He hasn’t been inside a classroom since March 2020, but that is about to change since eight-year-old Cole Gonzales received his COVID-19 vaccination on Nov. 8, making him the first child under 12 in Neah Bay to receive the shot.

Ellen Gonzales, Cole’s mother, comes from the Robinson family of Uchucklesaht and has another home in Kildonan. But she hasn’t been to her Canadian home in more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

In the lead up to Indigenous Veterans Day and Remembrance Day, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) executive committee released a statement on how they think Canada should proceed in raising the Canadian flags on federal buildings. 

After the remains of 215 people were found buried in unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in May, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau ordered that Canadian flags on federal buildings be flown at half-mast.

This Thursday on Remembrance Day Canada pauses to recognize those who sacrificed their lives during past conflicts, but the week begins with another national day of acknowledgement today.

Each year Nov. 8 marks Indigenous Veterans Day, when Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit are held up for their service in the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Vatican recently announced that Pope Francis will visit Canada to further “reconciliation with Indigenous peoples”, another indication that the world may be finally noticing what residential school survivors have known since their childhood. The Catholic Church ran residential schools across Canada for a century, ending in the 1990s.

First Nations say they were not adequately consulted before the B.C. government laid its old-growth strategy on the table with major implications for forests in their territories.

Premier John Horgan announced Tuesday harvest deferrals within 2.6 million hectares of B.C. forest land represent a fundamental shift in how forests are managed in the province.

“Following the recommendations of the Old Growth Strategic Review, we are taking steps to fundamentally transform the way we manage our old-growth forests, lands and resources,” Horgan said.

Bobby Rupert grew up with his grandparents who lived a few houses down from the Tseshaht First Nation’s Maht Mahs Gym in Port Alberni. He remembers being lured in by the sounds of basketballs hitting the ground floor as a young boy.

At the time, Rupert’s grandparents couldn’t afford basketball shoes or a net for him to practice. So, he took matters into his own hands. 

The self-described “Mr. basketball” created makeshift nets by cutting holes into the bottom of buckets that he nailed to the wall. He’s been hooked ever since.

Beach clean-up efforts are underway to remove the debris from 109 shipping containers that were knocked off a cargo ship in rough seas off the coast of Vancouver Island on Oct. 22. 

Hazardous chemicals are in at least two of the adrift containers that have not been located. Other contents, including Christmas decorations, sofas, poker boards, metal car parts, clothing, toys, yoga mats, stand-up paddle boards, as well as industrial parts, are starting to wash up on beaches along the northern coast of Vancouver Island. 

Ten new childcare spaces have been created at a daycare centre located at EJ Dunn Elementary School, doubling their capacity from 10 spaces to 20.

At a grand opening on Oct. 26 Early Learning Principal Stacey Manson said the new spaces, which includes the development of an outdoor playground, were possible through a $50,000 grant from the B.C. Ministry of Child and Family Development’s Childcare Rapid Renewal Fund.

The new spaces will add to services provided by the Family Hub, a centre located behind the preschool at EJ Dunn Elementary School.

As a young student many years ago, Hugh Braker read in a school history text a deeply hurtful reference to Indigenous people in Quebec as “savages.”

“I still remember that today,” he said. “It really hurt at the time and it continues to bother me today.”

It has also been a long time, decades in fact, since First Nations began negotiations to take back control of their children’s education. Braker is Tseshaht’s negotiator for what is referred to as the “education jurisdiction initiative,” a long-track process to achieve that goal.

It was a proud moment for Pacheedaht members as they witnessed the blessing and launch of the first community carved canoe in nearly 70 years, according to PFN elder Bill Jones. He recalled the names of four elders that made the last canoe in the 1950s or 60s.

PFN Hereditary Chief Charlie Queesto Jones made another dugout canoe under contract with retired researcher Eugene Arima in the early 1970s, but that one left the community when it was completed. It is on display in a Tofino-area museum. Born in 1876, Chief Charlie was nearly 100 years old when that canoe was made.