Christmas arrived a week early for Tseshaht First Nation with a $350 specific payment to each member, a dispersal of forestry revenues the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1950s.

“We had a good, successful year this year and we were able to give a bit of what we earned,” said Tseshaht Chief Councillor Ken Watts.

Some extra cash — a modest sum in relation to the soaring cost of groceries — would go a long way to easing financial constraints and hardships, but there was more behind the specific payment than earnings alone, Watts explained.

The controversial trailers located at the Wintergreen Apartments on Fourth Avenue in Port Alberni will be removed from the property, said owner Randy Brown.

Brown brought the trailers to an empty lot he owns after seeing a spike of people sleeping outside on sidewalks within the lower Fourth Avenue corridor in 2020.

“I have a big heart,” he said. “I can’t handle seeing these people out in the cold.”

His solution was to move around nine trailers onto his property to provide a housing solution for the homeless. 

A late-night search and rescue operation on the water near Flores Island on Wednesday, Jan. 5 was called off just before midnight, sending searchers from Tla-o-qui-aht, Ahousaht and the Canadian Coast Guard home.

The evening of Jan. 5 was dark, and snow was drifting down steadily on the ocean southeast of Flores Island (Ahousaht). An Ahousaht man went out on his boat to rendezvous with a fish farm company vessel just before 9 p.m.

The extent of an early January snowfall was clear to see this morning in Tsaxana, where the top of an upright baseball ball was all that could be seen from the feet that had amassed overnight.

Like many places in British Columbia, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community near Gold River was buried under more than two feet of snow, forcing the First Nation to close its offices as residents struggled to get out from the heaviest dump they had seen in years.

Two Nuu-chah-nulth nations have received funding to advance clean-energy projects within their communities. 

Through the British Columbia Indigenous Clean Energy Initiative (BCICEI), as well as provincial support through Clean BC, the Uchucklesaht Tribe Government was given $299,975 and Ka:'yu:'k't'h'/Che:k:tles7et'h' First Nations received $112,500.

British Columbia’s longest running high school basketball tournament will not be held as planned this month in Port Alberni – but organizers haven’t ruled out the possibility that TOTEM could be rescheduled to a later date.

Around two weeks ago, Nicole Gervais said chunks of Styrofoam started washing ashore on the northern end of Long Beach, near the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation community of Esowista on Vancouver Island.

That section of beach, entitled T̓ayus, has been closed to non-residents since 2020 to keep community members safe from COVID-19.

Free from the disturbances of visitors and dogs, Gervais said large flocks of birds have returned to the beach to feed on bloodworms and sand fleas.

Reconciliation with First Nations was addressed in the opening lines of the Speech from the Throne on Nov. 23, as Governor General Mary Simon read the address to senators and members of the House of Commons to open the 44th session of Parliament. The speech also quickly referenced the discovery of unmarked graves at multiple former residential school sites, news that shook people across Canada this year.

Ben Clappis received an alarming phone call on the morning of Dec. 6 when he was contacted by someone who said they were from border control services.

“They said they’ve got packages that are registered in my name, and it’s illicit drugs, as in cocaine, and then also marijuana,” recalled the Bamfield-area resident. “They’re saying that they found other bank accounts, I think in Toronto, an address in Surrey.”

Growing up in the city, away from her Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka’wakw homelands, Joslyn Williams struggled to understand her own identity. Without anyone around to teach her about her culture, she felt disconnected from herself.

“I always felt like there was something missing,” she said. “It's so hard to connect back to your roots when there's no one there to teach you.”

Williams’ mother, Rodrina Peter, shared what she knew by teaching Williams the basics of the Nuu-chah-nulth language.