Melissa Martin
Winnipeg Free Press
Canada
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Past articles by Melissa:
Once more into the downtown
In the opening decades of the 20th century, optimism for the bustling Portage strip, and the blocks lined up neatly around it, was overflowing. The City of Winnipeg was growing, booming with new European settlers and new business, signs of the wealth being extracted from the land in a young colonial country, and the promises of more wealth to come. → Read More
Roger Roulette spent a lifetime dedicated to understanding, analyzing and preserving his native Ojibwe language
It’s hard for Pat Ningewance to guess how many times it’s happened, that she’ll be working on a translation and find herself stuck. It’s never easy to translate between tongues, especially two as different as English and Ojibwe; so even Ningewance, a renowned University of Manitoba professor and translator, sometimes comes across a term that leaves her stumped. → Read More
Santos secures second term in Point Douglas
Vivian Santos is headed back to city hall for her second term as the councillor for Point Douglas. The incumbent comfortably held off challenges from businessman Moe El Tassi and former real estate br... → Read More
Sagkeeng woman a ‘thriver,’ not a survivor
POWERVIEW — Victoria McIntosh walked into court carrying the tiny coat over her arm, gently folded. It was the coat her grandmother Pauline Guimond had made for her. → Read More
City must take care not to overreact after spate of violence at The Forks
Not long ago, on one of the first warm and rainless days of summer, I brought a young Ukrainian family to The Forks for an afternoon of exploring the grounds. I’d first met them in Poland, while reporting on the humanitarian needs that flowed out from the war; they’d arrived in Canada a few weeks earlier, and I was excited to show them around. → Read More
Canada Day for all, from all perspectives
Somewhere in the ragtag collection of images that compose my childhood memory, images that circle through my mind like slides in an old carousel projector, there are pictures of the one Fourth of July spent in the United States. We must’ve been in California, on one of our many trips there to visit family. → Read More
A voice from within the shelter
On a sticky-hot evening, the bus shacks of Winnipeg sit mostly empty, void both of people waiting for the bus and of people who find under their roofs a sheltered, if not entirely comfortable, place to stay. For all the words about the latter groups that have spackled the news as of late, there are few out tonight. → Read More
Portal into Indigenous tuberculosis history puts stories in new light
On a grassy patch of land along the highway that runs through Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, across the road from the radio station, lies an old Anglican cemetery dotted with weathered wooden crosses.In one section, two rows of graves reach out towards the fences. → Read More
U of M conference looks at Indigenous perspectives in science
Long ago, the crops must have made their way north, carried along trade routes that linked every forest and plain and coast, spreading from what is now widely known as Mesoamerica to the regions east of the Great Lakes. Maize, beans and squash. → Read More
Search for remains in Brady landfill brings back haunting memories
Someone told Vernon Mann first, which was a loving thing to do. That day someone from the Indigenous social service agency Ka Ni Kanichihk called to tell him about an awful thing that would soon be in the news: Winnipeg police were searching Brady landfill for the partial remains of 24-year-old Rebecca Contois, who was found murdered last month. → Read More
Festival riffs off Main Street’s storied past
Fifty years later, Billy Joe Green can still remember one of the biggest breaks of his career. It was 1971, and his band was asked to become the house band at the Brunswick, an old Main Street hotel and bar. → Read More
Latvia navigating geopolitical high wire toward hopeful new order
On the evening of Feb. 23, Kaspars Ozoliņš was in Ottawa, where he’d just arrived to begin his new diplomatic post as Latvia’s ambassador to Canada. → Read More
Miserable weather not stopping hardy Manitobans from camping, spending time at the lake
WASAGAMING, Man. — Under the steady thrum of the rain, which has been falling all day and just won’t stop, Bob Nickel hops out of his truck. He surveys how the camper he’s been towing is resting, tilted on the uneven ground, its tires mired in muck. → Read More
Racist supermarket slaughter was sadly inevitable
That afternoon, after visiting her husband at a nursing home, 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield stopped by a grocery store on her way home. That afternoon, Andre Mackniel went to buy a birthday cake for his three-year-old son. → Read More
School division dropped the ball with coach’s investigation, parents say
Years before a Winnipeg high school football coach was charged with offences relating to the sexual abuse and exploitation of students, parents at Vincent Massey Collegiate raised alarms with school and division officials that youths in his program were being bullied and could be in danger. → Read More
Ukrainian support effort draws diverse band of volunteers
On a park bench in central Lviv, close to a monument to poet Taras Shevchenko and, further up the street, the grand opera house that stands as the city’s most famous attraction, a man sat slouched, as if melted into the slats. The city purred in the crisp spring afternoon, come alive after the morning’s air-raid alerts; the man straightened up eagerly as I passed by. → Read More
Lviv stands firm beneath a foreboding sky
LVIV, Ukraine — As a muted sun spread over Lviv that morning, a low and droning hum slipped inside the hostel where I was still sleeping, working its way into my slowly waking ears. In those hazy first seconds of consciousness, I tried to make sense of what I was hearing: was it air strike sirens starting up again? I opened my eyes, and fumbled for my phone. → Read More
Poland welcomes Ukrainian refugees, but its handling of humanitarian crises is rarely flawless
KRAKOW, Poland — When I first arrived in Poland a little more than three weeks ago, I began taking pictures of anything I saw on the streets that pledged solidarity for Ukraine. I gave up on this project, mostly, after my collection swelled to over 100 images taken in just one city and only a couple of days. → Read More
From Odesa, by way of Pinawa, with love
WRZEŚNIA, Poland — The horses watch with cursory interest as three-year-old Timur Mykholevskiy tries to scramble over the lower planks of a fence that leads away from the pen. It’s a valiant effort, but the boy’s legs are too short to quite carry him over, so he wriggles and grunts and finally stretches his hand towards two visiting reporters. → Read More
Winnipeg-born Michael Rubenfeld helping to keep Ukraine’s broken hearts beating through art
KRAKOW — On Feb. 15, nine days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Oksana Pyzh and her husband packed up their kid, their car and a few of their things, and began the long drive west from their home in Kharkiv, towards Poland, stopping every few hours along the way. → Read More