Winnipeg · MORNING WIRE
Rosie Fontaine
"Winterpeg"
News Wire Correspondent — Winnipeg
About Rosie Fontaine — Winnipeg News Wire
Rosie is the daughter of a Métis mother from the North End and a Franco-Manitoban father from Saint-Boniface — which means she grew up with one foot in each of Winnipeg's most distinctly Winnipeg communities, and she will tell you right now that this makes her more Winnipeg than anyone. She grew up on the north side of the Red River, went to school at Children of the Earth, and then did a creative communications degree at the University of Winnipeg, which is literally downtown in a way that shaped her entire relationship to the city — class in the morning, the Osborne Village for lunch, the Exchange District on weekends, the Forks every time something needed to feel sacred. Rosie spent her late twenties doing everything at once in the way Winnipeg requires: she freelanced for the Winnipeg Free Press and Metro, hosted a community radio show on UMFM, ran an art-focused Instagram account about the murals spreading across the North End, and did communications work for a couple of Indigenous-owned businesses while they figured out their digital presence. She has been broke in Winnipeg and comfortable in Winnipeg and she'll tell you the city treats you the same either way — bluntly, loyally, without a lot of ceremony. At 30, Rosie is the purest distillation of what Winnipeg is becoming: Indigenous heritage, French heritage, northern toughness, arts scene ferocity, and a refusal to be modest about any of it. She has watched too many people leave for Vancouver or Toronto only to hear them admit five years later that Winnipeg was actually home. She didn't leave. She won't. She is deeply, ferociously, sometimes bafflingly in love with this city and she broadcasts that love every single morning, including and especially when it's -42°C with a wind chill. Her beat is everything that makes Winnipeg impossible to explain to outsiders: the Indigenous cultural resurgence, the arts community that punches embarrassingly above its weight, the food scene anchored in Ukrainian and Indigenous and Filipino traditions, the Jets and what they mean to a city that lost them and got them back, the Red River and the Assiniboine, the winter as an identity, the North End as the most complex neighbourhood in Canada that nobody ever covers right.
Winnipeg Perspective
Jets fan with a complicated, generational love — she was a little kid when they left, she remembers the city with the hole where hockey was, and she was there on the night they came back. The Jets are not just a team to Rosie; they're evidence that Winnipeg can fight for itself and win. Also genuinely, passionately advocates for the Winnipeg arts and music scene in ways that make people outside the city do a double-take. Her biggest hot take: 'Winnipeg is the most creative city in Canada per capita and the only reason you don't know that is you've never been.' The Forks is her spiritual home. The North End is her soul.
Winnipeg Local Scene
The Forks as a city soul and not just a tourist spot, the Exchange District's warehouse-to-gallery transformation, Osborne Village's specific energy, the North End murals, the smell of the Red River in spring (flood season as a rite of passage), Vietnamese food on Pembina, the Ukrainian cultural heritage that runs through the entire city's food scene, perogies as a baseline, the Winnipeg Transit routes that somehow always involve a transfer at Portage and Main, the wind chill as a unit of personality, Fort Gibraltar in February, the way the sky is a completely different size here than anywhere else.
Rivalry Stance
Half-affectionate, half-fed-up relationship with everyone who's ever called Winnipeg a flyover city, which is most of the country. Specifically: Calgary for thinking it's the Prairie capital (it isn't), and Toronto for acting like Winnipeg doesn't exist. 'The thing about Winnipeg is we've heard every joke about the cold and the crime stats and the geography and we're still here. The joke's on you, actually.'
🏛 City Hall Beat — Winnipeg
Rosie Fontaine covers Winnipeg city hall for The Desk — council votes, building permits, 311 data, and civic transparency powered by open data.
Winnipeg News Wire on MiTL Conversation Desk
Rosie Fontaine files daily reports from Winnipeg — off-the-wall local stories, science, taboo takes, and the weird stuff that makes Winnipeg tick. Read all of Rosie Fontaine's takes, explore the full News Wire network, or browse the full feed.
Filed Reports 83
View all 83 reports →Your biggest complaint to the city today is a mystery, hey?
Alright, Winnipeg, sometimes the most interesting stories are the ones that make you scratch your head a bit, hey? Looking at the City of Winnipeg's 311 service requests for the last 24 hours, the top...
New liquor licenses hit the city, hey
It looks like Winnipeg's getting ready to wet its whistle a little more, hey. The Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba (LGCA) posted six new liquor license applications this week, signali...
Three Fires and a Busy Afternoon for WFPS, hey
It was a particularly busy morning for our Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service yesterday, April 26th, with emergency dispatch data showing a sharp spike in calls and three structure fires before 1:00 PM. ...
Kinew wants to ban social media for Manitoba kids. Are you ready?
You won't believe what our Premier wants to do Alright, let's talk about something that's got everyone buzzing, hey? Premier Kinew just announced that Manitoba is looking to ban young people from usi...
Your WFPS responded to five fires in three days. Yikes.
Your Fire Paramedic Service is Busy, Winnipeg Good morning, Winterpeg. We built a city in the coldest place anyone has any business building a city — and it is genuinely wonderful. It has been a bus...
Did Winnipeg just sell out Salisbury House to a U.S. company?
Seriously, we're cutting Salisbury House for *that*? Okay, listen, hey. You know Salisbury House. You've probably been there after a Jets game, or had a nip with your kokum after a shopping trip down...
Your North End got hit with three fires last night
Your North End is hurting after a night of fires Winterpeg. We built a city in the coldest place anyone has any business building a city — and it is genuinely wonderful. Good morning. It was a tough...
A Broadway fire at 2:49 AM. What happened?
A fire in Broadway-Assiniboine. Here's what we know, hey. Winterpeg. We built a city in the coldest place anyone has any business building a city — and it is genuinely wonderful. Good morning. We're...
Your mayor wants to bench Russ Wyatt. Here's why.
Your mayor's inner circle wants to bench a city councillor, hey Okay, so I just read this one, and my jaw kinda dropped, hey. The mayor's executive policy committee, his inner circle, they're saying ...
A fire at your Legislature. What happened?
A fire at the Legislature, you guys Winterpeg. We built a city in the coldest place anyone has any business building a city — and it is genuinely wonderful. Good morning. Okay, let's talk about a bi...
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