Grand Mananers welcome 2 Ukrainian families to island
CBC
Grand Mananers rolled out the red carpet and rang the church bell on the hill in North Head to welcome two families from Ukraine to their island "safe harbour."
The Marinins — Lena, Sacha and three-year-old Kostya — from Mariupol, and the Shutiaks — Sergei, Ludmila and two-year-old Vlodimir — from a medium-sized town outside Kyiv, arrived in the village last week.
Islanders had been working for a few months to co-ordinate their arrival, said Judy Stone, one of the people leading the effort.
A crowd greeted the Marinins at the island airport. Some have brought meals to them. Many have been practising how to say "hello" in Ukrainian.
"We thought with empty rooms in the house there wasn't any reason why we shouldn't help," said Murray Green, who, along with his wife, Krista, is hosting the Shutiak family.
The Shutiaks got in touch, said Green, after his wife filled out some forms online.
They took a plane to Halifax and a bus to Saint John, where Green picked them up at the station.
It was a tearful greeting, he said.
"I suppose they were wondering if anyone was going to show up."
After a rush to catch the last ferry, they arrived on Grand Manan at about 11:30 at night.
When he took them on a tour around the island in daylight they had tears in their eyes, said Green.
"They said they had come to paradise. I was really, really, really happy."
Green is a semi-retired truck driver, who has also worked as a fish hatchery technician and a lobster fisherman, and has six grown children.
He met his wife in Saint John and persuaded her to move to the island about six years ago.
Fire tore through a seafood processing plant in Cape John, N.S., on Wednesday night.
Another of New Brunswick's new municipal councils has become embroiled in drama and bitter conflict.
Tardiness is nothing new at Via Rail, but late arrivals are reaching historic levels in a key corridor since passenger trains have been forced to slow down at hundreds of rail crossings operated by CN Rail.
Walmart Canada will stop selling machetes — a type of weapon frequently used in violent crimes — in stores across the country, after Manitoba's government pressured the retailer to restrict online sales.
The parents of two 15-year-old girls at Evan Hardy Collegiate in Saskatoon say they went to police and the school multiple times between June and August 2024 with concerns about escalating online threats from the student now accused of setting one of the girls on fire in a school hallway.
After more than two years of developing an official plan, the City of Charlottetown is getting close to voting on adopting it. Some residents have concerns with higher density housing the plan could make way for, but others are welcoming it.
Premier Danielle Smith is once again headed to the U.S. later this month to continue her diplomatic approach to tariff talks amid a trade war with the United States.
Point Roberts, a U.S. community in Washington state, is so Canadian that it advertises its gas prices in litres as well as gallons.
Ibrahim Hermus arrived in Canada in 2023 with hopes his young daughter, Cena, would receive the medical care she desperately needed for a rare condition.
Advocacy organizations won't appeal an Ontario court's decision to dismiss their Charter challenge of the province's long-term care (LTC) law, which allows hospitals to move people into homes they didn't choose or be charged $400 a day to remain in hospital.
A proposed Thunder Bay lithium refinery has taken a big step forward, getting support from both the provincial and federal governments.
As the consumption and treatment services (CTS) site winds down in Guelph, Ont., the service set to replace it will not be fully operational in time.
It's a lively March day at the Dr. John M. Gillis Memorial Lodge in Belfast, P.E.I., as residents tap their feet and sing along with a guitarist performing The Black Velvet Band in a common room.