Hope is Growing 2021 Photo Essay Program
City of Selkirk
2021 was a year of change for the City of Selkirk. After the trying year that was 2020, the City bounced back completing some major projects, while tending to some smaller ones that had been put on hold.
Tidiness Effort
Several community groups banded together to continue with community cleanups. Selkirk Community Renewal Corporation hosted events with small groups of volunteers. The Manitoba Harm Reduction Network also offered safe needle pick up and disposal. The graffiti program continued throughout the year resulting in the city looking clean and safe.
Environmental Action
Selkirk’s state-of-the-art water treatment plant went online in 2021. The almost $40 million plant, the city’s largest capital investment ever, will treat effluent to a higher standard than provincial regulations. The membrane-bioreactor treatment process, which provides the best environmental protection for the Red River and Lake Winnipeg, shows phosphorus levels after treatment at 0.3mg/L and nitrogen at 3mg/L.
Heritage Conservation
Held over from 2020, the City celebrated their first ever Culture Days in September. This event included a craft market, food vendors, buskers and art installations at the Waterfront. Historical walking tours were offered over the three-day event. Theatre Projects Manitoba were also on hand screening some short films, including Chautauqua: The Interlake Trail.
Urban Forestry
The City of Selkirk will plant 64 trees along city boulevards in fall 2021, the first of many to be planted over the coming five years. Developed over the past few years, Selkirk’s Street Tree Policy has several objectives, including to ‘proactively manage and sustain the city’s Street Trees in an arboriculturally sound and cost-effective manner that provides the greatest environmental, economic, and social benefit to residents, to protect the city’s road infrastructure from heat and ultraviolet rays and to relieve pressure from the city’s storm drainage network by using street trees to better manage storm water.’
Landscaped Areas
Anishnaabe Mashkiki Gitigaan – The People’s Medicine Garden. Completed in 2020, this pocket park is a place for cultural and educational purposes for community members, Indigenous and non-indigenous, to gather so that they can learn together. Over 10 trees, as well as 28 shrubs and perennial grasses were installed to add natural beauty. Nestled between two murals ‘Don’t Judge Me Until You’ve Walked A Mile In My Shoes’ and ‘Endangered Species’, this gathering place includes a free community ping pong table, LED lighting, benching, and checkerboard tables complete with wi-fi and USB charging stations. In May 2021, 215 pairs of shoes lined the park as community members gathered to honour the lives of the residential school children who were lost.
Floral Displays
Every year the City of Selkirk plants well over 2000 annuals which are located throughout the city with the majority located on Main St and the newly revitalized Manitoba Ave East. This year the City selected sun loving, drought tolerant plants in order to minimize watering efforts. Displays included Canna Lilies, wave petunias and Doreanthus. In addition, the city hangs 20 Equinox hanging baskets to beautify the Waterfront. The Selkirk and District Horticultural Society oversees and maintains three perennial gardens which are all designated Monarch Waystations. These gardens also boast multiple native plant species such as Prairie Sage, Saskatoons, Wild Bergamot, Red Dogwood, Swamp Milkweed and more.