The Grades 6 and 7 students of Haahuupayak School played host to a very special guest on Wednesday, Sept. 15. Tundra, a domesticated wolf hybrid arrived with her owner, Gary Allen, to help the students learn about the importance of the animal in a healthy ecosystem.

Tundra, a nearly 15-year-old female wolfdog, is calm, gentle and remarkable in that the average lifespan of a wild wolf is five years. Ninety per cent wolf and 10 per cent Samoyed dog, Tundra is a gentle, geriatric wolfdog who feels the effects of age in the form of arthritis in her hips.

Over the last year multiple Nuu-chah-nuth people have been shot during confrontations with the police – in some cases fatally. What systemic changes are needed to decrease the number of First Nations people who come into conflict with the justice system?

Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay-Alberni

This week marked the two-year anniversary of the bus crash that killed two university students who were traveling to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on an annual field trip. 

On Sept. 13, 2019, a chartered bus carrying 45 students and two teaching assistants from the University of Victoria slid down an embankment on a logging road between Port Alberni and Bamfield. The accident claimed the lives of 18-year-old John Geerdes and Emma McIntosh Machado, prompting further conversation around improving the safety of the gravel road.

The opening of Ahousaht’s Maaqtusiis Elementary and Secondary Schools has been delayed due to rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the village. According to Rebecca Atleo, Ahousaht’s director of education, the school will hopefully open Sept. 27, 2021.

“Unfortunately, the numbers of positive COVID cases in our departments warranted closing all the departments in our education system,” Atleo wrote in an email to Ha-Shilth-Sa.

She went on to state that janitorial staff will do a deep sanitizing of all Ahousaht’s education buildings.

The City of Port Alberni has recently purchased five parcels of land from Western Forest Products, including the Somass Sawmill lands, and they plan to continue consultation with local First Nations on redevelopment plans going forward.

Both children and adults are enjoying a new playground which has opened at the Ditidaht Community School.

“It’s something the students have wanted for a long time,” said Emily MacLennan, the principal of the school located on Nitinaht Lake.  “For years I’ve been trying to get funding for this project.”

Students started fundraising for a new playground a half dozen years ago, when MacLennan arrived at the school to serve as a teacher for those in Kindergarten through Grade 2.

From lying on the forest floor of Huu-ay-aht territory to standing 37 feet overlooking Port Alberni’s Victoria Quay, the multi-year journey of a totem pole realised by a Hesquiaht master carver is set to be complete with an unveiling on Sept. 18.

The shoreline of a Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation is considerably cleaner these days.

That’s because a massive six-day debris cleanup was held on the shores of the Ehattesaht First Nation recently.

The garbage-collecting venture was part of a larger Clean Coast Clean Waters Initiative fund made possible through the B.C. government.

The entire project spanned about 280 kilometres of mostly remote coastline and is believed to be the province’s largest marine debris cleanup ever.

In his Sept. 8, community update, Ahousaht elected chief Greg Louie confirmed that his office received news from provincial health authorities that another resident has tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the current cases in Ahousaht to four.

Louie says the affected people are self-isolating at home, as recommended by provincial health authorities.

“Please be supportive…don’t be angry and don’t be blaming,” Louie reminded membership.

For five days, Rachelle Packwood removed mounds of Styrofoam, rope and tires that had collected along the remote shorelines of the Broken Group Islands in Barkley Sound.

It was the first beach clean-up Packwood had participated in and she hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

“I feel really good about what we did,” she said. “Knowing how many tons of debris we took off that Broken Group is astounding. I have a sense of pride.”