It has been a quiet, picturesque village for as long as anyone can remember, but with road improvements set to begin later this year, Anacla and its neighbor Bamfield are seeing a dramatically increasing demand for housing.

Chief Councillor Robert Dennis says the Huu-ay-aht village of Anacla has maintained a steady population of about 85 to 90 residents up to the year 2020. But the following year saw a dramatic increase to 156, and he expects that number to grow even more by this time next year when the chip sealing and paving of the road to Port Alberni is complete.

Nuu-chah-nulth women in Port Alberni are among those who are being mailed at-home cervical screening kits as part of a pilot project.

BC Cancer officials started mailing out kits this past December. During the pilot project, which will run for approximately 12 months, about 67,000 kits will be mailed to women in central Vancouver Island as well as the Sunshine Coast on the province’s mainland. 

The Government of Canada has announced that it has provided funding to support Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation’s efforts to locate and commemorate missing children who may have attended residential schools in their traditional territories.

Despite a stormy winter that brought disastrous rains in various parts of the province and heavy snowfall for Vancouver Island, work on the Bamfield road is on schedule, with an improved surface due for completion by the fall.

In October the physical work to improve the 76-kilometre stretch of road south of Port Alberni began with the collection of gravel to build shoulders and ditches. So far 250,000 cubic metres of gravel has been packed, as well as culvert repairs and the installation of new roadside barriers and signs.

A school from a remote Nuu-chah-nulth community certainly defied the odds this year and was able to experience some on-court success.

Though Kyuquot Elementary Secondary School only has 40 enrolled students – that’s in Grades 1 through 12 – it was still able to have a senior boys’ basketball team this academic year.

The Kyuquot squad did manage to win a handful of its regular season contests. And the club then registered a victory during its three games at the North Island high school senior boys’ A qualifying tournament held Feb. 11-12 in Nanaimo.

More closures are expected this year to commercial salmon fisheries, while the DFO ramps up a program encouraging fishers to leave the industry – part of an effort to thin out the fleet of boats licenced to harvest dwindling Pacific salmon stocks.

A recently released University of Victoria report of the Canadian Reconciliation Barometer shows that Canada’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous people continue to have significantly different experiences, with areas of disagreement around reconciliation.

The first report was developed by a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action. The project team hopes the findings will inform public policy.

Paul Johnson was only eight years old when his mother, Pauline, was murdered in Vancouver. 

It’s been 38 years since her body was found, but to this day, her murder remains unsolved.

With only a short time together, Johnson holds onto memories of his mother through the stories his grandparents, aunts and uncles have shared with him over the years. That, and through the old photos that he keeps of her stored in his cell phone.

“It hurts every day that I can’t say, ‘I love you, mom’,” he said. “Part of me is lost.”

After more than three years of long travel delays on Highway 4 to the west coast communities, residents will be pleased to know the end is in sight for the Kennedy Hill road improvement zone.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure made the announcement Feb. 16, saying the Kennedy Hill project has reached a milestone as extended daytime closures will end on March 11.

The new traffic schedule, beginning March 11, will look like this:

* On weekdays, traffic queues will be released at the top of the hour between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m.

A group of Indigenous scholars and artists are collaborating on a unique garden that will not only serve as a celebration of art but also act as a teaching tool showcasing traditional knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation. And they have turned to Nuu-chah-nulth artists to take part in the project.