Brian Bowman is alive and well and enjoying life out of politics. Dan Lett and guest host Jen Zoratti talk to the former Winnipeg mayor about an inquiry into the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters and whether he still believes Portage and Main will, one day, be reopened to pedestrians.

Niigaan and guest co-host Julia-Simone Rutgers discuss Manitoba’s standing in the latest Campaign 2000 national child poverty report. Feature interview discussing mining in Manitoba’s North with Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee. The story of how a musician was born by poet and emcee Elliot Walsh a.k.a. Nestor Wynrush.

Niigaan and Dan sit down with former federal health minister and current director of the School of Medicine for Queen's University Dr. Jane Philpott to talk about the new provincial health care deal as well as her career in politics and its controversial end.

Cree opera singer Rhonda Head tells an amazing story of how Cree music changed the Grammys.

And a feature discussion on Winnie The Pooh entering the slasher realm.

Feature interview with NDP Leader Wab Kinew. Plus, stepping up the campaign to get Will Arnett on the podcast and more on the raging raisin debate.

Wondering about the state of health care? Niigaan assures us it ain’t good. Plus, an interview with outgoing CentreVenture CEO Angela Mathieson and a chance meeting with Fidel Castro.

Niigaan Sinclair’s full interview with RoseAnne Archibald, the first female national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Discussed are her accomplishments during the first half of her term as national chief, her priorities for the second half, and the attention she is paying to Winnipeg and the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit peoples.

Niigaan and the Lone Ranger sit down to discuss the anniversary of the Patels — a family from India who froze to death trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border near Emerson a year ago — and the drop in housing prices in the Canadian market.

Also, a feature interview with the first female national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald, alongside a great story from our friend Gio.

What does a Walrus have in common with a Manitoba winter, safer-consumption sites for those addicted to drugs and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre?

Not much really, but a special year-end/start of 2023 episode of the Niigaan and the Lone Ranger Podcast managed to cover all of those topics and several others.

Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti and Free Press investigative journalist Katrina Clarke join hosts Niigaan Sinclair and Dan Lett for a wide-ranging discussion about the stories that impressed them most in 2022, and where those stories might be headed as we head into a new year.

The panel was united in its concern that Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government continues to refuse to establish safer-consumption sites to prevent overdoses among drug users. Clarke recently returned from a trip to Hamilton, Ont., where she visited such a facility and talked to the people who credit it with saving their lives.

The panel was equally united in its conclusion that death of Freya — a young female walrus that appeared along the coasts of several western European nations from August 2021 to August 2022 — was a surprisingly moving story that touched on many of the great threats and challenges facing humankind.

Freya became a media sensation while swimming in waters not normally populated by walruses. So much so, that eventually, she had to be euthanized by Norwegian officials out of concern that she was a threat to public safety. Freya had, indeed, sunk boats in the Oslofjord attempting to find a place to sunbathe. Her death was widely condemned by wildlife advocates.

The panel was less united in its assessment of the political ceiling for Poilievre, who is trying to mobilize a huge constituency of voters with hardline conservative and libertarian sensibilities. Lett was confident he would fail, but others thought that increasing radicalization among right-of-centre voters would provide traction for the Tories.

Fans of streaming video may have noticed there has been a proliferation of Indigenous-led television and movies this year.

On various platforms right now, there is a wealth of Indigenous programming, among them: Reservation Dogs, the bittersweet story of native youth growing up on an Oklahoma reservation; Dark Winds, the big-budget detective drama (executive producer Robert Redford) that takes place on a Navajo reservation; and Three Pines, based on the Chief Insp. Armand Gamache novels (by Canadian author Louise Penny), which confronts issues such as missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and the legacy of residential schools.

To get some perspective on how Indigenous people are interpreting all this mainstream content, this week’s episode of Niigaan & the Lone Ranger (the podcast hosted by Free Press columnists Niigaan Sinclair and Dan Lett) features an interview with Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., director of the School of Gender, Race and Nations at Portland State University and a noted expert in Indigenous film and television.

Van Alst talks about the enormous cultural value for Indigenous people of seeing their own people and telling their own stories. He also noted Hollywood, in particular, still has a way to go in its treatment of Indigenous stories.

The panel digs deep into the reasons why many Indigenous people around the world are protesting the next chapter in director James Cameron’s Avatar movie franchise, which seems destined to become one of the highest-grossing films of all times. Despite its commercial success, Van Alst said the film is universally disliked by Indigenous people for its “settler fantasy” motif.

Also this week, we get a very special edition of the Storytellers, featuring none other than Jeanette Sinclair (Niigaan’s mother), who describes her son’s epic performance as Joseph in a school Christmas concert.

Niigaan & the Lone Ranger will be taking next week off and will return in the first week of January.