On September 30th, Orange Shirt Day, also known as National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, started at the Harbour Quay in Port Alberni with an overcast sky. “Every child matters,” echoed through Port Alberni while orange took to the streets.

When Wahmeesh (Ken Watts), elected chief councillor of Tseshaht First Nation, arrived at the Harbour Quay he was taken aback by the number of people gathered in orange for the event.  

One day prior to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also a day recognized as Orange Shirt Day, orange fills lower 4th avenue as Nuu-chah-nuth walk through Port Alberni’s vulnerable neighborhoods handing out orange T-shirts. 

John Gomez, the Quu’asa coordinator for the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council’s Teechuktl Quu’asa program, said the effort was to show the at-risk population that there are resources and support for them, and that they aren’t left behind.

Myra Mack lives near Tseshaht’s Haahuupayuk Elementary School and can see the playground from her living room window. She likes to watch the children playing at recess and sometimes she catches a glimpse of her son playing there.

The Emerald Room of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in downtown Vancouver was packed with treaty teams from First Nations as well as the federal and provincial governments as the BCTC marked 30 years of treaty-making in the province.

The Nuchatlaht return to court today, for the final arguments in the first Aboriginal title case since the provincial government passed into law an act recognizing the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples.

After a summer away from the courtroom legal teams representing the small Vancouver Island First Nation and the province return to the B.C. Supreme Court, where Justice Eliot Myers is scheduled to hear the final arguments over the next three weeks.

Although she was spending a week surrounded by over 100 people in the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation’s big house, Haily John-Hansen didn’t have to think long to recollect the days her young family was under lockdown.