Authors contributing to the series
Michel Durand-Wood
Michel Durand-Wood lives in the Winnipeg neighbourhood of Elmwood with his wife and three children, and he writes about infrastructure and municipal finance at DearWinnipeg.com. His writing has been featured extensively online and in print, including on Strong Towns, Streetsblog USA, CBC, the Winnipeg Free Press and La Liberté.
Patty Wiens
Patty Wiens is Winnipeg’s First Bicycle Mayor, and a board director and newsletter editor for Bike Winnipeg. Patty is a passionate advocate for safe streets and she spends much of her time promoting year-round cycling on her YouTube channel, Instagram, and her website pattybikes.com. She has been featured on YouTube channels and podcasts including The War on Cars, Active Towns, Radio-Free Urbanism, and Tom Babin’s Shifter. She was also named one of Ace Burpee’s Top 100 Most Fascinating Manitobans of 2024. She works at the University of Winnipeg and lives with her partner in the suburbs.
Erna Buffie
Erna Buffie is a writer, environmental activist and documentary filmmaker, who worked with CBC’s The Nature of Things for more than 20 years. Her award-winning films include, among others: Smarty Plants – The Secret World of Plant Behaviour and The Changing Sea. Past chair of Trees Please Winnipeg Coalition, she now writes regular opinion editorials for The Winnipeg Free Press on politics and the environment. Her novel, Let Us Be True, was nominated for the Margaret Laurence Fiction Prize and reissued by Shadowpaw Press in 2024. That year, she was also awarded the Winnipeg 150 medal for her community work, as well as the Council of Women’s Celebrating Women Award. A self-professed tree hugger, she and her partner live in Winnipeg, under the shade of a towering boulevard elm, with their Shih Tzu, Ollie, and spend their summers in a small lakeside cabin tucked into the boreal forest.
Sadie Lavoie
Sadie Lavoie is an Anishinaabe Two-Spirit from Sagkeeng First Nation located on Treaty 1 territory, and member of the Turtle Clan. A winner of the Dr. Tobasonakwut Kinew Leadership Award and the Next Generation Peacemaker Award from the Peace and Social Justice Studies Association of Canada, they have a Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies and Political Science from the University of Winnipeg. Sadie worked on numerous student-led initiatives including the Indigenous Course Requirement and the Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign, as well attended the UN COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco on behalf of the Canadian Climate Youth Coalition. In 2015, they co-founded Red Rising Magazine, an Indigenous-led uncensored magazine featuring Indigenous youth writers and artists.