Don't Boo the Kids from UND at the Bomber Game

About five months ago, the Blue Bombers invited the University of North Dakota's Marching Band, the Pride of the North to perform at Princess Auto Stadium during the tilt against the Montreal Alouettes. Certainly, Canada and the U.S. have been at trade odds for more than a year but the relationship between UND and Manitoba is a long one.

Two of our present day players, one Canadian and one American, are alumni of UND. Despite the fact that we don't have a reciprocity agreement with North Dakota as we do with Minnesota, many Canadians (particularly from Manitoba) attend specialized programs such as speech pathology to sports programs like football and hockey. The owner of the Jets is a University of North Dakota alumni. Lots of people in Manitoba went there. It is the largest university in three state only two hours away from us and 

The management and players on the team have asked fans to be kind to the kids in the marching band and any North Dakota and Minnesota people attending. The social media outrage about the UND band was white hot. It isn't the kid's fault and nor are they responsible for the timing. Traditionally, around Grand Forks and Fargo where the universities are has been friendly territory for Canadians. It may be a Republican now state but it was once dominated by Democrats federally. Elections matter. And it is evidence of how things can change back and forth.

The uncivil behavior of fans on kids is misdirected. Thankfully, most of the heat might have been unleashed online. Bomber fans need to focus on the win against Alouettes. Appreciate the CF-18 flyovers, thank military in attendance and appreciate the kids who have come to entertain you in your barn. And if you can't watch, go to the Rum Hut and fill that trap so you are in a more cordial mood. 

Donald Trump to Attend Opening of Teddy Roosevelt Library in Medora, North Dakota July 1, 2026

It will be a busy July 1st for President Trump. He will be visiting North Dakota to be there for the opening of the Teddy Roosevelt Library in Medora, North Dakota. It will be a quick trip because he is supposed to be back in Washington, D.C. for the trilateral meeting of Canada, Mexico and the United States for trade talks and possibly a deal or does Trump announce U.S. is pulling out? Carney will be meeting him that day. No word on that itinerary. 

The Teddy Roosevelt Library is a non-profit creation since the official libraries program for presidents only started in 1955. The 96,000 square foot building is on a 92,000 square foot campus carved into a butte in Medora, North Dakota beside the Teddy Roosevelt National Park in the far west part of the state by the Badlands.

Roosevelt is intimately identified with North Dakota from his journeys in the state from 1883 to 1887. His wife and mother died a short time after one another in the state where he was a cattle rancher. He was popular writer and historian and became a war hero. As a progressive Republican, he established a conservation program that is the basis of the national park system that exists today. He was first non-European to win a Nobel Prize. In many presidential rankings, he consistently is one of the highest in approval in U.S. history.

The name Teddy Bear is coined for the man and his connection to the death of a black bear. How it ended up being a cute kids stuffie is apart of American. It certainly is not the story of Winnie, the bear named after Winnipeg that became Winnie the Pooh. Roosevelt visited Winnipeg a number of times on his way to Delta Marsh where they hired Metis guides for hunting trips.

There is probably just too little space to go over the expansive life of Teddy Roosevelt. He makes the last several years of presidents look like croppers. It is of little wonder that Trump wants to visit the Teddy Roosevelt Library. Built be the same designer of the gorgeous central library in Calgary, the building and the campus is stunning.

The design allows the visitor to feel part of the incredible vista. The curation of the collection appears to be a worthy homage to the 26th President of the United States. Trump's visit should help garner some publicity to the area. Many people from Manitoba are very fond of North Dakota and not just the eastern cities of Grand Forks or Fargo. The $150 million facility is architecturally noteworthy.

Medora has honoured Teddy Roosevelt since 1965 with the Medora Musical. It is an old timey Old West musical review and it is as charming as it is fun. It is very nearby the new library. Perhaps in the near future people in Manitoba will want to visit their old friend. Some of that enthusiasm could be tempered by Trump's later appointment on that same day with Carney. Here's hoping the visit July 1 is positive in so many ways.

St. Vital Centre Purchased for $160 Million

St. Vital Centre was built in 1979 for about $40 million just when a flurry of other malls were going up in including Kildonan Place, Winnipeg Square, Eaton Centre and Unicity. That was a lot of malls all at once and some of them did not survive or have been drastically changed over the years. Most of the malls were owned by real estate companies in the beginning but many including Primaris and Cadillac Fairview are now owned all or in part by the Maple 8, Canadians top government pension funds. For the last numbers of years St. Vital Centre has been owned by the Ontario Pension Board.

In recent years some private players have been making inroads as owners. It is unclear who their shareholders might be. In many cases their financing still comes from pension funds as in the case of Brookfield Asset Management. The fact that a pension fund sells a property doesn't mean they are not part of shareholding or or financing the deal to enhance their balance sheets. 

In the case of the sale of St. Vital Centre to Leyad, a Quebec-based real estate company, it appears the sale was financed by six credit unions in a syndicate. Since Leyad is a private company, it doesn't have to disclose its financial structure except to the banks and paying taxes. 

This is not the first foray into real estate in Winnipeg by Leyad. They have purchased Garden City Square, Johnston Terminal, CDI College and the Canada Goose Distribution Centre over the years for a pretty significant footprint in the city. Next to Montreal, it might be the biggest holdings right in the company. 

For many years St. Vital Centre has been firmly entrenched as the second largest mall in the city. Due to the location, it is hard for it to expand much beyond what it is now unless they build up. However, they still have to fill the empty Bay store location. This is an issue for Polo Park as well. Since the other large story closures led to knew tenants, it is expect that by year end announcements will be made on new uses for the space. And Leyad seems well suited to investing in their properties but that remains to be seen. The Johnston Terminal took a while to get going again after Covid but seems better now.

There is no record of what the purchase price of the mall when it was taken over by the Ontario Pension Board. However, with the original price being $40 million and the sale price being $160.5 million that is a very healthy price for a mall still producing income. The powerful Canadian pensions probably can't quit malls completely. They are too big and growing to not buy real estate. The U.S. could be less attractive if their economy tanks but who knows? That could be the perfect time to invest. Just ask the people who bought dirt cheap after the last crash in Florida and Arizona.

As mentioned, there have been some malls across Canada that have closed. In Winnipeg, that would be Portage Place, Unicity and a few strip malls. However, Canada never really overbuilt the way the U.S. has and done. In Grand Forks, North Dakota, you could call Columbia Mall a failed mall. It is embarrassing to see.

The purchase by Leyad is probably an attempt by St. Vital Centre to remain the second largest mall in the province ahead of Outlet Collection Mall and the rest of the Seasons development. This may be a losing battle because the Seasons development had been going strong for 13 years. There has never been a stop in building on the site although it is possible this year might see the last few spots filled up in the surrounding mall spaces.

St. Vital's hosting of the Children's Hospital Book Sale at least two to three time a year also fills the place with people from all over the city and beyond. For those who don't remember, it used to be Polo Park that hosted this. The destination malls usually have things over seasonal times to attract shoppers. The more unique, the better. For many decades it was mini-concerts and fashion shows.

It seems Leyad's purchase of St. Vital Centre will be followed up with a multimillion investment in the former Bay location soonest. There are few if any big retailers out there that could take the full space over. Some are still hankering for a Simons department store but it might be wishful thinking as the company takes a long time to expand their private company. Others believe there might be a new grocery coming courtesy of rule changes that block competitor from opening in the same mall. Many places have agreements that are paid for to keep other grocery and pharmacy out. This has been ruled as anti-competitive. Those that continue to practice may face penalties and fines.

It used to be that malls had long lists of retailers wanting to move in but the need to expand the hours and reasons to go to the mall have had to increase. It can't be all fashion stores that don't last a season. Expect to see more moved development in the near future.

 

John Wheeler WDAZ/WDAY Retires - Winnipeg Perspective 2025

I've written how powerful WDAZ/WDAY has been in terms of being watched and recognized by people in Winnipeg. The NBC/ABC affiliate has been seen north of the border since 1967 although in my house we didn't get cable until l970 and colour TV till 1971. WDAZ was the Grand Forks satellite of the larger WDAY of Fargo. The local newscast of WDAZ was seen in Winnipeg and for travellers from Manitoba who went to Grand Forks. 

We became familiar with Terry Dullum as anchor from 1975 and Pat Sweeney at sports from 1983. We also got to see weather personality Dewey Bergquist who gave the weather from Fargo but also the Grand Forks broadcast. Some people who travelled to the States were familiar with Bergquist because they heard or saw him in Fargo doing weather as early as the 1950s.

I remember when Bergquist retired in 1985, there were a few of those old timers who were sad on both sides of the border. Even for myself, he was the face of weather south of us for 15 years of my life. He was replaced in 1985 by the first full time meteorologist in the state John Wheeler. He was based at the WDAY location in Fargo but did the Grand Forks WDAZ broadcast as well.

It would be some time before Winnipeg would get a local meteorologist with John Sauder first with CKY/CTV and CBC Winnipeg. We have had to receive broadcasts from weather specialists most of the broadcast history on Manitoba. Even now, we have do with broadcast meteorologists outside Manitoba. 

Our regional relationship with different areas is fading with digital and satellite radio, cord cutting from cable and the like. Some young people only get information from smart phones so are not exposed to television in the same way. There were just fewer listening and viewing options. This meant many people were exposed to the same entertainment and news. 

For Winnipeg, the 1970s and the 1980s saw most in the city having cable television. There were three Canadian networks and four U.S. networks (including PBS). A weather channel, a French channel and public access pretty much rounded out the dial. While many programs were simulcast, often weather updates broke into the North Dakota signals. It is at those times a meteorologist like John Wheeler would appear with a bad weather report.

In the 1970s, I began to watch U.S. national news. My favourite network was ABC which was on KTHI from Fargo. I was aware of local news from that station but my interest was more in the national ABC World News Tonight broadcast. Still, I knew that the weather guy at least in the early 1980s at KTHI was Rob Thorson. The KTHI station had the tallest tower in the world. It was needed because reception was a problem for all the American station. During bad weather it was possible to lose signal for any and all the stations.

WDAZ was the closest North Dakota cable station to Winnipeg (along with Prairie Public Television and PBS). KCND Pembina, North Dakota was closed and moved to Winnipeg to become CKND in 1974. The WDAZ station was affiliated with NBC which in the 1970s was third place in the ratings in the U.S. whereas KTHI in Fargo carried ABC and that network had moved into number one in ratings.

NBC programming had a few bright spots in 1970s such as Saturday Night Live but had programming that older Americans liked such as Marcus Welby, Ironside, Columbo, McLeod and McMillan and Wife. Other programming later in the decade such as Little House on the Prairie, Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life appealed to families and younger kids but network struggled. Regardless, in North Dakota, WDAZ/WDAY had high ratings which may have had to do with local news which they did very well. And once someone tuned into a network, they were likely to stick with it. No remore controls back then.

In 1983, everything changed in August when ABC went to WDAY/WDAZ and asked them to change affiliations to their number one network. For ABC, it was an attempt to lock in Fargo and Grand Forks but also Bismarck which even in the 1980s did not have much in network affiliates. KTHI was completely taken by surprise with many staff only learning about it after the deal was done. It caught people in Manitoba by surprise too although we had no say in what U.S networks did.

Suddenly, WDAZ with ABC affiliation had the number one station. KTHI with NBC now had the third rated network. The good news for KTHI was that ratings steadily climbed as they focused on comedies and acclaimed dramas and reclaimed the long lost position at the top. It was in 1985 when John Wheeler came aboard the WDAZ broadcast as meteorologist.

While Grand Forks was smaller than Fargo, they offered a very good news broadcast than won awards for their coverage of the 1997 flood. Wheeler became a recognizable face for his cut-ins during bad weather south of the border. By 1986, the only two North Dakota stations left on cable were WDAZ and Prairie Public when KTHI and KXJB were dropped because of signal quality. This meant that John Wheeler was the only weather guy we saw from North Dakota in our homes in Winnipeg.

In the years following we received our NBC, CBC and later Fox signals from Detroit, Toldeo, Rochester, New York and lastly Minneapolis. Or connection to WDAZ remained strong even as the Grand Forks station closed their news department in 2018. Winnipeg still got their signal from Grand Forks but the news came from WDAY in Fargo. All through this John Wheeler was the meteorologist. That is, until this week when he retired. 

His weather department grew to six people. It is an example of what local news can be. WDAY has a large weather, sports and news department and lots of local broadcasting. It is worth comparing to our own local news which is pathetically tiny when covering local sports or have meteorologists employed. John Wheeler's retirement is the end of another era of broadcasters and he'll be missed even from those in Canada.

All over, there have been retirements. In the last two years, we have seen Janet Stewart and John Sauder leave local TV broadcasts. Some have been let go in cost cutting. Given how local TV has seen audiences drift away to so many other platforms, perhaps we never get to know someone as well as a John Wheeler. The audience has grown so fragmented. Here's to John Wheeler in retirement!

Von Maur Department Store Now Open in Fargo

Manitobans travelling to North Dakota had to brave two lanes of traffic and no passing lanes on Highway 75 from Winnipeg to the border until twinning took place from 1985 to 1994. The U.S. in North Dakota completed twinning in 1977 from Pembina all the way to Fargo. The old border stations were easy to cross. Even in the 1970s they were tiny things. Families easily crossed with no IDs. Just a few basic questions. It was the return back to Canada and the low amount of duty free that was a concern. Only in the last decade or so has it risen to higher amounts.

Before Grand Forks and Fargo had malls built, Winnipeggers shopped in their department stores downtown. They also stayed in motels near the downtown. North Dakota was years behind Winnipeg when it came to malls. Fargo would be the first with a mall called West Acres in 1972. It would take two more years for 13th Avenue to be built in front of it. Looking west was wheat fields. Fargo itself was more than a mile a way.

While Winnipeggers continued to stay in Grand Forks and shop in the downtown there, it was not uncommon for families to make a quick day trip to West Acres once the mall was built in 1972.  The lack of hotels nearby and two years of road construction thereafter put those off who wanted to actually stay in Fargo to shop at the new mall. For our family, we stayed for years at the Townhouse in Grand Forks near the downtown because it had an indoor swimming pool. Others stayed in the Holiday Inn from the Holidome that was built in 1966. The Ramada went up in 1973 next door. The pools and event centers inside were more important to people from Winnipeg than staying in Fargo where hotels near West Acres were not popping up till at least 1974.

Although Winnipeg had malls like Polo Park and Grant Park Mall, people were still quite used to going downtown for shopping and restaurants. So shopping downtown Grand Forks was not considered unusual. Still, the construction of West Acres Mall was a gamechanger in border shopping for Canadians.

But as the above picture shows, it was in the middle on nowhere and motels took a bit longer to materialize. It was a good day trip from Grand Forks but not enough to attract those headed down for a two day weekend. And remember, the Canadian part of the journey was on a two lane highway and the Interstate was only finished off in 1977. It could be a harrowing journey with a semi trailer behind you.

The trip to West Acres though was a different experience than what Canadians had experienced in North Dakota though and many curious travellers went to shop. What they found was local Fargo department store Delendrecies, Minnesota-based retailer Dayton's and national retailer Sears. It was the smaller stores and their variety that attracted Winnipeggers as well such Hickory Farms and Musicland. By 1979, in an expansion, West Acres added J.C. Penny. 

Many changes in retail over the decades meant Delendrecies eventually becoming Herbergers in 1998. Dayton's became Marshall Fields in 2001 and Macy's in 2006. In recent years Herberger's and Sears have closed leaving malls all over the U.S. scrambling. It was only in 2000-01 that West Acres put in a food court. In one of the empty spaces left from department store closing, the mall has created The District which features restaurants inside and outside the mall. Crave, a sushi restaurant from Minnesota was the first tenant.

Best Best eventually moved into the mall in 2017 in 50,000 square feet of Sear which shuttered in 2017 after 45 years in the mall. Best Best had been next door since 1994 in a 45,000 square foot location. West Acres has shown considerable resiliency when compared to Columbia Mall in Grand Forks. However, when Herberger's closed, the question of what to do with the space was a big one. A few retailers looked at the space and nothing resulted. That is until a mid-west department store that somehow does well when national retailers are dropping.

Von Maur is a fourth generation family run department store founded in 1872 out in Davenport, Iowa. It has slowly grown to 39 stores across the U.S. The 39th store of 90,000 square feet will be in Fargo, North Dakota. It is Von Maur's first store in the state. Perhaps as a family store that doesn't have to fight takeovers of their shares, they have been able to make decisions on their business that has allowed them to survive and expand over the years. 

So what is Von Maur? It is a department store catering to upscale fashion for men and women. They carry a number of fashion lines and have not tried to do so many general merchandise things like Sears or other department stores have. In other words, they have stayed focused on what they are good at. Perhaps the one department store comparable in Canada is Simon's. That is another example of slow, steady and focused while staying privately owned.

Von Maur's also runs a newer, larger mall store group called Dry Goods USA which has over 80 stores across the U.S. including West Acres. All in all Von Maur's and West Acres are a good match. The mall owners there never gave up on finding tenants. And Von Maur has looked for placed where their unique offerings might work. Unlike Columbia Mall which is largely empty, West Acres is set to remain relevant into the future.

The only thing that might hurt the retail success of West Acres is the tariffs. If higher prices lead to a recession and prices spiking from products that have tariffs, there could be problems. How much does Von Maur have from China on the shelf? How many farmer face tariffs selling into China. As far as Canadian tourists go, the numbers are dropping each month. Fargo is no longer part of a lot of people's travel plans. Canada might be in recession already and people will pull back on spending. And no, Canada will not beg to become the 51st state nor welcome an invasion. It just means we will seek other markets until things change in the U.S.

Some businesses won't notice the drop but they will notice the price changes. The tariffs are still fresh and they will be hard to ignore. At the moment, until the pain reaches into every aspect of the economy, most people will ignore it. The question will be what will be the response?

Fargo is a fine city and West Acres a fine mall. They seem to be doing everything they can to continue prosperity and hospitality. Attracting Von Maur is an indication they are doing everything right. At some point, I hope Canadians will be able to enjoy it in the future.

Media Changes in North Dakota and Minnesota

Media shake-ups abound on both sides of the border. in 2024, Winnipeg Sun was spun off from National Post media group to locally owned Kevin Klein Group. It marks the first time that both major newspapers in the city have been owned locally in their history. For the Sun, it has led to more local news columnists. It also led to breaking more stories.

The Winnipeg Free Press has also added more local columnists over the years even if some have been controversial such as Charles Adler. Local is what newspapers and TV/Radio news need to stand out and yes, make money. Large conglomerates cut and cut again and then often just close and add the tax loss to write off debts. They are rarely builders. Free Press ownership is shared by Winnipegger Bob Silver and former Winnipegger Ronald N. Stern.

Two local owners of major newspapers in Canada is so unusual that is you can count on three fingers the cities they are in. For the west, it is only one city: Winnipeg. And so far they are fighting a battle against what many in Europe call the six gatekeepers: Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft. Even those who receive no government money, companies such as these can control access to their platforms. The breakdown of Microsoft update shutting down the Internet is one 2024 example of how bad things can get. And digital ad money gets swooped up and AI from these giants creates content mined from creators all over. In other words, an independent journalist who breaks a story can see it used by the biggies and not get paid for it.

The gatekeepers can do this to even larger companies too. Artificial Intelligence is being used to create new stories. But where does that information come from? It is often mined from companies such as the New York Times. If the largest newspapers, media companies and the like are vulnerable from the super giants, how do the rest of us even cope. Those saying that the government tinkering in business ignore the fact anti-trust moves are to keep things competitive in a capitalist market. For example, the modern Internet became possible when AT&T was broken up. It triggered some of the biggest investments in telecom ever seen which was essential to a widespread, faster Internet.

The questions of what to do about the supranational giants will remain the question of the day. In recent weeks, Google's search engine has been declared a monopoly by the U.S. government. It remains to be seen see what the federal agencies will decide to do. In the meantime, news and media companies are coming up with new strategies to stay relevant and profitable. North Dakota and Minnesota have seen some of their largest media companies make moves in 2024.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has dropped the Minneapolis part and it is now Minnesota Star Tribune. This would be in keeping with their sports teams that have always been wise to using Minnesota for their NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB teams without fail. Minneapolis and St. Paul are truly Twin Cities and there are communities of some size all through the metropolitan area. Changing the name makes sense.

A competing broadsheet in St. Paul, Minnesota also dropped their city name in favour of just Pioneer Press. It is not owned locally and have experienced massive cuts over the years. In 2006 they had over 200 unionized writers. By 2023, that number was down to 23. The MediaNews Group that owns the paper and has a reputation of cuttings. Still, like the Star Tribune, it is trying to extend its readership and their website to include all of Minnesota. Their website is twincities.com which doesn't even mention Pioneer Press.

The Twin Cities also has MinnPost.com which is a non-profit digital news for the region. TV and radio stations have substantial news and sports content in Minnesota as well as North Dakota. PBS has extensive coverage of the regions. While there is less local ownership of TV and radio stations in big markets likes Minneapolis, there remains some. In this way, they are not much different than Winnipeg where nearly all local TV and radio has ownership outside Manitoba.

It is the digital audience that everyone in media is trying to capture. Just as landlines are being cut, people are cutting their print newspapers and cable. The problem is that digital ads don't pay as much as print or TV ones. Plus, the gatekeepers scoop up all the money that is there as well as use the content for their own ends. It is the definition of antitrust. 

What the big digital companies don't do as well is news that people might want or need locally. Reddit has discussions on local stuff but it isn't curated in news, weather and sports categories in the way other media is. To that end, local news and TV/radio in North Dakota and Minnesota are offering much more local appeal. Having a local meteorologist reporting is standard for TV stations in the U.S. where some of the wildest weather keeps them on our toes. Winnipeg does not make this a priority. Also, the new digital sub-channels that a station like WDAY Fargo as makes local sports a priority. Al the high school football games in the Fargo region is on the WDAY sub-channels. We don't have digital sub-channels on TV or radio in Manitoba yet and none seem to be happening in Canada. It would appear media empires and the CRTC just don't see the need. If it is Canadian content guidelines that are required, there would seem to be enough library material of older shows to put in place.

In terms of Minnesota, the 157 years old Star Tribune is hiring more writers, not less. The are focusing on placing more reporters outside Minneapolis-St. Paul and covering areas such as business, downtown, regional state issues and investigations. Cannabis stores are new in Minnesota so they will cover that. This is a familiar area for Free Press who covered cannabis with a dedicated journalist for a while. Overall, the state-wide focus means that the Star Tribune will be reaching large audiences but still remain hyper-local. Large media networks just don't cover those areas except in general terms of news, weather and sports.

There will be a lot of eyes on the Star Tribune's investment in expanded coverage. Glen Taylor, the billionaire local owner, is spending new money on top of the $100 million that he paid for the paper in 2014 has turned the paper around. It makes money and has maintained around 225 writing staff and a total of 1,000 or so altogether. The Free Press, by contrast, has 50 reporter and 580 total staff. The Free Press also have community newspapers, Brandon and Steinbach journalists which adds to total writers in Manitoba.  

The Winnipeg Free Press, like Star Tribune, have rich owners. The Free Press is owned by Bob Silver from Winnipeg and Ronald N. Stern, formerly from Winnipeg but now based in Vancouver. Bob Silver is the director in charge. Stern owns companies valued just under $2 billion including many based in Winnipeg. Some wags have suggested that only papers with deep pocketed owners, preferably local, will ever invest in local media. Examples abound in Canada and the U.S. of this.

Digital subscriptions, as the New York Times has shown, is the way for the newspapers to find success. However, the big six grow ever more powerful so that that they can simply use artificial intelligence to create news stories largely harvested from what others report. All the money flowing to the big six even threatens the major industrial nations. It is the inherent danger if antitrust is not pursued. Total monopolies bullying nations.

The Star Tribune is probably not finished evolving. Both the Star Tribune and Free Press are doing newsletters and podcasts. Those are likely a lot of better for a newspaper than X/Twitter or Facebook. As the fifth largest newspaper in America and the addition of hiring six more Minnesota reporters, it will be creating considerably content.

In Canada, TV and radio conglomerates such as Corus, Rogers and Bell use their news teams across platforms. However, they have all made cuts and likely overpaying for show rights in the U.S. This makes them routinely ask to cut Canadian content. Rarely do they use Canadian-made content such as news as part of their commercial success. The mergers and acquisitions and overpaying for product brings inevitable cuts. And for what? Some of the radio and TV stations that get bought get closed down. Often enough there isn't even an attempt to sell the enterprise. Luckily, in Winnipeg, the National Post sold three papers including the Winnipeg Sun to Kevin Klein so they could be owned locally. There is a strong possibility that the papers might have been closed otherwise.

Throughout North America, the rate of closures is about two newspapers a week. Often this mean no local coverage of any regional issues which can lead to poor performance from local officials who face no scrutiny. You don't need a billionaire for a small media company but you sure could use a leading citizen or two interested in running and operating something that can't be treated like a franchise 

with identical reporting.

The Star Tribune has a billionaire owner in Glen Taylor and a local interested in investing in more reporting. The competitive market in Minnesota will be very interesting to keep an eye on. However, Minnesota is not the only state to keep an eye on. North Dakota has seen their own local media become regional in focus.

In the case of North Dakota, Winnipeg has been able to watch the growth of this media company much more closely. Anyone from Manitoba has been able to read the Grand Forks Herald and Fargo Forum newspapers has been exposed this Pulitzer-prize winning companies. The Herald won the Pulitzer for its coverage of the 1997 flood and fire which flooded and burned down their building.  The Forum won the Pulitzer for coverage of the 1957 F5 tornado that killed over 100 people. It was the northern most F5 today until the Elie, Manitoba F5 in 2007. 

The Black-Marcil family have built their business from the Fargo Forum platform. The newspaper was started in 1878 and took on the name Forum in 1891. The Black-Marcil family have owned it since 1917 and took over the Grand Forks Herald in 2006. Forum Communications is also a TV and radio owner. Most in Winnipeg will be familiar with today's WDAY (formerly WDAZ) that has been on the cable band for decades. Along with Prairie Pubic Broadcasting (PBS), these two station remain the only North Dakota stations still seen in Manitoba.

Forum Communications, from their Fargo headquarters, has run a large news team from their newspaper as well as their TV station. WDAY began in 1953 and was originally a NBC affiliate with a helping of other network programming from CBC, ABC and Dumont. A sister station in Grand Forks was started in 1967 because the region needed a station since Fargo's signal was now powerful enough to reach the area with CBC Winnipeg's broadcast. WDAZ ended in 2006 except for a news bureau of WDAY.

The Marcil family has had to adjust to the size of the state and but to go where their audience is. The state capital is down the highway from Fargo and has to be covered so a Forum bureau reporter is based there. The WDAY network maintains a bureau and sales office in Grand Forks. All of the newspapers that Forum Communications has purchased from big media companies have been folded into a news service that covers North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota.

In 2024, Forum Communications continues to pick up independent TV stations in places like South Dakota with the intent of establishing a regional media presence. The company has been expanding rather contracting. While it was a blow to Grand Forks to lose WDAZ, the trade off has been great state broadcasting of local sports throughout the region including Grand Forks. No national media corporation will ever be interested in this type of work.

Forum also owns WDAY radio but literally everything in radio is owned by huge conglomerates. Forum contracts out management to a North Dakota media group. Almost everything in American AM radio is conservative or Christian broadcasting. In many cases there is not a single employee working aside from some technical person. It has been problematic in disasters as there is often no one to even broadcast emergency signals as mandated by the FCC.

Bismarck, which is the second largest city in North Dakota, literally has no media that is locally owned. Were it not for  Forum Communications, it would not have any North Dakota owned media. So much of newspaper, TV and radio industry is controlled from somewhere else and often, they would rather shutter the business than attempt to sell it. It has been Forum Communications that has picked up these assets when they have come available.

In Canada and the U.S. we have seen newspapers, TV station and radio stations closed down with very little attempt to find buyers. Assets are trades by big corporations and then dumped after after a while. It is only local owners who will care such as we see in Minneapolis and Fargo or in Winnipeg. And the goal of the local owners is to expand coverage and reach a larger regional audience.

1984 Democratic National Convention Tale of Two Cities Speech - Mario Cuomo

I don't remember too much of the 1972 Democratic and Republican conventions as a kid except what might have been on Canadian news. We had only moved into our new house in 1970 and a had a black and white television with rabbit ears and really only two channels. CBC French channel really didn't come in that well in River Heights without a rooftop antenna. We got Videon cable in 1971 and a colour TV in the same year. The colour TV was a gift from my mom's parent's. 

It was our first exposure to ABC, CBS and NBC at home. Our family had begun to venture down to Grand Forks, North Dakota the same year and had discovered Saturday morning cartoons. We would stay at the Town House motel as it had a pool and all shopping at the time was downtown as Columbia Mall was a few years away from being built.

In 1972 in our travels to the States, I noticed the political signs for Republican and Democratic candidates and even in elementary school, it was an impressive site. Pretty much even before elementary school, I was aware of politics through the news. The words Vietnam was something I heard on the news all the time. I knew Canada was not in it but our neighbour to the south was. 

As a child in Canada experience the joy and pride of a new flag, a 100th birthday party for the country and a new prime minister called Pierre Trudeau, there seem to be a celebratory mood everywhere. This was followed by Manitoba's birthday in 1970 and Winnipeg's birthday in 1974. Meanwhile the U.S. seemed to be in chaos with wars, assassinations and street riots. 

Travelling to the U.S. at length showed the U.S. was much more than that. North Dakota and Minnesota were familiar territory and comfortable for those in Winnipeg travelling. It had exciting differences too. Cartoons for one. Cereals for another. And for 7 year old me, the pageantry and colour of a U.S. election was hard to look away from.

As mentioned, I was a bit too young in 1972 to stay up late watching the U.S. conventions. On a school night, it would be unusual for me to be up past 9 and that is when things were just getting going for conventions. However, by 1976 I was old enough and aware enough about real differences in the U.S. and Canada. Our family travelled months in the U.S. in the early 1970s which gave a different spin on what one saw on TV and through entertainment.

The amount of media exposure a kid could have by 1976 to the U.S. was overwhelming. And with only a dozen TV stations, the shared experiences via that medium were more widespread. Kids all over were watching Six Million Dollar Man in 1973. Today, there is far more diversity in entertainment offerings. May don't watch TV at all in favour of video gaming. As far as news goes today, if kids don't see it on TikTok, it often is something they don't know about. 

As a little kid I remember the whole house watching the Apollo lunar landings in 1969. The broadcast were watched by nearly 90% of the population. Today that number would seem to be impossible no matter the newsworthiness. CBC covered the landing for hours just as all world networks did. The National on CBC TV was on at 11 pm so my exposure to news was mostly from the local news at 6:30 PM, Yes, you heard that right. CBC's 24Hours news program ran 6:30 to 7:30 until 1977. In our house, we had CBC Radio on and listened to the national news at 6 while eating at the dining room table. With no microwave, toaster oven or other cooking devices, dinners took longer to prepare. In 1971, we'd listen to As it Happens at 6:30 PM with Barbara Frum before the TV might go on.

The 1972 U.S. election saw Richard Nixon re-elected with the biggest majority ever by a Republican. The U.S. economy was booming even as the Vietnam War continued. The Canadian economy, by contrast, was slumping and the Trudeau government was re-elected with a minority. In Manitoba, it meant the only Liberal representation was businessman James Richardson who served in the cabinet. As as kid I saw how Trudeau went from loved to hated in four years. It was mystifying. However, in retrospect the Canadian and U.S. elections happened almost at the same time and a turn to Republicans in the States had some impact in Canada as people compared economies. The 1972 Summit Hockey series was on at start of campaign but did little to help Pierre Trudeau make people forget inflation.

Since Canada has different part conventions, there is no excitement of selecting a leader and policy debates can be a little dry. Both the Liberals and PCs had leaders in 1972. Even Nixon has to secure his party's nomination despite being incumbent president. All I remembered from the 1972 Democratic National convention in New York was that it was chaotic. The Vietnam War still raged on but an extremely Democrats were not able to capitalize and ran on a very liberal platform. Their nominee McGovern was not able to balance the ticket with a big city Democrat with Kennedy-like popularity and by the time he secured the nomination he ended up giving his acceptance speech around 3 AM. Nixon would go on to beat McGovern badly.

It would be the following year that I began delivering the Winnipeg Tribune. I had started filling in the year before and started my own route the next year. For kids, comics was often the first thing they read in the paper. Often sports might come next. I was already interested in the news so as a carrier I would usually read the paper cover to cover. People in Winnipeg were either Free Press people or Tribune people.

The Vietnam War was still a major issue but something called Watergate began to emerge in the U.S. and appearing in the papers in Winnipeg. Nixon dominated the headlines. It was around 1973 that I started watching American evening news more regularly. At first it was CBS and Walter Kronkite, then some NBC with John Chancellor. However, because ABC kept trying to reach new audiences, I would tune in to them and often keep watching their programming into the evening.

I mention the networks because CBS, NBC and ABC all build large studios at Democratic and Republican conventions. It is a rather impressive fare when seen with the backdrop of every state having markers for their delegates and the large convention arena seating. As mentioned, I was a bit too young to have been following the 1972 U.S. conventions but the 1976 ones were a different story.

In 1975, Saturday Night Live started on NBC and in the central time zone, it was on at 10:30 PM. It was the perfect program for weekends for younger people. While I had seen presidential and political humour on Johnny Carson, the craziness of SNL was unparalleled. Nixon was gone but they managed to parody Gerald Ford with pratfalls done by Chevy Chase that were hilarious.

It was shocking to me how popular Nixon was in 1972 and by 1974 he was most hated. My memory of him leaving out the back door by Marine helicopter while Ford took over in the front door remains with me today. The shocking decline felt familiar to me as in 1968 Trudeau was super popular but by 1972 had fallen hard.

I had been interested in politics right from Kindergarten. A teacher had told my parents that I shouldn't be worried about the Arab-Israeli conflict. I obviously had talked about it at school after listening to the news at home. By 1973, I was seeing a war in Israel and was still asking questions but school was a great place to ask them. My school text often had American references to presidents in them. Canadian history was thin. World history even thinner.

By 1976, I was able to take in the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Gerald Ford had to fight a contested nomination with a few challengers such as Ronald Reagan in the convention in Kansas City in August. I was unfamiliar with the primary system but I do know that there were many who were not happy in the party with the Fall of Saigon, détente and what happened with Nixon's resignation. 

By contrast, the Democrats seemed more upbeat and Jimmy Carter, Governor of Georgia ran as an outsider. In 1975, our family had passed through Georgia on the way to Florida. I remembered Carter's name from our travels there. Carter chose Walter Mondale, the senator from Minnesota. 

The one thing I really remembered was the keynote speech from the Democratic convention in  New York was Barbara Jordan, the first black woman to address at convention. She had recently been elected to Congress in Texas. It was a great speech and was the first time I had heard of a keynote speech before. It was amazing and surprisingly, no duplicated in the 1980 convention.

Jimmy Carter won the election but a terrible economy, price and wage controls and Iran taking American hostages crushed Democrats in the polls. Ronald Regan was back. I remember a little about the conventions. They were a little chaotic but then the who election cycle was overshadowed by American hostages. The Republican convention in Detroit had a keynote speaker who spoke with no notes for 37 minutes and probably set the tone for what was to come with Reagan. It really was a movement.

I won't go into all the conventions but in 1984 Reagan's speech to Republic National Convention and Mario Cuomo's speech were among the finest ever given at a convention ever. I have included Cuomo's speech above.

Will Dinner Theatre Ever Return?

 For the first time in decades, Winnipeg has no dinner theatre. It has been some time since Celebrations has closed. A combination of years of Covid, rising inflation and a union strike made theatre owners throw in the towel. It remains to be seen whether a private theatre serving dinner will ever be able to get off the ground again in Winnipeg.

Over the decades we have had Holly Mug and Stagewest Dinner Theatre in Winnipeg. The only one listed as still active in Winnipeg is the Tara Players Irish Theatre and Dinner. It is unlikely that Winnipeg has tired of dinner theatre but the margins much be tight and renting a spot in a hotel has to be difficult. Owning your site is probably helpful but that rarely seems to be the case.

Still, Celebrations was around since 1990 and probably able to keep its costs downs by having the same theatre production show in Calgary as well as Edmonton. The days of Canad Inns having their nightclubs and other attractions filled has obviously been more challenging the last few years.

You never want to say never say never when it comes to things making a comeback. Yuk Yuk's is back with a comedy club in Winnipeg at the Hotel Fort Garry after many years of not being here. 

Some dinner theatres like Medieval Times around North America rely on tourism. While tourists likely came to Celebrations, it relied on Winnipeggers and surrounding areas for the bulk of their audiences. The shortage of restaurant staff and the uncertain dynamic post pandemic probably means no business will be in a rush to open. Sill, it will be curious what Canad Inns does with the property. Additional meetings rooms? Performance space?

Stagewest success, which started in Edmonton, was that that they were operators of hotels and wrote literally thousands of plays to perform in their dinner theatre. The Winnipeg operation only closed on Kennedy Street because of the construction of Portage Place. 

I think dinner theatre remains something that Winnipeggers want but it will likely not get unless it has a major partner from a hotel, restaurant or theatre company.  In Calgary and Edmonton, Jubilations (Celebrations sister locations) are based at shopping malls including the West Edmonton Mall. 

The two most likely spots for a dinner theatre would seem to be Polo Park or St. Vital Shopping Centre. However, both are nearly full or completely leased and would likely have to be fully committed to the concept. I am more surprised that neither mall has added a hotel attached to the mall as an amenity. Give the approvals CF Cadillac Fairview has for development around Polo Park that isn't a bad bet. Still, we haven't seen the type of hotel development around malls in this province that U.S. malls have. Even Columbia Mall in Grand Forks which could be called a failed mall still has several hotels surrounding it.

I don't think anything will happen soon but after decades of dinner theatre, it is hard to imagine that it will never return.

USA Today

The above is the cover of USA Today first publish on September 15, 1982. For those Winnipeggers looking to get a copy at the international newsstands, it wasn't easy. Even in the States it was limited to only a few metropolitan areas. However, the colour pages, graphics and weather map of the entire United States would go on to influence every other print paper including the Winnipeg Free Press. Derided by the big news groups at the time as being McPaper, it lost money until 1987.

It was in 1984 that USA Today's began to show up in Winnipeg. Unlike the U.S., it cost 50 cents. Canada got the U.S. version rather than the newly developed international version. Eventually USA Today boxes that looked different from any other news box arrived in the city. In various parts of the downtown and even in neighbourhoods like River Heights, the USA boxes shaped like TV stands appeared, usually by bus stops.

It would be wrong to call it the great era of newspapers in Winnipeg as each era has had great and sometimes terrible moments. The historical start of Winnipeg had many scrappy English and non-English newspapers covering the region and beyond. The 1970s had an epic battle between the The Winnipeg Free Press and the Winnipeg Tribune with many innovations for subscribers. Sadly, that ended when the Tribune closed in 1980.

Luckily, Winnipeg only went a number of months before a number of local business people and former writers of the Tribune got together to start the Winnipeg Sun. While tabloid in format, it was local and distinguishable from Sun counterparts for nearly 20 years. The sports department was excellent and the yellow news boxes were easily recognizable. From 1980 on there were often four or five news boxes on prominent corners. Local, national and international. And a good book store or new store might have copies of everything from New York Times to the Calgary Herald. It was a heyday for print media.

And why not? There was no Internet and print was the best way to report news and make money from advertising. Our family at one point sometimes had four newspapers in the house. With no Sunday shopping till the late 1980s, a weekend paper would stretch over two days. The Sun eventually added a Sunday paper and people took a section each to read whether it was local, sports, comics or opinion. 

USA Today had a Friday, Saturday and Sunday version that I'd pick up. The price of 50 cents a day was too rich for me but a weekend paper often had special sections. Their "Labor" weekend paper was usually something we picked up when down in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The early 1980s Columbia Mall had 71 stores along with Target, JCPenney and Dayton's. Prior to the 1978 opening of Columbia, our family had made a few trips to Fargo, North Dakota for the 1972 built West Acres Mall.  Often it was just a day trip from Grand Forks where we'd have our hotel. In Grand Forks, as young kids I remember shopping in downtown Grand Forks.

By 1984, we mostly stayed only in Grand Forks at the Westward Ho. And we always picked up a Grand Forks Herald and a USA Today. The Sunday Herald was thick with ads that we perused before shopping. The USA Today on Labor Day would feature the upcoming TV season. I had occasionally bought TV Guide's Fall Preview but found it less satisfactory than reading USA Today.  Our family was fairly well informed about what might be good in the coming season. A lot it was revealed in the TV listings of both Free Press and Sun. But USA Today compared and contrasted the offerings and got me excited about shows I might like.

USA Today also ran special sections for baseball and the NFL that were popular. I'd liked the graphics for the various shuttle missions. The most impressive thing that often attracted the eye was the full page weather map. I contend that more geography and sense of America came from looking at the 50 state weather map than what appeared in any national media or in education. It also listed much of the world fairly well.

I loved the USA Today logo. The new one since 2012 feels more washed out and even years later I'm still not used to it. Truth is, since the pandemic, I have only been to the States once since 2019 and that was this spring. One thing had changed and that is, it isn't easy to find print newspapers of any kind. Where they used to be at every gas station or news boxes outside restaurants, these things have gone missing. And hotels used to have newspapers at front desk for free or dropped by your room. I still see newspapers at some Winnipeg hotels but not once in 2023 south of the border.

Perhaps the assumption is that people will get all their information and news online. However, the roaming charges for Canadians makes use of a cellphone prohibitive except when using WIFI. The good news is that WIFI is far more available than it was prior to the pandemic. But I'll be honest. I don't like reading newspapers or magazines very much on a cellphone. As such, I sought out USA Today and found it hard to find a print copy. I had to do a search about retailers who sold it. Some grocers and gas stations. But far less than a few years ago. And far less copies!

Contrast that to Winnipeg where there are quite a few Saturday papers at most 7/11s and grocers. And a good supply any other time they print during the week. The digital wave is only a part of the assault on news. Polarization means that many people stick to their silos when it comes to news and media. USA Today has some editorial and opinion content that is ranked left of centre but there is enough to appeal to many with sports, weather and entertainment as well as news stories from across the United States.

I hope papers like USA Today survive in print. We have seen books and records make comebacks in part because people have preferred the format instead of a digital option. The newspaper once called McPaper has been far more resilient, colourful and national than than the regional fare that came before it but it wasn't really meant to replace your local paper. The national scope of the newspaper was what made it different and special. Here's to many more years of USA Today.

May Long Weekends

The Victoria Day weekend in Canada and the Memorial Day weekend in the United have followed one another almost the entire history of our two countries. Above is Fargo from a recent visit.

There is meaning behind both day although a lot of it seems lost in the rush to get to campground or beach.

Given geography, it might have been better for each country to exchange the week. Canada’s May 24 is often three different weather events over three days from snow, rain to sun. A week later might at least drop the snow part.

As for the U.S., they seem to have a lot of severe late May weather. Still, the general feeling is that the weekends are the kick off of summer as school age kids have that last weekend before most end school in the weeks ahead.

Travel is usually required. And barbecue and family often a must. As my dad was a teacher, the Victoria Day weekend was a getaway to either Grand Forks or Fargo. We didn’t get as far as Minneapolis except when travelling in the longer summer break.

Others in Manitoba took the time to officially open the cottage if it hadn’t been open already. As mentioned the weeks leading up to the May Long could be fabulous or terrible. A cottage weekend on Victoria could be three days of cold rain playing cribbage, trivial pursuit or puzzles. High speed, cable and satellite are more recent cottage attractions. Still, not every cottage is so equipped.

In Winnipeg, those remaining in the city made a sci-fi weekend a main attraction. And it should be pointed out that not everyone travels. For university and college students, it is a busy work weekend.

However, for our family, it was a chance to be in a pool, shop at stores not yet arrived in Canada and watch more TV channels and programs than we thought possible.

For Canadians, the Memorial weekend in the States meant the kick off the Hollywood blockbuster from the mid 1970s on. This weekend, of course, is Disney with a live version of The Little Mermaid.

But it also means seeing channels with Memorial Day programming. This means movies about war, many WWII movies. The second war is as important to Canada as it is to the States and Hollywood made a few films with Canadian angles. However, we did not have the industry then that we do today. Nor do we do nearly enough Canadian stories for the big screen. Blackberry this past month in the first in a long while that we have seen.

Still, the two weekends represent family, friendship and a chance to do something we don’t do nearly enough, get together and share something in common.

Prairie Public Television in Manitoba 1975

The year 1975 was an important year for television in Manitoba. Cable came to Winnipeg in 1968 and over the next few years more and more people in the city were starting to sign up for it. The first station in Winnipeg was a bilingual CBWT in 1954 and for the first two years it had affiliations with the Paramount Network in Los Angeles which meant Winnipeggers first exposure to wrestling on TV was Hollywood Wrestling. The below map is from Wikipedia listing on the defunct Paramount network.

CBC began to scale up year by year. News was just a weekly affair Tuesday in 1959. By 1960, the CBC was split into an English channel and French channel. In 1961, Winnipeg was home to a third channel of the  eventual CTV network. CJAY (later CKY by 1973) and the two CBC channels were the only channels picked up over the air. It wasn't always easy to pick up the French channel in our family home in River Heights even with rabbit ears.

With no cable most of the 1960s, Winnipeg made do with three channels with a fourth KCND beaming in from Pembina, North Dakota. This station, the smallest in the United States, carried NBC and ABC programming and was strictly set up as a pirate station for the Winnipeg market. Reception wasn't always great so the broadcaster actually sold antennas in Winnipeg because profitability depended on Canadian businesses buying commercials. We never did get an antenna but many home owners in the city did. The way, the C in  KCND stood for Canada. The above was the full page ad published in Winnipeg Free Press on August 29. 1975 when KCND shut down and moved to Canada. Below unsourced picture of KCND. Unknown date. The View from Seven has a wonderful backgrounder on the race for KCND and CJAY to get on the air. https://theviewfromseven.wordpress.com/tag/cjay/

Colour TV broadcasts in Canada did not start till 1966. Even though U.S. broadcasts were being produced for some time in colour, Canada was slow to adopt. In Winnipeg, it was not more common until 1969. This was probably directly related to cable first coming to the city in 1968 and the availability of so much colour programming from ABC, CBS and NBC. Still, it was not till 1974 that full-time colour programming came to Canada. It was a slow rollout to say the least. Kind of like Hi Def from Standard Def which seems like it has taken even more time.

Cable TV was an improvement on choice of channels for people in Winnipeg. However, reception continued to be a problem in the warmer months. A bad thunderstorm and the picture might be unwatchable. Even the French channel in the last 1970s and early 1980s could fuzz out, The racy weekend fare of the French channel was usually what was the least consistent in reception. The complaints on reception on every U.S. came in every year for more than 15 years.

The offerings of KCND made people in Winnipeg crave more of the offerings it had, especially older movies and past TV series. Even kids, who had plenty of material from the U.S. networks such as Saturday cartoons knew that there was programming they would never find on those stations. For example, I saw the animated Star Trek before the original series. I missed out on the the first 1960s run of the show as I was too young.

Our family travelled to U.S. on long camping trips and to Grand Forks or Fargo for weekend trips starting in the 1970s. Every now and then we'd stay in motels on the long trips and there is when we first encountered PBS, the U.S. public broadcaster. We were already familiar with Sesame Street which CBC showed with Canadian segments in 1972, three years after it started in the U.S. Sesame Street actually preceded PBS' origins. The kids show started in 1969 whereas PBS started in 1970.

I remember in 1973 when in the States during a long weekend seeing PBS on a hotel TV doing gavel to gavel coverage of the Watergate hearings. It was the first network to actually show it on primetime. Remember my parents being rather horrified and my dad saying that my grandfather had thought Richard Nixon had been a good president. My brother and sister were not so interested but none of us were unware of how tense things were in the U.S. with the Vietnam War and Watergate going on. It was much easier to seek refuge in Sesame Street although in those early years our parents were wondering if we learning too much Spanish rather than French. The CBC segments removed the Spanish content over the years for French or unique Canadian segments. Many were filmed right in Winnipeg.

August 30, 1975, Winnipeg Free Press

It is quite extraordinary that although TV in Manitoba began in 1954 (first stations for Canada in Toronto and Montreal in 1952), it took some time for the country to develop infrastructure to support additional channels. By the end of the 1950s, 9 out of 10 families in Canada had a black and white TV. And although there was a hunger for Canadian content, there was so little of it. And in some cases, no motivation to create it by the private sector. By 1958, there was a recognition that for English Canada in particular, reliance on the United States entirely for content was not in the self interest of the country. By 1968, that came with a real mission to support Canadian content.

It came just in time because cable television really exposed all of Canada to huge amounts of U.S. product. They very culture of Canada came into question on whether our ability to stand as nation was strong enough to survive. We had just become an independent nation and that need to make our own way was strong but it didn't come without support. Some critics to this very day want to end that support but have never indicated how they expect culture and business to flourish in such an environment. In some cases, it seems to suggest we should be part of the U.S. which I don't see wide support of.

By 1975, people in Winnipeg were hankering for a third station based in Winnipeg. CBC and CTV were accepted well enough. In fact, the two networks were helping to entrench professional sport in Canada by covering the NHL and CFL. For the NHL, there was nearly no interest in the broadcast side of things south of the border. Likewise, curling would never have generated interest in the U.S. It was ownership and content rules that made that possible. Left to their own ends, the stations would have become affiliates of U.S. networks and done none of those things.

By the mid 1970s, it became untenable for KCND on the border beaming into Winnipeg, especially when the Canadian government was about to license a new local station built around somewhat around the same format. That set the stage for one of the most unique broadcasting sales and relocations in North America history where KCND became CKND and moved from Pembina to Winnipeg with a change to Canadian ownership.

But this isn't about that change in 1975 TV in Winnipeg as significant as it was. This is about the coming of Prairie Public Television and PBS to the Winnipeg market. The Public Broadcast System was new to North Dakota even though educational TV went back further historically in the State. By 1970, PBS bought the public system and in 1974 the Prairie Public Television network was official in name and title. This happened the same year as KGFE was established in Grand Forks, North Dakota which made it possible to for a signal to be picked up and put on Winnipeg's cable line-up.

It is safe to say that the arrival of CKND and Prairie Public TV in 1975 was a game changer for television in Winnipeg. CKND replicated the old movies and series that made KCND popular while fulfilling their CRTC mandate of local news and sports that made the local market truly competitive for the next two decades. The first broadcasts of the Winnipeg Jets began on CKND in their WHA days. However, they did meaningful work in indigenous and Metis reporting and had the Ray St. Germaine Show. Not mention talks shows and kid shows.

Meanwhile, Prairie Public TV which was only five years as a PBS station when it joined the Winnipeg cable line-up probably had no idea how much support financially Canadians would put into their public TV enterprise, The small curtained studio during pledge week would have phones ringing off the hook for movies and other programs. The production values were quaint but when the host read off the pledges, more than half of them were from Manitobans. Other PBS stations have run afoul with with Canadian Revenue Agency over the years but not Prairie Public. It created a clear division and board of directors for Manitoba and they made their own decisions including funding programs made locally for Prairie Public.

In the beginning Saskatchewan was part of Prairie Public but for many years have received their signal from Detroit PBS. Winnipeg also receives a signal from Detroit on cable but it is not on HD. Since 1982, around 20% of Canadian households get their PBS from Detroit. The thing is that that Detroit does not issue Canadian tax receipts nor has a group in Canada that does what Prairie Public does. Occasionally, I have watched a pledge drive by Detroit PBS and it is quite striking the amount of callers from Saskatchewan and Manitoba calling to make pledges. Nearly 2.5 million Canadians get Detroit PBS in their homes. That is actually more than in Detroit itself.

Even with a station in Grand Forks, hot summers and a storm could zap the signal. I remember watching Where Eagles Dare with my parents in the late 1970s starring Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. First time for any in the family to watch this 1968 movie set in WWII and it was a real corker. It was down to the last few minute and the big reveal was about to be made when the worsening storm outside and all the way down to the Dakotas took the show off the air. It was replaced by static while I screamed nooo for at least 10 minutes. Went to bed not knowing how it ended and it would take a number of years to watch it again to the end. 

It is easy to imagine this type of loss of signal from a lot of the North Dakota stations led to the 1986 decision by cable companies in Manitoba and Saskatchewan dropping a number of stations. Winnipeg dropped the NBC and CBS Fargo stations for Detroit. While the signal was better, the news in metro market there was a far cry much more peaceful North Dakota. A move to Toledo stations was not much better. The last move to Minneapolis stations was much better accepted.

Throughout this time, cable continued to carry WDAZ (ABC) and Prairie Public in Manitoba. While WDAZ in Devil's Lake/Grand Forks lost its station, the signal and all its commercial inserts from the city remain except where Canadian commercial substitution is in effect. The near Manitoba death experience saw the two stations boost their signal strength and they have been a fixture of our insight into North Dakota ever since. Not to be outdone, CBC has been a fixture of Grand Forks cable stations since the 1980s as well. 

Former stations in Fargo of KXJB (CBS) and KTHI (ABC and later NBC)  were delisted with the switch to NBC and CBS signals from Detroit and then later to Toledo and Minneapolis. The two stations had the distinction of having the tallest towers in the world for their antennas. KTHI is now KVLY and KXJB became KRDK. The new KLVY keeps on the KXJB name and call sign as well as the CBS affiliation under one roof. They share the same news crews and studios.

Digital has changed how local stations are in the United States. Every one of them has several split off from their signal. Even Prairie Public Television has four different offerings. In Manitoba, we receive only the main channel but there is also PBS Kids, World, Lifelong and MN Ch. Manitobans who donate to Prairie Public get Passport access to content online. 

The relationship between Manitoba and North Dakota's Prairie Public Television has been a healthy one that has been good for both countries. Canadian Revenue Agency has been fully supportive of organization in Manitoba that supports Prairie Public unlike some other groups in Canada. The reason, in short, is that Manitoba keeps a separate board of directors and actually creates award winning programming that has viewers both sides of the border. Canadian viewers also get to support Prairie Public in getting top flight programming that includes Frontline and Masterpiece as well as unique documentaries and dramas. 

It is a shame that Saskatchewan had to go Detroit in 1986. Any contribution they make does not get a tax receipt in Canada and no unique Canadian programming that is from Saskatchewan ever airs in Detroit and never will.

In two years, it will be 50 years of Prairie Public TV in Manitoba. In that time we have seen them grow from that tiny pledge TV studio to a professional operation that contributes unique programming to the prairies. In a digital world, it is hard to see where broadcasting will be in the future but the links between North Dakota and Manitoba ought to be stronger, not weaker. 

Certainly when 1975 hit with two new TV stations for the Winnipeg market, it was as exciting as you can imagine. Both CKND and Prairie Public TV were about as different as can be but both enriched the province with both local, North American and international fare.

Gordmans Store Closing in Grand Forks and Fargo, North Dakota

The retail apocalypse continues in Grand Forks and Fargo, North Dakota. Longtime department store retailer Gordmans are closing their 55,000 square foot locations near the major malls of West Acres Fargo and Columbia Mall in Grand Forks.

Signs in the windows at both announced the closures and the discounts for stock till it is gone.

Both Fargo and Grand Forks have reeled from the multiple closures of stores that have probably had a bigger impact than in Winnipeg. The various vacancies in city malls north of the border are slowly filling save for Polo Park.

Shopping habits have changed dramatically for Americans as they use Amazon and others to receive deliveries at home. It has left malls coming up with ideas such as food halls to change the experience from one of shopping to recreation.

Still, the change in places like Grand Forks and Fargo are so fast and so big and undoing 40 years of retail experience that it has startled many. For many Winnipeggers who spent years in both malls and surrounding retail area it will come as a reminder that shopping trips to North Dakota are not as they were in the 1970 through the early 2000s.

Grand Forks and Fargo are great cities. They have other experiences that make them so but no lie that the death of retail there is as solid a threat to each city as annual spring flooding or even the big one that crippled them both. The question is: How will they re-build?

Bed Bath and Beyond in Grand Forks to Close Thanksgiving

Grand Forks and Fargo have to be wondering when it ends. One retailer after another is closing in their cities at a pace that is breathtaking. And now another has announced it will be closing in Grand Forks. Bed Bath and Beyond has given U.S. Thanksgiving in November as a timetable of its closure.

There will be 20 workers affected by the closure which has been blamed on a failure to renew a lease on land adjacent to Columbia Mall. Stores in Fargo and Bismarck will remain open. The store has been a fixture of Grand Forks and a favourite for Manitoba shopping for 18 years.

Trips by people to North Dakota and Minnesota the most recent long weekends have been greeted with shock at the devastating closures. They don't even come close to what has been happening in Canada.

It would appear that West Acres in Fargo and Columbia Mall in Grand Forks are trying to re-vitalize their malls with with so many store closures, it won't be retail that fills all the spaces.

Meanwhile in Winnipeg Grant Park, Northgate, Garden City and Kildonan Place have all gone through or are going through major upgrades that fill lost retail space from the last three years.

Fargo North Dakota K-Mart to Close in December

In 1962 Fargo was one of the first places to get a K-Mart. Prior to that the name was Kresge's, a name Winnipeggers were equally familiar with at Polo Park or Portage Avenue. Winnipeg's Kresge's was constructed in 1954 downtown and then another in 1959 in Polo Park. Kresge's ended in Winnipeg in the 1980s and K-Mart ended in Canada in 1994.

K-Mart has been a mismanaged company for decades after once numbering over 2000 stores. The Canadian stores, in a pattern we have seen from U.S. retailers, were bled dry to pay for missteps in the U.S.

In the U.S. we have seen two sinking ships K-Mart and Sears bound together in failure. Sears in Canada was sacrificed to keep the U.S operations afloat. It hasn't worked. Stores keep closing.

Fargo and Grand Fork, North Dakota have seen Sears and K-Marts shut down in their metros. Fargo-Moorhead lost the Moorhead K-Mart in 2016. Sears closed at West Acres in 2017, Sam's Club in Moorhead in 2018. Herberger's in Fargo West Acres in 2018.

Macys in Columbia Mall Grand Forks closed in 2017. Sears closed in the same mall in 2018. Pier 1 Imports at the parking lot there closed 2018 as well. Horbacher's Grocery store nearby closed in 2018.

In short, it is a disaster. Both major Grand Forks and North Dakota malls are looking to change things up. There is no such thing as an anchor store anymore.

And now in Fargo along University, south of North Dakota State University, the city loses their last K-Mart.

Too many stores, too much online shopping and and changes in what people like are the main culprit.

Winnipeg has not seen as deep a smackdown but even in this city, we are re-evaluating what a mall is known for. Polo Park is considering residential which may be the smartest dynamic for future success.

For Winnipeg's travelling to North Dakota, the question is: Will their shopping stop in Pembina, North Dakota just for pick-ups?