Nuu-chah-nulth members are training for careers in the forest industry through a partnership between the Nuu-chah-nulth Education and Training Program, Interfor and Western Forest Products.
Ha-Shilth-Sa visited a training session at McLean Mill on Oct. 28. One group of students practiced their skills with chainsaws while, at the Mill Pond, a second group learned fire suppression skills.
(Ha-Shilth-Sa will live-stream the event for those who cannot attend.)
On Nov. 1 at Maht Mahs gym, Nuu-chah-nulth Ha’wiih, Chiefs, fishers, members and staff will gather to celebrate the final legal determination of Nuu-chah-nulth fishing rights. The day is developing into quite a party.
Residential school survivors and supporters gathered at the Alberni Valley Museum on Oct. 23 for the official opening of We Are All One, an exhibition of artworks by students at Alberni Indian Residential School more than 50 years ago.
Saturday Oct. 25 was reserved for honoring the memory of a woman who impacted Nuu-chah-nulth children and their education up and down the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The family of late Eileen Haggard, or Missbun as most people came to know her, gathered people together at Maht Mahs gym to dry their tears, end their mourning and celebrate Eileen’s life and contributions.
Photos from the memorial here at http://www.hashilthsa.com/gallery/eileen-haggard-memorial
Tseshaht grassroots community members last Friday transitioned their direct action against British Columbia Timber Sales from a road closure of industrial traffic at the junction of Gracie Main and Sterling Main to that of monitoring the Nahmint Valley timber sales area.
This monitoring will ensure that agreements entered into in good faith between Tseshaht and BCTS—specifically that timber licenses and contractors not resume timber harvesting or timber removal activities in the area—are fully implemented and respected.
Tseshaht Chief Councillor Hugh Braker expressed deep gratitude upon hearing a group of Grade 8 students sing a song in SENĆOŦEN (Saanich) at the First Peoples’ Cultural Council building on the Tsartlip First Nation on Oct 9.
The previous day, Braker was at a meeting of Nuu-chah-nulth hereditary chiefs where some recalled never getting the same freedom, instead being punished in residential schools when they were caught speaking their languages.
One chief remembered being forced to keep a bar of lye soap in his mouth from lunch until dinner.
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples sent a delegation to Ahousaht Oct. 8 as part of a fact-finding tour on housing in British Columbia first nation communities.
The senators visited Tsartlip, Nanoose, We Wai Kai, Ahousaht, Osoyoos, Westbank and Tk’emlups nations during the week of Oct. 6 to Oct. 10 to meet community leaders and hear what their housing issues are.
Chief Dennis John and family welcomed hundreds of guests over the first weekend of October as they paid tribute to the memories of his late father, Kelly John, and his brother Edward John and niece Arlene Titian.
The memorial potlatch scheduled for two days on Oct. 3 to Oct. 4 actually went three days, ending on Sunday morning.
The John family started things off by serving their guests lunch on Friday afternoon followed by the blessing and opening of the floor.
Tseshaht grassroots members who have closed the roads to industrial use at the junction of Gracie Main and Sterling Main in the Nahmint Valley are allowing logging companies to go into the area to remove their equipment.
With the equipment off-site, it will effectively stop any more timber from being felled. It also returns private property to the companies caught in the middle of what Tseshaht describes as British Columbia Timber Sales’ “failure” to live up to expectations after a consultation meeting in September 2013.
It only takes one person with a bad attitude and a short fuse to turn a peaceful protest and road closure into a tense situation, and that’s who Tseshaht members met this morning at the Gracie Main and Sterling Main Juncture.
Tseshaht members are closing the road to industrial traffic to prevent timber resources from being removed from the territory. They want British Columbia Timber Sales to come to the table with a promised cedar inventory and to work with the nation on a cedar management strategy.