Timothy Masso and Hjalmer Wenstob have spent over a decade working together and collaborating on traditional masks, dances, and songs. In the recent years their collaborations have been used to share Tla-o-qui-aht culture with others. At Naaʔuu the two brothers shared their First Nation’s history, and their family connections.

During the first four evenings of Naaʔuu Wenstob is host; for the remaining evenings fellow Tla-o-qui-aht member Terry Dorward of the Seitcher family will stand before the audience.

Among round tables, in a traditionally inspired longhouse, Naaʔuu invites community members to gather and celebrate Tla-o-qui-aht culture for an evening. 

On March 16 the evening began with Hjalmer Wenstob, co-host and artistic director for Naaʔuu, along with singers welcoming guests with a paddle song. Soon after, the room filled with sounds of laughter and conversation as plates were brimming with salmon, mussels, and bannock, an abundance of coastal cuisine made by Heartwood Kitchen.

BC Housing has selected the Port Alberni Friendship Centre (PAFC) as the new operator of the Our Home on 8th supportive housing and shelter building.

“The Port Alberni Friendship Center is excited at the opportunity to be the new operator of Our Home on 8th,” said PAFC Executive Director Cyndi Stevens. 

She went on to say that the PAFC has extensive experience in delivering this type of support and service in the valley.

Federal Court has approved the terms of a $2.8-billion settlement that Canada is calling the first compensation to First Nations communities for the loss of language, culture and heritage due to the residential school system.

In 2018, the University of Victoria became the first in the world to have a program focusing on Indigenous law. And now, months after the program’s first class has graduated, construction has begun on a major facility upgrade.

The National Centre for Indigenous Laws (NCIL) is multi-million-dollar facility, with funding donations from the Law Foundation of British Columbia, and both the federal and provincial governments. Once completed, it will be home to a joint degree program in Canadian Common Law and Indigenous legal orders, as well as the Indigenous Law Research Unit.

The First Nations Health Authority is informing front-line workers about its Quality Care and Safety Office, offering support to Indigenous people as they navigate through the health care system in the province.

“The goal of the First Nations Health Authority’s Quality Care and Safety Office is to improve health and wellness programs and services for First Nations people across B.C.,” wrote the FNHA in an email to Ha-Shilth-Sa.

With only two weeks until the Port Alberni Shelter Society’s (PASS) contract ends to operate Our Home on Eighth, a new provider for the shelter has yet to be named.

BC Housing terminated PASS’s contract to operate the shelter and supportive housing facility earlier this year, ending the contract as of March 31. BC Housing then invited Indigenous-focused housing and shelter providers to submit proposals to operate the facility and services at Our Home at Eighth.

In a building that was formerly part of the Alberni Indian Residential School, a place where speaking Nuu-chah-nulth was banned among the children who had attended, eight-year-old Jesse Maquinna spoke in the ancestral language to traditionally invite the NTC executive to a cultural sharing event.

Nuu-chah-nulth Education Worker Marsha Maquinna and her daughter, Jesse, traveled from Gold River to present a cultural invitation to the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council’s executive director, president and vice-president on March 13.

This was Jesse’s second traditional invitation.

A transportation Safety Board investigation is pointing to the combination of dense fog, instrument failure and fatigue from an overworked operator as factors that could have led a water taxi to crash into a rock during a routine trip from Tofino to Ahousaht.

The federal agency released its report today, with details leading up to the crash involving the Rocky Pass in early 2022. Four of the five people aboard the water taxi were seriously injured when it hit a rock in a shallow area between Tofino and Ahousaht on Jan. 25, 2022, including skipper Chris Frank.  

The consumption of herring by marine mammals and fish off the west coast of Vancouver Island is giving the species little chance to rebuild to a higher volume, according to indicators recently presented by a Nuu-chah-nulth-led research project.

The amount being consumed by predators – particularly hake, humpback whales and stellar sea lions – is coming close to what the herring population in Nuu-chah-nulth territory is able to support, said Jim Lane, acting manager of the Uu-a-thluk fisheries program, during a Nuu-chah-nulth Council of Haa’wiih Forum on Fisheries on Feb. 24.