It holds me,

Like a mother does her child,

Lets me shed all my tears,

She feeds.

All my self-hatred,

Fuels her,

Every lone moment,

Is her waking,

And she is ravenous.

Unforgiving,

She has always seemed much too familiar,

To not be the very thing,

That I am made of.

An exhibition that uses the weather as a lens into the past

Weather usually gets written off as small talk — background noise to everyday life. Just a matter of circumstance. Not really something you dwell on, unless your profession calls for it. At most, you’re probably scanning the weather app absently, trying to determine if you’ll still need to wear a jacket this week or not.

Forecast, now on view at Remai Modern, pushes that aside and treats weather as something much more loaded, personally, politically and culturally. The exhibition brings together over 100 works — including curated pieces dating back 100 years — from the Remai Modern Collection to explore how people relate to land and how those relationships have been shifting alongside the climate.

Instead of presenting climate change as a distant or abstract theoretical concept, Forecast asks its audience to interpret it through memory. 

It urges onlookers to think about their own experiences — winters that used to feel early and endless, summers that seemed hotter and drier than usual, places that are significant because of how they felt in different seasons. In doing so, climate change stops feeling like something happening somewhere distant and starts to feel immediate, lived and close to home.

The exhibition spans a wide range of artists and time periods, which gives it a layered perspective on the environment. Historical Saskatchewan artists like James Henderson, Hilda Stewart, Ernest Lindner and Grace Hogg offer early interpretations of the prairie landscape. Their work tends to be attentive and grounded, with a focus on observation — light, terrain, atmosphere. At the same time, they reflect a specific historical moment, shaped by settler perspectives and ideas about land as something to be captured.

The inclusion of the Group of Seven adds another layer. Their paintings are deeply tied to Canadian identity, often showing wilderness as vast, dramatic and untouched. In the context of Forecast, however, those images shift. They don’t feel like neutral depictions of uninhabited or newly settled lands anymore — they feel carefully contrived. Spaces shaped by what’s included and what’s left out.

Contemporary works push that feeling even further. Artists like Rebecca Belmore, Lori Blondeau, Brian Jungen, Meryl McMaster and Shelly Niro foreground Indigenous perspectives, making it clear that relationships to land aren’t universal. Their work connects environmental change to histories of displacement, resilience and ongoing stewardship. Climate issues, here, aren’t separate from colonial histories — they’re deeply tied together.

Within the walls of the exhibit, landscape becomes something more complex than just scenery or backdrop. It transforms into a space where a critical tension between past, present and future ways of understanding land sits. It’s not all about extreme weather and rising temperatures — think of it more like how those phenomena have come to pass. 

Climate change, in this context, is about relationships that have been disrupted between land and stewards and the uneven ways those disruptions have been felt. 

The range of media spread across the installation helps reinforce that idea. Paintings older than most of their audience sit alongside photographs, sculptures and mixed media works from recent years, each approaching the theme differently. 

Some of the selected pieces are more observational and nuanced, asking for your lengthy analysis rather than an instantaneous answer. Others are more direct about their meaning or even confrontational. They challenge the viewer to come to terms with their own experiences on the landscape; how the weather has changed in their lifetime, and how they’ve had a hand in it. 

Moving through the exhibition means constantly adjusting how you’re looking and thinking. There’s never a static moment; unlike Saskatchewan’s weather, funnily enough. 

The curatorial approach that’s been implemented here doesn’t follow a single linear storyline for the audience to work through, beginning to end. Instead, in a true-to-Saskatoon kind of way, it builds bridges. 

A historical landscape might sit near a contemporary work that challenges it. A piece focused on beauty might be followed by one that points to environmental damage. Those juxtapositions do a lot of work, making it easier to see how ideas about land have shifted — and how they haven’t.

What stands out is how grounded the exhibition feels in place. Saskatchewan isn’t treated as separate from global climate issues — it’s part of them. For audience members who grew up in Saskatoon, that makes the experience hit differently. The landscapes aren’t abstract or foreign. They’re familiar, even if they’re changing.

There’s also an emphasis on storytelling. Weather is something people talk about all the time, mostly in passing. But sometimes, we find ourselves elbow deep in long discussions about what the world we live in used to look like; those conversations often carry more weight than they seem to. 

A memory of an intense winter storm isn’t really about the actual storm — it’s about where you were, who you were with, what it meant. Forecast builds on that, showing how personal stories about weather can open into larger reflections on environmental change.

Notably, the exhibition doesn’t lean on statistics or scientific explanations. Instead of data, it offers images and experiences that ask you to interpret, reflect and connect. It doesn’t replace scientific understanding, rather it offers a way of thinking about climate that’s emotional, cultural and rooted in lived experience.

A lot of the works in Forecast are being shown at Remai Modern for the first time, which adds to the sense that there’s something new here, even for regular visitors. But the point here isn’t about seeing new art pieces for the first time, but rather seeing well-worn ideas from an entirely new angle altogether.

The exhibition makes it clear that weather has always been part of how people understand place, memory and identity. Now, as those patterns shift and as the world changes in a way that cannot be undone, paying attention to that connection feels more important than ever.

While it can’t force you to see the world differently, Forecast hopes to change the way you look at art, at land and at the sky overhead. 

The wind will blow in whatever direction it wishes; whether you go along with it or push against the breeze is up to you.

The Student-Led Revival of Badminton at USask

When the University of Saskatchewan’s badminton club first launched, it wasn’t chasing medals or headlines. It was chasing something simpler, a voice.

“We felt our sport needed a unified voice,” says Doris Yim, co-president of the USask badminton club. 

Before the club was formally established and was only a few people, the badminton community at USask was struggling quietly. Court times were shrinking. Scheduled gym slots were occasionally cancelled or moved to less accessible hours without much notice. What had once felt like a thriving pocket of campus life was slowly thinning out. 

“It hurt seeing a thriving community shrink simply due to lack of communication and opportunity,” Yim explains, through a shared interview through email.

The idea to change that came casually, during a study session after playing. Yim and her now co-president, Alex Camacho began talking about what badminton could look like if students had stronger representation and better communication with university recreation management. 

“We wanted to give our community a unified voice to talk to the university directives with.”

What followed was not a solo effort, but what Yim describes as “a massive collective effort” involving the executive team, existing members and USask Rec. Since forming the club, they’ve established direct, reliable communication with sports management, which is something that has already changed the landscape for players. 

And the response? Immediate. 

“We started with only ten registered students,” Yim says. Within weeks, that number jumped past 100. Just a couple of months later, the club is now sitting at nearly 300 officially registered members, and counting. 

And that figure doesn’t even include community members outside the university who regularly drop in to play. The growth speaks to more than just interest in a sport. It reflects something students at USask are actively looking for: connection. 

Especially in Saskatoon winters, when daylight fades early, and motivation can fade with it, organized recreation becomes more than exercise; it becomes mental health support. 

“It’s about getting out of your apartment, playing a sport and seeing people,” Yim says. “That’s so incredibly important for mental health during these very cold winter seasons.”

For students who might feel intimidated walking into a competitive gym space, Yim is quick to emphasize something important: This club is for everyone. “Badminton is a very beginner-friendly sport,” she says. 

Skill levels range from students who picked up a racquet for the first time a week ago to players who have been competing since childhood. The club does not currently separate competitive players from recreational ones through tryouts.

“Right now, we don’t have a tryout to separate competitive players from recreational players, as we want everyone to just play and enjoy themselves,” Yim explains. “Even if you are a total beginner, you will always have someone to play with.”

That inclusivity has become one of the club’s defining characteristics. Still, the executive team has bigger plans in mind. Creating a separate competitive team is something they would love to implement down the line, especially as interest continues to grow. 

Growth hasn’t slowed the club’s ambition; it’s expanded it. 

“Our future goals include hosting self-funded tournaments with amazing prizes to push the sport into the university’s competitive scene,” Yim says. 

They’ve already discussed inviting players from other Canadian universities for tournaments. Bringing inter-university competition to USask isn’t just a dream; it’s a direction forward. 

The club is also planning to bring in professional coaches for both beginner and intermediate players. That step would allow new members to develop fundamentals while offering more experienced players structured improvement. 

It’s clear the leadership isn’t thinking small. But what makes badminton distinct on campus is not only its competitive potential. 

“What makes badminton unique is the perfect balance it strikes,” Yim says. 

“It’s a highly social sport that pushes you to catch up with friends, but it’s also a sport that is easy to pick up and very hard to master.” That balance, casual enough to laugh between rallies and competitive enough to keep you chasing improvement, is part of what has sustained interest. 

Yim speaks about the “constant chase of improving.” The sharp snap of the racquet against the shuttlecock signals progress. 

“There is nothing like finally hitting that one shot you’ve been practicing.” For many members, that incremental improvement is what keeps them returning week after week.

When asked what surprises people about the club, Yim doesn’t hesitate.“How welcoming and embracing the community is to newcomers.” She speaks from personal experience. 

“I am someone who initially struggles to pick up sports,” she says. But veteran players encouraged her. They wanted to see her improve. That culture of support pushed her to continue.

Now, she wants to be that supportive presence for the next wave of beginners. 

Sports can be cost-prohibitive, but another positive of badminton on campus is the cost, or lack thereof. 

“It’s offered for free by USask Rec on campus,” she says. “You don’t even need to own a racquet or a shuttlecock to try it out.” In an era where cost can be a barrier to participation in student activities, keeping badminton accessible has been a top priority. 

“One of our top priorities is keeping costs down so the sport remains accessible.” 

Students can attend open rec sessions hosted by USask at the education gym, and the club is planning frequent low-cost learn to play sessions, particularly for beginners.  The message is simple: Show up. 

When asked about a proud moment so far, Yim doesn’t cite a championship or a single event. She talks about numbers. “The sheer volume of students showing up to our events.”

Dozens upon dozens of players are arriving eager to play and support the scene.

“We do not take that for granted.”

That turnout validated something important: this wasn’t just a small niche interest. There was demand. There was hunger for this space. 

The club plans to continue expanding by hosting bigger events, developing resources, building brand identity and even launching merchandise. But underneath those ambitions is a constant priority. 

“Our members are, and always will be, our top priority.”

At its core, the USask Badminton Club represents something larger than rallies and tournaments. It represents student initiative. It represents reclaiming space. 

It represents what can happen when a small group of students sees a gap in campus life and decides to fill it. 

From ten to nearly 300 in just months, the growth isn’t an accident. It’s built on accessibility, intentional leadership and an environment where beginners aren’t sidelined, they are welcomed. 

In a university environment that can often feel isolating, especially in winter, spaces like this matter. 

They give structure to the week.

They give a reason to leave the apartment or dorms. 

They give a sense of progress that isn’t tied to grades. 

And sometimes, they give you the satisfying snap of a perfectly timed smash. 

As the club looks ahead to inter-university tournaments, professional coaching and expanded programming, one thing remains constant: the original goal. 

A unified voice. A stronger community. A sport that finally has its place. 

And judging by the energy in the gym, that place is only getting bigger.

Off The Top Rope, Blu Beach Band and Brothers G Bring Down Our Collective Cortisol

That whole thing about lions and lambs in March is a baseless assumption made by someone who clearly never spent springtime in Saskatchewan. March this year came in like an annoying coyote intent on eating all the livestock, and left with its tail between its legs. And that’s just to account for the weather, never mind exams. 

Students need to find ways to handle the anxiety and pressure that March and April bring. For this student, the best outlets are listening to music and seeing bands play live. Luckily for me, mid-March and early April held no shortage of opportunities to blow off some steam. 

Now, I also have exams, and since I can’t be in two places at once, I didn’t get to see every band I wanted to during this time period. Notably absent from this review are Fake Paradise, who were at the Green Room open mic on March 5, and Despite The Reverence, who played Amigos on March 21. I missed Excuses Excuses, Yarbo and Valley Bandits, who played Black Cat on March 26, as well as the triple header of Cossack, Pxrtals and Glass Hand Family Band, who hit the Amigos stage on Apr. 4. 

Good times had by all I’m sure, and I hope to see all these bands at some point soon when things are less hectic. What follows are the groups I had the pleasure of seeing from March to April. 

November Down – Amigos Cantina

The boys in November Down are incredibly consistent. They play often, and all over the city. This was my first time hearing them in what felt like a few years, and they have been clearly hard at work honing their particular brand of bleeding-heart-on-the-sleeve alternative rock. It’s hard to believe that the first time I saw Ollie (bass) and Alex (rhythm guitar) on stage together, they were playing off-country tunes at the Capitol open mic. Time flies. They’re having a great time on stage, the songs are honest, it’s all very heartening. It really is a shame that their lead guitarist was bogged down by feedback problems for this particular set. It is safe to assume, however, that this was simply an isolated case of a bad mix. Have a gander at their most recent EP, Suit Yourself. 

Off The Top Rope & Julius Sumner Miller – Black Cat Tavern

Off The Top Rope promised their audience Wrestlerock – wrestling-themed rock music, duh – and delivered in spades. While the music was tight, driving and hilarious, the banter between frontman El Maniaco and the crowd was just as good. For more on Off The Top Rope, catch my interview with Maniaco in The Sheaf coming soon. 

Calgary’s Julius Sumner Miller (JSM) kept the train rolling. JSM write touchingly relatable hardcore anthems that will hit close to home for anybody who has grown up on what could be considered the fringes of mainstream midwestern Canadian culture. Their frontman has an immediate charisma (and a great beard), the riffs are solid and the lyrics are poignant and easy to remember. I do wish that a band this interested in crowd participation could have been treated to a better crowd, content as everyone seemed to be to stand hands in pockets. With that said, the members of the band don’t take themselves too seriously, which endears me to them all the more. I recommend the songs “Something for My Head” and “Hockey, Girls, Disappointment”.

The Brothers G & Blu Beach Band – Louis’

The Brothers G reaffirm that they are the best thing to happen to rock music in this province since Van Halen played the SaskTel Center in 2004. Hailing from Hafford, Saskatchewan, these four boys are lightning in a bottle. While I might be particularly fond of their take on hard, Rolling Stones adjacent rock ‘n roll, they make the frequent detours into country, soul and blues an absolute treat. The songs “Let You In”, “Carousel” and “Bitch Got a Gun” are bona fide hitters, and showcase a true range of talent in songwriting and musicianship. Kit Langfield (lead guitar) is a gunslinger, and his solos slug it out with the best that the hard rock pantheon has to offer. My only complaint, if I had to think of something, would be that they didn’t play the tune “White Lightning” off their 2024 debut album. Whatever, that’s my problem. Keep up the great work, gentlemen. I can’t wait to see what 2026 has in store for you. 

I’m late to this next hype train, and I am kicking myself for it. Coming off a sold-out date with Saskatoon’s Cooper Tropeau at the Coors Vizzy Stage, Regina’s Blu Beach Band were still in top form for their headlining date at Louis’. Not sure exactly what to expect, I was caught at the bar when their set kicked off with a cover of “Ballroom Blitz”. Upon hearing their mustachioed frontman do the song justice, I worked my way through a packed crowd to the front of the stage. Blu Beach Band are entertainers in the truest sense of the word and have a solid understanding of how to structure a show. While their recorded music sounds exactly how drinking an ice-cold beer on a pool floatie feels, they translate this into a high-energy live experience. There are a couple of talk-box solos, a bass player who is groovy as all hell, harmonica breakdowns and even a rap track with vocals provided by their unassumingly polymathic rhythm guitarist. Their two latest singles, “The Walking Dead” and “Fuck Sakes”, point to a very bright future for the band, and I’m now eagerly anticipating their next record. Blu Beach Band, if you’re reading, please note that more harmonica is what the people need.
In closing, I’d like to remind everybody that Thin Lizzy’s album Jailbreak celebrated its 50th anniversary on March 26. If you’ve never given it a shot, there’s never been a better time, and if you have given it a shot and weren’t completely floored, it’s clearly because you haven’t heard the songs performed by the band on their 1978 live album Live & Dangerous. Do yourself a favour, and if not for yourself, then for the memory of Phil Lynott, one of the most important bass-playing Irishmen to ever live. Now I’m going to go scrape the April snow off my windshield. Ta-ta for now!

With the lungs of an old prison choir

And their cheap cigarettes burn clean

Glowing red with heat from the fire

Ex-lovers will forget your name

Your rough and rowdy friends will settle down

The needle points toward the other place

That bright green field where Saint Peter drowned

Last words ring on the radio

Static strangles the record scratch

Somewhere out there sings Frankie Sinatra

Let’s face the music and dance

The Huskies Women’s Basketball Team captures their second straight national championship as Murphy Wiebe earns tournament MVP honours

Ella Murphy Wiebe capped off her Huskie career at the highest of highs. The mechanical engineering student and Saskatoon product helped lead the University of Saskatchewan women’s basketball team to its second straight national championship — and earned tournament MVP honours in the process.

Journey to the Huskies and Family Support

Growing up, basketball wasn’t always the plan for Murphy Wiebe, despite her deep family ties to the Huskie program. Her father, Dean Wiebe, is a Huskie Men’s basketball legend and ranks fourth on the program’s all‑time scoring list. Her aunt, Kathleen Murphy, was also a Huskie Women’s Basketball player. Still, for most of her childhood, she played soccer.

“My dad didn’t force it or anything. I kept playing soccer until I started playing a bit of basketball. I really liked it because it came more naturally to me. Then it was getting to the point where I was having to decide which one I was actually going to choose.”

At about 13, she made the switch. At the time, she didn’t picture herself as a future Huskie, let alone a national champion. 

“I just liked playing. I didn’t really like the super competitiveness, which is ironic since I’m very competitive as a person. It wasn’t until Grade 11 [that] I was like, ‘Oh, I think I should continue playing.’ So that’s when I decided, yeah, Huskies would be cool.”

Being recruited during the pandemic wasn’t easy, but head coach Lisa Thomaidis saw something in the “awkward player with red socks,” as Murphy Wiebe describes her younger self.

Huskie Basketball continues to run in the Murphy Wiebe family, as two years ago, her brother Owen joined the men’s team. 

“I was super happy because I knew that in my first year it was pretty tough, and I think that’s a common experience for everybody. So I was happy that I could be there for him if he needed.”

Having so much familial support in her life has been invaluable to Murphy Wiebe.

“It allowed me to just enjoy basketball … Having people to talk to and vent to, and to get outside perspectives that I know will always be truthful — I think that allowed me to really enjoy the experience.”

Balancing Basketball, Academics and Adversity 

Off the court, Murphy Wiebe studies mechanical engineering.

“I thrive on stress. That’s what gets me through. Sometimes I need a day of rest, because it’s not actually rest. If I’m stressing about how I’m not doing things, it’ll just make me do things.”

Throughout Murphy Wiebe’s career, she’s dealt with injuries and setbacks. This year, being injury-free in the crucial latter stages of the season was a major factor in her consistency.

“Being able to not think about injury — just that alone is such a big thing. I definitely took it for granted before, but I don’t think I did this season. I worked hard to keep myself injury‑free.”

As a fifth‑year, she also embraced a leadership role shaped by her past experiences of feeling like an outsider.

“I think I have a different perspective on things than a lot of people … I was homeschooled until Grade 11, so I came into high school not knowing a lot of people. I was the weird homeschooled kid.”

It’s why she became intentional about creating the kind of environment she once wished she had.

“I’ve always wanted everyone to feel included, and that’s been my goal as a fifth‑year — to make sure everyone feels that and feels like they’re part of the team. I hope that when people remember me, they remember that.”

Entering the Season as Defending Champions

Coming off last year’s national title, Murphy Wiebe admits the challenge of being the team everyone is out to get and having to live up to the high standards they’ve set. 

“It was scary, almost, because I always think the most unpredictable teams are teams who have just lost, and we were not that. That’s an edge we didn’t have.”

Despite the pressure, the Huskies picked up exactly where they left off, going undefeated in all 20 regular-season games and extending their winning streak to 51.

This run set up a CanWest Quarterfinal matchup against the Calgary Dinos, who stunned the Huskies at home 58-61, knocking the Huskies out of the playoffs. 

“It sounds crazy, but losing — I forgot what it felt like … that feeling is the worst. But it’s also the best type of catalyst to get you working and to make you realize how special winning is. It’s easy to take it for granted when you’ve won 51 straight games.”

The loss shifted the team’s mindset. 

“There was always that thought of, ‘What if this is the game we’re going to lose?’ Losing the game against Calgary was the best thing for us, because that thought completely went away. We were now the underdogs.”

After the loss, the Huskies went right back to work in the gym, banking on the lone nationals wildcard berth granted to the best‑performing team that didn’t automatically qualify.

Their dominant regular season paid off, and the Huskies were off to Laval for Nationals.

“The important thing was that we went into nationals with the mindset that winning doesn’t come easy — you have to work for it.”

The Final 8: A Championship Run at Laval 

Located in Quebec City, Université Laval is known nationwide for its passionate fan base. Two years ago, their men’s basketball team hosted nationals as the lowest seed — the team didn’t even qualify through playoffs, but received an automatic berth as the hosts — and went on to win the whole tournament.

This year, the eighth-seed women’s team were hoping to do the same. In the quarterfinals, Laval upset No. 1-ranked Toronto Metropolitan University, and the No. 5-ranked Huskies overcame the No. 4-ranked University of British Columbia. The women’s semifinal was set to be a blockbuster matchup featuring the defending champs and the challenging hosts.

“It was a really cool atmosphere. The lights were really bright, and it felt like we were on a stage. The Laval game was really loud. It might have been a mix [of] me not knowing French and me not really hearing things because it was so loud, but it didn’t affect me personally. I don’t think it affected many of us — it was just background noise.”

In that game, Murphy Wiebe delivered a career-best performance with 26 points and 16 rebounds, helping her team win 55-43 and move on to the finals.

The Huskies went on to defeat the University of New Brunswick in the final 77-68, securing back‑to‑back national championships.

When the buzzer went off, a huge weight was lifted off Murphy Wiebe’s shoulders. 

“For me, it was just relief. It’s been five years of anticipation … I really wanted to end my Huskie career with a national championship.”

The physical toll of the tournament was undeniable, too.

“I kept getting hit in the face, hit in the knee — I was just happy the game was over. I was exhausted. I’ve never felt the muscle fatigue and tiredness in certain places that I felt that week.”

Across the three games, Murphy Wiebe played a vital role in the Huskies’ national win, totalling 55 points and 34 rebounds. Her standout performances made her the clear choice for tournament MVP. 

Still, she credits her success to the people around her.

“I think the support of my coach and my teammates was such a big thing. I’ve struggled with confidence. I really do think the thing that’s held me back most, other than injuries, has been my own confidence. My coach has been saying that for years, and I knew it at the time. But this tournament, I just wasn’t thinking about that. I felt the support of my coaches and teammates, and I started to believe it.”

Anyone watching Murphy Wiebe could see that her confidence was undeniable. She was unstoppable in the paint, using her footwork and strength to finish possession after possession.

A Dynasty Built on Culture and Community

Head coach Lisa Thomaidis’ influence has shaped the program for nearly three decades, building what many consider a true Huskie dynasty.

“What Coach has built — she’s so detail‑oriented. We make fun of her for certain things, but I really do think the culture she’s made is a winning culture. It doesn’t only focus on the court aspect. It’s about who we are as individuals. That has been the deciding factor in our success. How you are together as a team can decide if you’re a good team or a great team. I think it really came down to Coach.”

Murphy Wiebe couldn’t be prouder to represent the University of Saskatchewan for the last five years.

“There is such a deep‑rooted basketball community here, and I think we have the best fans in the country … With it being such a small city and province, we’re a lot more connected. How tight‑knit the basketball community is here — that’s more powerful than whatever they’ve got going on in big cities.”

The Bronze Baby — the U Sports Women’s Basketball Trophy — will be staying in Saskatchewan. Murphy Wiebe shares her reaction to winning the iconic but rather unorthodox trophy.

“After we won last year, people kept asking us why we were so excited for getting third, because bronze means third … I don’t know the actual little lady, but I’ve grown to like her.”

Looking Ahead

Now that Murphy Wiebe’s Huskie career has come to a close, she hopes to continue playing basketball professionally abroad. 

“I’m going to play pro next year [and] take a year off. I don’t have a team yet — that’ll happen in the next month or two because their seasons are just finishing. I’m really excited to see where that takes me.”

The excitement of what’s ahead is matched only by her gratitude for the people who shaped her journey.

“To everybody who has been along through this process — thank you. To my coach, [Lisa Thomaidis], who believed in me always, even when I didn’t. And also Ali Fairbrother — she’s my bigs coach. She’s always been there for me, and she always looks after the bigs. And to my teammates — I’ve never had such a supportive team as I’ve had this year. And then my family — they’ve obviously always been there for me, and they’re pretty awesome.”

Congratulations to Ella and the Huskie Women’s Basketball team!

After eight years of hiatus, USask’s MUN Club is putting their name on the map.

What does it take to revive a club? In the case of the USask Model United Nations (MUN), one month and a lot of determination. 

Merely three months ago, USask MUN was a club that had been inactive for eight years due to “insufficient interest”. The club lost club ratification status in 2018 and effectively disbanded. This January, in only a few short weeks, President Paula Orata and the USask MUN executive team breathed it back to life. Within a single month, the club went from applying for club ratification status to competing out of province alongside dozens of other universities. 

In its first two weeks as a ratified club, nearly 80 students signed up, and an executive team was put together. Tasked with finding funding and providing lesson plans to members of the club, the executive team was given two weeks before USask MUN attended their first conference–the Alberta Intercollegiate Model United Nations (AIMUN) Conference — sending 20 delegates to MacEwan University in Edmonton. There, two of USask’s delegates, Seth Loeppky and Stacy Kim, received Outstanding Delegate awards at their first-ever conference. 

One week later, 14 delegates hopped on a plane to the Concordia Model United Nations (ConMUN) Conference hosted by Concordia University in Montreal. 

The club meets weekly on Mondays, which they have dubbed colloquially as “MUNdays.”

Orata’s idea came from independently attending Model UN and Model NATO conferences at other universities. “I realized that almost every single student attending came from a university with either a Model UN club or a Model NATO club. I approached Dr. Gaal, and I said, ‘Well, why don’t we have a Model UN club?’ He said, ‘We used to have one, but it dies off every eight years or so, but you can always start it again if you want’. Dr. Gaal is one of our faculty advisors now, [and] now we have a Model UN club of almost 100 people.” 

But what is Model UN? In short, the environment simulates operations within the UN, in all its diplomatic, public speaking, collaborative, bureaucratic glory. Members, also known as delegates, are assigned countries or diplomatic roles that they roleplay within a diplomatic environment. Their goal? To solve global issues by working with other delegates without sacrificing the interests of their assigned countries. 

In packed rooms, delegates engage in debate and proposals, writing papers that hopefully solve all the global issues which the actual UN have yet to solve. 

According to Orata, “the purpose of Model UN is to open the door of networking and travel and meeting people from peer institutions, and to come together and come up with solutions that will simulate solutions that will affect how we approach issues in our world.” 

Orata believes Model UN’s value transcends the General Assembly setting. “We needed something to bridge the academic theory that we learn in our classes with practical, hands-on application, and that’s what Model UN provides.”

Though networking and collaboration are one part of the puzzle, delegates also compete against each other. In their suits and lanyards, delegates are scored on skills like public speaking, writing, networking and even their diplomacy and ability to follow parliamentary procedure. 

Beyond competing, Vice President Kayhan Yazdani believes in a unique value that the club provides to USask’s campus, closing a gap that he has noticed between West and East coast institutions. 

“For me, it’s all about political engagement.” Yazdani noticed Ontario and Quebec universities had highly politically involved student populations, no matter their major. “I found that these eastern delegations that were being sent from other provinces have students from multiple backgrounds. I met a master’s student in chemical engineering. His name was Raphael. He was a great guy, and he was one of the best speakers that I think I saw at this conference.”

Yazdani is clear on his mission for the club. “I wanted to bring some of that expertise back to USask, to be able to shape a more politically engaged environment and a more open and inclusive environment.”

Aiming for a well-rounded club, Orata makes it known that USask MUN is not limited to students aspiring for a political career. “Our club is open to any student from any college at the university, because it’s really not just about Model UN, but building skills that will help people in their everyday lives, like speech skills, writing resolutions, writing their speeches and just being in front of a room of people and being comfortable talking in front of them.”

Although seemingly intimidating, according to Orata, the hardest part is just getting started. “It might seem daunting at first, but once people come in, they get comfortable with the procedure and learn the basics of it. It’s really easy after people learn the basics.” 

She highlights the heart of Model UN conferences: the friends you make along the way. “It’s really easy to get them hooked onto Model UN and realize how much fun it actually can be, because it’s not just about attending conferences and being all so serious, but people have fun at our delegate socials in the evenings, discussing with other with peers from different institutions outside of moderated caucuses, like [at] ConMUN in Montreal, we met students from UCLA, from West Point, from UVic, from McGill, [from] U of R … It puts USask on the map, because it gives our students opportunities to see other students from different universities.”

Yazdani adds, “I find that people are honestly more inclined to be engaged with these types of activities once they really open the space for the first time … I think that Model UN represents a very opportunistic environment in which we give people the floor to be able to voice what they aren’t necessarily confident enough to voice in their day-to-day lives.”

Senior Head Delegate Loeppky believes the club plays to his strengths as a student in Political Studies. “It’s been an opportunity to talk about and represent the issues that I care most deeply about, whether that’s inequality or human rights violations or freedom of speech. These are things that are personally important to me, and it’s been an opportunity for me to vent and to expand and really articulate these issues, not only to myself, but to others.”

Even without Model UN experience, brand new members like Ilia Rezaei have found that the club gives practical experience outside the classroom. “It helps us use the class resources that were taught by our professors, and actually [use] them to integrate it into a real-world situation.”

Member Eric Dodge gets candid when it comes to the biggest hurdle he’s encountered since joining the club. “Public speaking. I’ve never done public speaking before. So at ConMUN, I did my first hour of public speaking. But I feel like through Model UN I’ve become a way better public speaker already.” 

“I mean, I want to develop these skills like diplomacy.” There’s another side of the coin for Dodge, “and I mean, going and hanging out with friends and doing things with your friends is also just a lot of fun.”

Club Secretary and Social Media Manager Mia Szabo echoes this sentiment of connection and travel. “I think the opportunity to just build community is really great, and it allows our delegates to experience different people from different places, which USask doesn’t always get to do.”

Junior Head Delegate Mika Soroño, with three years of Model UN conferences under her belt, looks for more than LinkedIn connections when in conference halls among hundreds of other delegates. “They have similar goals, similar values. I think that seeing that there are other people just like you gives you more motivation, especially since you’re put in a room with people who have maybe achieved more than you, that puts — not necessarily pressure — but definitely more incentive for you to be just like them, to strive just like them. So I think, on a personal note, Model UN is definitely an engaging environment.”

Yazdani, a seasoned Model UN delegate, still finds something new in the environment with every conference. “I think that for as long as I’ve been doing it, what surprises me most is the fact that I still learn every time I’m a part of the space. I find that even with the experience I have from high school and kind of my early undergraduate years, I find that even meeting people who have never done it before, the way that they prepare, the way that they give speeches, I feel like it always renews my abilities. It always renews my commitment to these spaces. My commitment as Vice President especially makes me adapt to be able to fill the environment in a way that creates a platform for these students.”

Despite being a new club, Orata explains that Model UN has a lot on its horizon. “We’re really excited. Next year, we want to take our delegation to the National Model United Nations Conference in New York, and also a Model UN conference in Barcelona, as well as some here in Canada. We’re especially excited about our own Model UN conference.”

Model UN is gearing up to host their very own conference at USask this upcoming Fall Semester, planning to invite other institutions and opening more doors for its delegates. 

“We’ll be hosting it here in Saskatoon, which will give our USask students an opportunity to participate in Model UN without having to take on the cost of travel, which is the biggest cost in attending Model UN conferences.”  

Orata hopes for longevity in the club’s future. “Hopefully, doing that will open the door to more students and to keep the spirit of Model UN alive at the University of Saskatchewan, and also, because we want to carry this on for the coming years, and so our club just doesn’t die off in another eight years.”

Yazdani has his own visions for the club and its members. “We’re kind of trying to push the club for excellence. The idea [is] that we want to be able to push higher for awards, and be able to push not just to participate, but to compete.”

President Orata has learned a lot since her whirlwind of a semester. “As President, I think my role has really made me look at myself and think about the way that I interact with the people around me, for example, the executive team. I’ve really learned to delegate and ensure that everyone—”

Soroño interrupts with a “Point of information?” 

She commandeers the microphone, continuing: “Our president actually takes on too much, so I think she doesn’t give herself that much [credit]. I think that since the club started in January, and she’s taken us to Edmonton and Montreal, I think that’s something that’s really great and nothing short of amazing.”

Though their calendar has been packed, this is only the beginning for the club. The success they have found in the last two months is no small feat, truly proving that nothing is impossible with a bit of teamwork and diplomacy.

GirlsFitSask is creating a space for fitness and friendship in Saskatoon.

What started as a simple idea has quickly turned into something much bigger.

GirlsFitSask, a local girls-focused run and fitness club founded by Hafsa Omaer Jamil, has been building momentum in Saskatoon by creating a space where girls can exercise, make friends and feel comfortable showing up exactly as they are. Since launching in 2025, the club has already hosted more than 10 events, with more planned as the weather warms and weekly runs return.

Jamil said the idea for the club came to her last summer, after seeing how a girls’ run club in Ontario had created a strong sense of community.

“In summer 2025, I met a friend in Ontario who started a run club there, and I saw the way it built a community, so I thought it’d be a perfect way to do the same with the girls in Saskatoon,” she said.

That sense of community has been central to the club from the beginning. Jamil leads and plans events, while Lujaine Salem leads the runs and Samiha Belim assists with events. Together, they have built a club that goes beyond fitness alone. The goal is to keep girls active, while also creating an environment that feels welcoming, supportive and genuinely designed with them in mind.

For Jamil, starting a girls-only fitness space was about responding to a real need.

“We have lots of spaces for mixed crowds to do things and already have a run club in Saskatoon, but a lot of girls don’t feel comfortable doing things like exercising around men, and it may prevent them from staying active,” she said. “Also, sometimes people don’t feel like being active alone, so this is the perfect way to bring everyone together and stay fit collectively.”

The idea seems to have struck a chord. Even the club’s first run, held in cold weather, drew between 15 and 20 girls. Since then, Jamil said, events have continued filling up, and she expects even more growth over the summer.

“I expected it to grow pretty quick,” she said. “There is a high demand for this kind of thing, especially in Saskatoon, where we don’t really have spaces and communities for women to come together and do something like stay fit. It’s also inclusive to all ages.”

Inclusivity is part of what defines GirlsFitSask. The club is open to girls of all ages and all experience levels, whether they have never gone on a run before or are already deeply involved in fitness. The events themselves also vary, ranging from runs and workouts to skating and fundraising initiatives.

Jamil said the purpose behind the club has always been broader than exercise.

“To bring women of all backgrounds together to become fit and stay healthy collectively while [uplifting] one another and creating new friendships,” she said.

She described the atmosphere at events as “empowering and uplifting,” noting that girls have already begun making new friends and encouraging one another to become “the best versions of themselves.”

This kind of space matters, especially at a time when many students and young women are juggling classes, work and other responsibilities.

“During a time when we are all studying, working or busy in our lives, we don’t get many chances to meet new friends and go work out and stay healthy, so it’s critical to have a space where girls motivate each other to do it,” Jamil said.

Like many grassroots initiatives, GirlsFitSask relies on a mix of organization, outreach and listening to the people it serves. Jamil said the club uses Instagram to share updates, promote events and ask followers what kinds of activities they want to see. The group also works with local organizations, including the Commns Wellness Collective, which has supported the club by offering Pilates discounts and making space available for events.

“We check with the girls through social media platforms what things they are interested [in doing] and then coordinate with organizations to do so,” she said. “We keep everything organized and updated on our social media.”

Although Jamil said the club has not faced major ongoing challenges yet, the startup phase still came with plenty of work behind the scenes. Coordinating schedules, planning around school commitments and finding the best discounts possible for participants all required time and effort.

Still, she says the payoff has been worth it.

“Seeing the girls get fit together and make new friendships” has been the most rewarding part of the experience so far, Jamil said. She added that hearing directly from participants has left a lasting impression.

Those moments reflect something deeper than turnout numbers or social media growth. Jamil said she has already seen some girls become more confident and socially comfortable through the club.

“Yes, some of the girls who were a lot more shy at the start have started to build more confidence and friends that they met during our events,” she said.

This sense of belonging is also what Jamil believes makes GirlsFitSask stand out from other fitness spaces.

“We listen to the girls, and we ourselves are girls, and the events range from fundraising events to runs to skating and workouts, so there’s something for everyone’s preference,” she said. “For the girls, by the girls is what we say.”

As spring turns into summer, the club is preparing for more outdoor activity, including the return of weekly runs once the snow and ice are gone. For now, Jamil sees GirlsFitSask continuing to grow within Saskatoon and Saskatchewan, while staying rooted in the same purpose it started with by continuing to build a community where girls can move, connect and feel empowered together.

When asked what advice she would offer to other girls thinking of starting something similar, Jamil kept it simple.

“Don’t be afraid to start it because there will always be people who are looking for spaces like this,” she said.

For her, that is what the club ultimately represents.

“It means community and empowerment of one another,” she said.GirlsFitSask shares updates about its events and activities on Instagram at @girlsfitsask.

Duckweed and Deconstructing the Politics of Attention

At PAVED Arts, where visual media and experimentation often collide, Latent Swamp by Kelly Jaclynn Andres is both its newest installation and latest proposition: what if the smallest, most overlooked forms of life held the most expansive possibilities for rethinking our relationships to the environment?

At the centre of the exhibition is duckweed. While it appears to be nothing more than an unassuming aquatic plant — often dismissed as pond scum — Andres reframes it as something much more complex: a living system capable of transformation and communication.  

The installation is a speculative wetland. It’s an amalgamation of both biological and technological life, through Andres’s utilization of human participation, machine learning and living systems to create the work. 

Trained as an interdisciplinary artist with a PhD from Concordia University, Andres’s broader practice consistently engages with what she calls “multispecies” relationships — collaborations between humans and non-human entities like plants, fungi and microorganisms. Rather than treating nature as a passive subject, she positions it as an active participant in meaning-making. Her installations are often alive, unstable and evolving, blurring the boundaries between art object and ecological process. 

Latent Swamp continues this trajectory, but with a specificity that feels especially urgent in our current era. Duckweed, in its ability to absorb toxins and purify water, becomes something of a symbol of resilience in an era of environmental degradation. Yet Andres resists the temptation to romanticize. The swamp, after all, is not only a site of renewal — it’s also a site of decay, ambiguity and entanglement. 

The installation uses water as a material and as a metaphor. Inside a bioremediation lightroom, duckweed filters water reused for cyanotype printing, folding image-making back into ecological cycles. Edible water-lentil treats invite visitors to encounter the swamp through ingestion, extending the circuit from data to metabolism.

Latent Swamp resists the comfort of the picture as an image that frames, resolves and reassures. Instead, it proposes image-making as a form of response-ability: an entangled practice in which images participate in the world’s becoming, clouding perception, redistributing agency and asking what it means to see from within a living system rather than above it.

What makes Latent Swamp particularly compelling is its sensory and conceptual layering. Andres is known for creating immersive environments — soundscapes, tactile materials and bio-responsive elements that encourage viewers to engage with their bodies as much as their intellect. While the specifics of the installation may shift depending on its configuration, the underlying approach remains consistent: knowledge is not delivered, but encountered. The viewer is not positioned as an observer standing outside the work, but as a participant entangled within it.

This entanglement extends to the exhibition’s conceptual framework. By centring duckweed, Andres draws attention to the ways in which value is assigned — or denied — within ecological and cultural systems. Why do we overlook certain forms of life while elevating others? What does it mean to care for something that is small, diffuse and difficult to individualize? In a culture that often prioritizes visibility, scale and spectacle, Latent Swamp offers a counterpoint: a slow, distributed and relational mode of attention.

There is also an implicit critique of anthropocentrism running through the work. Andres’s practice, informed by fields like environmental humanities and critical plant studies, challenges the assumption that humans occupy a central or superior position within ecological networks. Instead, she proposes a more horizontal framework, where agency is shared across species and systems. 

This reframing of the narrative requires not just a change in perspective, but a reorientation of values — away from control and extraction, and toward reciprocity and co-existence.

Experiencing Latent Swamp is something of an exercise in unlearning. The installation invites its audience to linger in contemplation. The swamp is not something to be drained or simplified; it is a place to be inhabited, even if that habitation is uncomfortable. This discomfort is productive. It opens up space for new ways of thinking about environmental responsibility — not as a set of solutions to be implemented, but as a set of relationships to be navigated.

On a personal level, the exhibition prompts a reconsideration of what counts as meaningful engagement with environmental issues. It is easy to think of sustainability in terms of large-scale interventions — policy changes, technological innovations, global movements. 

While these are undoubtedly important, Latent Swamp shifts the focus to something more intimate and immediate. It suggests that attention itself is a form of care. To notice duckweed — to take it seriously and consider its capacities and its role within a larger system — is to begin reconfiguring one’s relationship to the environment.

This emphasis on attention resonates beyond the gallery. In a world saturated with information and urgency, there is a tendency to prioritize what is loud, visible and easily digestible. Andres’s work pushes against this tendency, advocating for a slower, more attentive mode of engagement. It asks us to consider what we might be missing when we move too quickly, and what might become possible if we allowed ourselves to dwell in complexity.

Ultimately, Latent Swamp is less about providing answers than about cultivating a particular kind of awareness. It does not tell us what to think about environmental crises, but rather how to think — and how to feel — within them. By foregrounding the small, the overlooked and the interconnected, Andres creates a space where new forms of understanding can emerge.

Intrigued? Want to get your hands wet in duckweed for yourself? 

Join Andres on April 23 at PAVED Arts to take part in the water lentil trials. Participants will have the opportunity to taste test samples of water lentil, take part in conversations about perception, sustainability and the future of food, and reflect on how cultural narratives, ecology and place-based knowledge inform what is considered edible.

Music whistling as the wind,

And the wind becomes music.

Staring at the trees standing tall,

Cast a shadow into free from groves,

And fall in formation behind me.

Snowflakes throw themselves onto the windshield,

Crystalizing the air,

And elongating the road ahead of me.

As the sky dims,

And the world turns a darker shade of blue,

I wonder what would happen if I were to close my eyes,

And let something else take.