The winner of this year’s Kraft Hockeyville competition was announced last weekend and the town of Pense, Sask., missed the net, so to speak. However, former Dragon’s Den panel member W. Brett Wilson picked up the rebound and Pense may score after all. In a tweet sent Aug. 16, Wilson, who was born in Saskatchewan, […] Read more
Stories by Paul Yanko
Hockeyville loss has silver lining for Pense
The winner of this year’s Kraft Hockeyville competition was announced over the weekend, and unfortunately the Sask. town of Pense’s shot missed the net, so to speak. However, Saskatchewan-born former Dragon, and philanthropist W. Brett Wilson has picked up the rebound and the town of Pense appears set to score after all. In a tweet […] Read more
Pense takes a shot at ‘Hockeyville’ title
The Stanley Cup might be the focus for a lot of hockey talk these days, but the people of Pense, Sask., are hoping to soon capture a prestigious hockey championship of their own. Pense is one of four Canadian towns, and the only western Canadian one, vying for the “Kraft Hockeyville” title that goes along […] Read more
How I helped fight a wildfire near Biggar
I had the privilege of meeting some really nice people last week. It started with a state of emergency. My fellow volunteer firefighters from Delisle and I were called out to provide “mutual aid” at 4:45 a.m. on April 23 to assist the Biggar Fire Department with an out-of-control wildfire southwest of town. Winds were […] Read more
Where there’s smoke
A grass fire kept firefighters busy last week southwest of Biggar, Sask. Paul Yanko, who works in The Western Producer’s editorial department, is also a member of the Delisle and District Volunteer Fire Department and helped fight the fire April 23. He took these photos and video. [ngg src=”galleries” ids=”83″ display=”masonry” captions_enabled=”0″ captions_display_sharing=”1″ captions_display_title=”1″ captions_display_description=”1″ […] Read more
Readers offer some advice for the Producer
Western Producer managing editor Michael Raine recently asked our readers to share what they thought about our paper. Response mostly came in the form of text messages, tweets and emails. Readers generally suggested they enjoy the paper’s content. Many said producer.com serves as an important source of information for their farms, mentioning its daily news […] Read more
Some for, some against researcher’s views on glyphosate
In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear, a couple chemical-related stories in last week’s paper provided a vivid illustration of one subject that continually gets our readers talking online. First came reporter Robert Arnason’s profile of University of Sask-atchewan professor John Giesy, a leading expert on the subject of toxicology, and his views on glyphosate. […] Read more
Reader questions decision to cover wheat board meeting
It’s been nearly four years since the Canadian Wheat Board lost its single desk marketing powers, but recent news of a possible revival sparked a flurry of social media activity on The Western Producer’s website. Robert Arnason, one of our Manitoba reporters, wrote about a meeting in Swan River, Man., Feb. 10 that saw a […] Read more
Why do we like people stories? The answer may shock you
We have a running joke around the editorial department here at WP World HQ: it revolves around the headlines used on online “click bait” type stories designed to capture your attention. “Man climbs mountain.… You’ll never believe what happens next…” “A woman tries to hug a leopard, the reason why will make you cry…” Or […] Read more
Celebrity still rules in the quest for truth about food
I wrote a few weeks ago in this column about not confusing popularity with expertise in social media. Last week, Manitoba reporter Robert Arnason offered a shining example of this unfortunate phenomenon. It all began in January when Jillian Harris, former star on the popular TV show The Bachelorette and native of Peace River, Alta., […] Read more
