KILLARNEY – A local boat shop saw its best year in 2025, however that wasn’t always a good thing for the man and wife behind the operation.

Killarney Lake Boat Works, which recently erected a storefront off Highway 18 in town, serviced roughly 100 boats this year, owner Tyler Pongracz told the Sun. The pace was great to see for the new company, but it was also troublesome in some respects at home.

“He’d leave at six in the morning, he’d come home at five o’clock for a quick dinner, then I wouldn’t see him for the rest of the night,” said Amanda Pongracz as she held the couple’s three-month-old daughter. “The last two years have been tough.”

Amanda and Tyler Pongracz have worked since 2019 to get their hobby boat repair, maintenance and restoration business established in Killarney. The shop had an ironic problem this year — it was too busy — and it led to a breaking point.

Shared Health Manitoba is highlighting the growing impact of physician assistants (PAs) across the province, especially in rural communities where recruiting and retaining physicians remains a persistent challenge.

For Portage la Prairie PA Heidi Wilson, discovering the profession more than a decade ago was a turning point. After exploring multiple health-care paths, she found the emerging PA role offered the hands-on medical work she wanted without the extended training of medical school. Today, she spends most mornings assisting general surgery and ENT procedures at Portage District General Hospital, where she was the first PA hired in Southern Health.

“We all had to learn together,” Wilson said in a Shared Health release. “I love surgery and doing procedures … there’s nothing better.”

Working in a rural setting allows Wilson to support two specialties and shorten waits for patients who might otherwise travel to Winnipeg. Afternoons shift based on surgical demand, helping ease bottlenecks and allowing physicians to focus on complex cases. She credits the PA profession, and the University of Manitoba’s intensive two-year Master of Physician Assistant Studies (MPAS) program, for giving her the flexibility to build a diverse career close to home.

The City of Portage la Prairie council has unanimously adopted a new policy that sets clear budgets and guidelines for council members attending professional development conferences and meetings.

The “Council Conference Professional Development and Meetings Policy” was approved at the Dec. 8 council meeting, marking the first formal policy of its kind for the city.

Coun. Joe Masi, the finance chair, said the goal is to improve transparency and provide a clear framework for professional development spending.

“We had no policy [previously], but we also want to be very open and transparent with the public of what conferences do we go to, how much money do we spend at those, what does it cost,” Masi said.

In recent years, curious finds by quarry workers in gravel pits near Grunthal have led to some remarkable discoveries about prehistoric conditions in southeast Manitoba.

According to Joe Moysiuk, curator of palaeontology and geology at the Manitoba Museum, the artifacts date back to the Ice Age, a period believed to have followed the extinction of the dinosaurs but predating humans.

As of Dec. 1, a new exhibit at the Manitoba Museum tells a story based on these findings.

“It’s a mural depicting what life was like in the Ice Ages in Manitoba,” Moysiuk said. “A lot of the fossil evidence that went into creating this mural was found close to Grunthal, so it’s kind of a nice local story.”

The BC Beverage Technology Access Centre (BC BTAC) at Okanagan College and the Prairie Research Kitchen (PRK) at RRC Polytech have been nationally recognized for their collaborative work helping a Métis-owned microbrewery in Winnipeg develop a high-quality non-alcoholic craft beer.

The two centres received the Most Impactful Interactive Visit Award at the 2025 TAC Innovate Awards, hosted last month in Quebec City by Tech-Access Canada. The award highlights exceptional applied research partnerships between industry and Canada’s network of Technology Access Centres (TACs).

BC BTAC and PRK partnered to support the microbrewery’s goal of producing a premium non-alcoholic beer, a fast-growing segment of the beverage industry. The teams integrated expertise in sensory analysis, analytical testing and process optimization, providing both technical guidance and strategic support to move the company closer to commercialization. The work also helped the brewery strengthen its internal research capacity.

For the TACs, the project established a model for national collaboration by merging capabilities across provinces and disciplines.

In many rural Manitoba towns, where a single coffee shop, hardware store or family-run boutique can anchor the local economy, small business owners are heading into the holidays facing one of the most uncertain sales seasons in years. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is calling on Manitobans to “choose local first,” warning that the shopping rush could make the difference between staying open or closing for good.

CFIB data shows one in three small businesses rely on holiday sales just to stay afloat, yet 65 per cent of Manitoba entrepreneurs expect no improvement over last year, and nearly one in five anticipate even lower revenue.

“For many rural entrepreneurs we speak with, losing just a handful of customers can be the difference between staying open and closing their doors,” said Tyler Slobogian, CFIB Senior Policy Analyst for the Prairies and North.

While small businesses everywhere are struggling with inflation and weakened demand, CFIB says the problem hits differently outside big centres. Rural entrepreneurs often face higher transportation costs, limited labour supply and greater vulnerability to supply chain delays. Meanwhile, urban businesses are dealing with rising operating costs, crime, property taxes and construction disruptions.