five minutes from home and slipped on the ice and fell in between two streets," said Collins. "I couldn't really move because I heard something happen in my leg." 

Funnily enough, Collins's first reaction wasn't necessarily about how hurt she was. 

Four people died and dozens of others were injured when the bus they were travelling on rolled over on an icy highway in the British Columbia Interior on Christmas Eve, provincial RCMP said Sunday.

The Mounties said they received multiple calls on Saturday shortly after 6 p.m. regarding the crash on the Highway 97C Okanagan Connector east of Merritt near the Loon Lake exit.

The force confirmed on Sunday afternoon that four people were found dead at the scene, but provided no details about the victims' ages or identities.

A highway in the British Columbia Interior has reopened after a passenger bus crash sent more than 50 people to hospital.

Few details have been released about the Saturday evening incident, but Interior Health tweeted that 53 people are being treated at three hospitals in Kelowna, Penticton and Merritt.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is asking Canadians to remind themselves how fortunate they are "to live in a country of peace."

Trudeau says in his annual Christmas address that it's the season when life slows down and "Christmas movies, including Die Hard, are on repeat."

But he says that 2022 was a challenging year and acknowledges that for some, the holidays won't be easy.

This holiday season marks a return to more normalcy for millions of Canadians who no longer have to navigate holiday travel and family gatherings under COVID-19 health restrictions. 

Thousands of Canadians woke up in the dark on Christmas Day as power outages caused by ferocious winter conditions persisted across Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.

A state of emergency continued in southern Ontario's Niagara Region as crews grappled with impassable roads and wildly blowing snow.

Phil Lambert said his community of Port Colborne, Ont., was a sea of abandoned cars Sunday. He and his daughter, Gracyn Burse, said they were heading into their second straight day without power, and they didn't anticipate it being restored until Monday.

With the temperatures warming up, there's plenty of time for fun in the snow before the end of winter break.

Here are five free family activities you can do in Fort Saskatchewan before the kids have to go back to class. 

1. Ice Skating

Fort Saskatchewan has a ton of skating rinks. 

For those who aren't into shinny or hockey, the Fort also has a skating loop at West River's Edge which features plenty of paths for people to have a leisurely skate on or learn how to skate. 

There is a complex, counterintuitive relationship between rising global temperatures and the likelihood of increasingly intense snowstorms across Canada.

Winters are becoming on average milder and warmer than they used to be, but there has also been a noted rise across the country in extreme weather events, such as intense snowstorms, said John Clague, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C.