Nine years after Ahousaht hired Certified Financial Accountant Rob Bullock, the nation has greatly improved its financial status.

The financial situation was so bad, that the nation would have faced harsh consequences through Indigenous Services Canada if things were not turned around.

“We could have gone into third-party management,” said Chief Councillor Greg Louie.

That would have meant that control of Ahousaht’s finances would be temporarily transferred to another body.

This morning Barney Williams shed tears, as an apology from Pope Francis summoned distant emotions from his childhood in residential school.

“I think that there’s a lot of happy people like myself, breathing a sigh of relief and saying, ‘Finally’,” said the Tla-o-qui-aht elder, who attended Christie Residential School on Meares Island as a child, followed by a stint in Kamloops at a Catholic-run high school. “I feel better that it’s happened now.”

Mariah Charleson and her Hesquiaht Descendants teammates are pretty pumped.

That’s because it’s almost time for them to compete in the All Native Basketball Tournament (ANBT).

The Descendants are one of 16 squads that will participate in the women’s division of the ANBT, the prestigious Indigenous hoops event which has been staged annually in Prince Rupert since 1960.

The 2021 tourney, however, was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation members gathered in front of the nation’s main office near the Best Western Plus Tin Wis Resort in Tofino to protest recent housing evictions on March 31. 

Nora Martin said she was evicted from her home in Ty-Histanis on March 30 after being asked to pay for arrears that her son hadn’t covered. 

The arrears further accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic after Martin said she was told by chief and council that she was eligible to defer her monthly rent for one year.

The value of working together was emphasized with a plan on how the province will adopt UNDRIP – but this might be hard to believe for members of the Nuchatlaht, as the First Nation fights for Aboriginal title in court.

On Wednesday an action plan was released, listing a wide variety of initiatives in the provincial government’s effort to realign laws and policy with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Among the plan’s main goals is enabling Aboriginal people to “to own, use, develop and control lands and resources within their territories in B.C.”

Housing affordability is a main concern for Port Alberni city council when it comes to reducing poverty in the Alberni Valley.

City council received the Poverty Reduction Action Plan from the Alberni-Clayoquot Health Network on Monday that provided several recommendations to help individuals out of poverty and to avoid becoming destitute in the first place.

Marcie DeWitt, Alberni-Clayoquot Health Network coordinator, provided council with highlights from the 63-page report that she said should provide advocacy tools for municipal governments in the region.

Although it took more than two years to produce since the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act was passed in Victoria, First Nations leaders are calling an action plan released today “a step in the right direction”.

A new book detailing how to make a chaputs (cedar dugout canoe) from beginning to end by Nuu-chah-nulth master carvers is about to be released. Making a Chaputs – The Teachings and Responsibilities of a Canoe Maker was written by Master Carver Joe Martin and Alan Hoover, formerly a curator and manager at the Royal British Columba Museum in Victoria.

Ahousaht people have blessed the ground that will soon be home to their very own healing center. The ceremony took place on March 28 adjacent to the site of the former Ahousaht Residential School, said Elected Chief Greg Louie.

Louie said that there are members willing to go to a treatment centre for addictions, but barrier exist in the long wait and endless requirements needed to get in.

“Many give up and we thought there has to be a better way,” said Louie.

Vancouver Island University (VIU) Chancellor Judith Sayers was honoured in her new role through a talking stick gifting ceremony on March 24. 

Carved by Ts’usquinuxn (William Good), a hereditary chief and master caver from Snuneymuxw First Nation, the talking stick was crafted in the traditional Coast Salish style while paying homage to Sayers’ Nuu-chah-nulth heritage. It was gifted to Sayers by the University of Victoria, which commissioned the creation of the piece.