Wizards & Wands soirée in Sudbury supports families of child with cancer
Sudbury's 'Wizards and Wands' event returns Saturday, raising funds for families of children with cancer. The Harry Potter-themed soirée features magic, games, vendors and more. Last year's event raised $10,000, with organizers aiming to double that this year. Tickets are still available.
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CTV News
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- CTV News
Here's how a Montreal teen is helping Ukraine
Aleksander Yakimiw-Martin, 26, is raising money for his home country of Ukraine, one haircut at a time. Aleksander Yakimiw-Martin first learned to cut hair in school. Now a part-time barber, he takes each client's haircut seriously, with passion and precision. But lately, each cut has taken on more meaning. 'I wanted to do something personal to help Ukraine, so I'm a barber, so I thought, why not use that skill to do some good?,' said Yakimiw-Martin. The 16-year-old created 'Haircuts for Hope.' He first got the idea after giving a haircut to a Ukrainian refugee at his church. Now he's doing it at Dynasty Barbershop in Pointe-Claire, where he's worked for the past year. He donates $10 from every cut to help keep lights on in classrooms and rebuild schools in war-torn Ukraine. 'It gives them the same chance that I have to learn with light and without bombs,' he told CTV News. The teenager says he feels lucky to live here, especially since he has relatives back in Ukraine. What's happening to his family's home country is never far from his mind. He wears a Ukrainian trident around his neck; a symbol of resilience, amid the ongoing fight for freedom. 'My grandparents are Ukrainian, my parents are Ukrainian. We grew up speaking Ukrainian in our house, and we stayed really close to our heritage.' His coworkers say taking on the fundraiser at such a young age proves why he's a cut above the rest. 'I'm super proud of him and all of us here are it's super cool that he could, like, use his passion and his craft to fund this whole thing and make a real difference in the world,' said Dynasty Barbershop manager William Godbout. Yakimiw-Martin's goal is to raise $1,000. One of his clients, Kyle Gales, said, 'It's nice knowing that my money's going to like a good cause' after getting his haircut. The barber hopes the buzz continues to grow, so he can give back even more to schools in Ukraine, one cut at a time.
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
‘This is totally unique': Why the RAM is rejuvenating a taxidermied elephant from the 60s
The Royal Alberta Museum is giving new life to a taxidermied elephant and using it as an opportunity to show guests what goes on behind the scenes. The Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) is giving new life to a taxidermied elephant that lived in the Calgary Zoo in the 60s. The museum says Gyro the elephant has been hidden from the public for most of his life. 'We're just happy to have it out front of house and having fantastic conservation staff working on it,' said Nick Cairns, curator with the RAM. Gyro is a juvenile Asian elephant who came from Toronto in the 1960s. He lived in the Calgary Zoo until his death in 1967, after his female mate, Gyrette II, knocked him into a dry moat. He was 6-years-old and wasn't fully grown. The museum acquired him in 1979 through the Riveredge Foundation and has never been displayed to the public before. Now, visitors will be able to see history conservator Gigi Kulis give him a fresh look close to the entrance. Gyro the elephant Natural history conservator Gigi Kulis working on Gyro the elephant at The Royal Alberta Museum (Miriam Valdes-Carletti/CTV News Edmonton) 'I love working on taxidermy and I fortunately get to do that with the work I do but this is totally unique and novel, it's pretty amazing,' Kulis told CTV News Edmonton. Cairns says having Kulis working on Gyro in the public eye is also a way to show guests what goes on behind-the-scenes at the museum. 'They're working really, really hard at making things look amazing when they might have been stuck in a basement or stuck in an attic for half a century,' Cairns said. While elephants aren't native to Alberta, the museum says Gyro's time spent at the Calgary Zoo makes him a part of provincial history. Gyro the elephant Gyro the elephant celebrating one year living at the Calgary Zoo with a cake. (Glenbow Archives) 'He is, as far as we know, the only taxidermied elephant in western Canada and in our collection,' said Carme Li, head of curation at the RAM. It's one of the biggest reasons the museum is giving him a makeover. Part of the conservation process includes fixing the cracks on his body and getting rid of over paint to unveil more natural characteristics. The museum says Gyro will be on display for the next couple of months.
Winnipeg Free Press
5 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Canada-Mexico arrangement perfect fit for Pony Corral musician José 'Pepê' Cortes
'I usually do this one later on in the night but since I just had a request for it, here we go, off to Mexico!' It's Saturday evening at the Pony Corral Restaurant & Bar on Pembina Highway. Entertainer José 'Pepê' Cortes launches into a rollicking version of La Bamba, diners on the eatery's spacious riverside patio put down their forks and knives to clap along to the Ritchie Valens hit, which Cortes performs on guitar with the assistance of a pre-recorded backing track. Given his high-spirited delivery, one would never guess that Cortes, a summertime fixture at the Fort Garry hotspot since the mid-2000s, has sung the crowd-pleaser 'oh, about a million times,' over the years. Jose (Pepe) Cortes, who is a one-man show, performs on the riverside patio at the Pony Corral Restaurant & Bar three nights a week. 'The thing I try to remind myself is that there's always going to be somebody here for the first time who has never heard me do La Bamba, which, I suppose because I'm from Mexico, people kind of expect,' Cortes remarks later, during a break between sets. That's fine with him, he continues. His job, he feels, is to make guests forget about whatever might be troubling them, if only for an hour or two. So when he spots somebody beaming and raising their glass during La Bamba or Besamé Mucho, another Mexican standard that's part of his act, he tells himself, 'mission accomplished.' Cortes, 66, was born in Mexico City, the second eldest of five siblings. Growing up, he was a big fan of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he says, casually dressed in sandals, grey shorts and a pale-blue short-sleeve dress shirt . By the time he was 11, he was teaching himself to play popular songs he heard on the radio, on an acoustic guitar borrowed from a relative. Not that he always understood what he was singing about. 'We did take English in school but no, there were lots of times I didn't have a clue what the lyrics meant, I was mostly just pretending,' he says, mentioning he has answered to the nickname Pepê — even his mother calls him that — for as long as he can remember. Before long his older brother Eduardo, Lalo for short, began accompanying him on drums. Cortes guesses he was 12 or 13 when a sign went up in their neighbourhood, advertising for bands to volunteer their services for an outdoor music festival. After talking a pair of classmates into joining them, the foursome made its official debut as El Dilema, covering rock tunes by American groups such as Grand Funk Railroad, with Cortes handling lead vocals. El Dilema was well-received. Before long the group was getting booked for community dances around town, now billed as Children owing to how young they were. The band eventually expanded to seven members and by the mid-1970s, Children had become a popular nightclub draw, not just in Mexico City but in more touristy destinations, as well. Cortes was 21 in 1979 when Children was booked for a weeklong engagement at the Princess Hotel in Acapulco. Also appearing there was a band called Zig Zag, which got its start in Mexico before relocating to Minneapolis. Following one of Children's performances, the members of Zig Zag told Cortes they were impressed with his voice, especially when he sang falsetto on Bee Gees numbers. Also, would he be interested in going with them when they headed back to the States? It seemed like a great opportunity and after discussing it with his bandmates, he made the difficult decision to leave Mexico. Supplied José 'Pepe' Cortes in Mexico with the band Children 'Zig Zag mostly did classic rock — Boston, Kansas, that kind of stuff — and we used to get standing ovations for our version of Bohemian Rhapsody,' Cortes says with a laugh, adding besides the Twin Cities, they were also getting booked for shows in North and South Dakota, and, later on, in Canada. In August 1984 Zig Zag was hired for a social being held at the Canadian Forces Base in Shilo. In attendance was a pharmaceuticals rep originally from Deloraine who had relocated to Brandon. Cortes struck up a conversation with her between sets. Within a year, they were married and living in Winnipeg. Cortes continued his musical career after moving to the city. He started off with a country-rock outfit called Raven before being introduced in 1987 to Wayne Hlady, founder of the Beatles tribute act Free Ride. For the next 18 years, Cortes-as-George Harrison played guitar and sang with Free Ride. It was a lucrative gig, he says, but because the band was often booked as many as six nights a week, it caused a strain in his marriage. 'We had two kids, a boy and girl. I was Mr. Mom during the day, cooking the meals and seeing them off to school, but the minute my wife got home, I'd be out the door,' he says. Free Ride definitely helped pay the bills, he goes on, but still, his wife desired a normal life, one that would enable them to socialize with family and friends on the weekend, instead of him always appearing at this bar or that. He understood her point — he even tried his hand at a 'real' job working for a local landscaping firm — but in the end they had grown too far apart. Following his divorce in 2005, Cortes made the decision to part ways with Free Ride. For a while he'd been writing songs of his own, but because Free Ride was all-Beatles, all-the-time, he knew there would never be an opportunity for him to perform his compositions in front of a live audience. One of the first places that hired him after he struck out on his own was the Pembina Highway Pony Corral. There he was encouraged to mix in original tunes alongside time-tested favourites such as Under the Boardwalk, Imagine and Brown Eyed Girl. He also returned to his roots, by sprinkling in Spanish-style songs popularized by the likes of the Gipsy Kings and Santana. By 2011, Cortes, who did three sets a night, Wednesday through Saturday, had developed a loyal following. That summer he was on Facebook when he spotted a message from a person he'd gone to school with in Mexico City. He remembered she used to be pals with his first girlfriend. Out of curiousity he asked if the two of them were still in touch. They were, she replied. SUPPLIED Free Ride as The Rolling Stones. Jose 'Pepe' Cortes is Keith Richards,, front Five minutes later, he received a second message, this time from his ex, a woman named Gabriela. 'She was like 'hi, how are you.' She told me she was living in Tequisquiapan, about three hours from Mexico City. After messaging back and forth a bit more, she said I should come for a visit, which I ended up doing that winter.' Cortes fell in love with both Gabriela and the town, notable for its quaint cobblestone streets and rustic houses. On the flight back to Winnipeg he thought if he could land a gig there, he'd probably move. Four years later he was preparing to do just that. Ahead of his imminent departure, Peter Ginakes, owner of the Pony Corral, proposed they stage a 'Farewell Pepê' concert in his honour, on the patio. That night the place was jam-packed, with lineups stretching into the parking lot. As Cortes was putting away his guitar for what he thought would be the last time at that locale, Ginakes approached him to say, 'You know, there isn't any reason we can't do this every summer.' Cortes, who has dual citizenship, refers to his current situation, which sees him living and performing in Tequisquiapan for nine months of the years, and spending June through August in Lorette with his daughter Sam and her husband, as the 'best of both worlds.' Not only does he get to see his two adult children as well as a pair of grandchildren, ages five and nine, when he's here he holds down a Las Vegas-style residency at the Pony Corral three nights a week, Thursday to Saturday. Added bonus: his son Matthew occasionally supports him on bongo drums. 'It's funny because couples who used to come see me at the Pony 20 years ago, back when they were dating, now show up with their kids to catch the show,' he says. 'The other night my own grandkids were here and the oldest one spent the whole time in one of the Tiki huts, banging away on the table like he was playing drums.' Cortes, who has recorded four CDs of original material, figures he currently has close to 150 songs in his repertoire, including what he refers to as the calypso medley, which he put the finishing touches to in Mexico, this past winter. Jose (Pepe) Cortes on the patio at the riverside Pony Corral Restaurant & Bar (Pier7) at 1700 Pembina Hwy. 'For that one, I kick off things off with Lionel Richie's All Night Long, then switch to Kokomo by the Beach Boys, September by Earth, Wind and Fire and finally Hot Hot Hot (by Buster Poindexter). If that doesn't get people tapping their toes, nothing will.' And although Gabriela has only come with him to Winnipeg once — she found it too chilly, even in June, he says with a wink — he intends to make the annual trip north for as long as Ginakes and the Pony Corral will have him. 'The only tough part is I'm not as young as I used to be,' he says, polishing off the last of his coffee. 'Lots of times customers will go, 'Pepê, it's so good to see you,' and offer to buy me a drink. I have to tell them thanks, but no thanks… or at least to wait till Saturday night, when I don't have to work the next day.' Monthly What you need to know now about gardening in Winnipeg. An email with advice, ideas and tips to keep your outdoor and indoor plants growing. David Sanderson Dave Sanderson was born in Regina but please, don't hold that against him. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
