This ancient ritual enabled me to enter a supernal realm, a tangible place of living myth and primordial power. Here, suspended for a time in a lost world, I took nothing for granted. Everything became possible. The patterns of my everyday life were dislodged in the immediacy of previously unknown and utterly overwhelming natural forces. Sounds, images, symbols, and scents from a bygone era took command of my senses. Songs were sung in unfamiliar rhythms. Prayers were spoken in an unfamiliar language. In the heat and steam and integrity of it all, an inner vision awakened. My task was to learn to use it to navigate this exotic and sometimes foreboding territory. Over time, it became clear that the setting and instruments of the ritual are tools. Through generations of use, these devices had become lifelines. The rattle, the drum, the incense, the prayers all were a means to reveal the ancient ideas still living within the ceremony. Message from Earth is the story of what I discovered in the ritual sweat lodge. Peter Robert Fenton

This paper looks at one possible development strategy for the inner city of Winnipeg, a strategy consistent with forecasts that the city will experience continued low growth to the year 2000. The proposed strategy of inner city stabilization recognizes that technological change has created an excess supply of downtown land in the inner city. The strategy involves the reclamation of obsolete industrial & commercial land in the downtown in order to create modern residential subdivisions which would border on a more compact downtown. It also proposes that land banking initiatives be undertaken in concert with the reclamation activities. Options for implementing the strategy are discussed and examples of potential reclamation parcels are identified.

This report examines the history of some of the current major policy concerns related to the downtown area of Winnipeg. These concerns are among the foci of the Core Area Initiative program, an attempt by the three levels of government to revitalize the city's core area through a five-year public expenditure program. The report traces the development of housing & residential issues, central business district (CBD) issues (retail, industrial, commercial), and urban & municipal planning issues. The impact of various historic forces leading to diffusion of activity throughout an overly large downtown area is discussed along with the dispersion of CBD functions to suburban areas. The findings of the report provide insight into the problem of establishing a vital central core for Winnipeg.