Observations this year from Huu-ay-aht territory see that volume of herring may finally be improving, as the First Nation is reporting a growing number of wild salmon migrating through its rivers.

Vancouver Island MLA Josie Osborne has been appointed as minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship and the minister responsible for Fisheries by Premier John Horgan. 

"The new ministry for land stewardship reflects the fact that natural resources are foundational to our province and they are the backbone of many local economies," Horgan said in a release.

Since 2017, the B.C. government said it’s been working on three broad land and resource management goals: reconciliation with Indigenous nations, environmental sustainability, and economic activity.

An Indigenous-led dive team was busy last week scanning the waters of the Alberni Inlet for ghost fishing gear and garbage.

The team, consisting of lead Henderson Charlie, his brother Greg Charlie and nephew Jermaine Bulwer, all from Ahousaht First Nation, were contracted by the Coastal Restoration Society (CRS) to complete surveys of what they found while diving in the Barkley Sound.

Gold River, a small village municipality nestled in the mountains, has a separate waterfront 12 kilometres down Highway 28 at Muchalat Bay.

The unusual degree of separation stems from another era and a resource development boom in B.C., when Tahsis Company built the town to house employees for its pulp mill located in the river delta at the head of Muchalat Arm.

Ryan Broekhuizen can vividly recall the last time the Alberni Armada had captured a major girls’ basketball championship.

A senior girls’ squad representing Alberni District Secondary School (ADSS), captured the Vancouver Island championship way back in 1987.

“It was 35 years ago,” Broekhuizen said. “I graduated from high school that year.”

Fast forward to 2022 and Broekhuizen, an ADSS alumnus, is now the head coach of the Armada, a squad that features his daughter Jordyn as its star point guard and top point-getter.

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.