The Tla-o-qui-aht “admonishes” police action while responding to an emergency call in Opitsaht that resulted in one of the First Nation’s members being shot dead on Feb. 27.

“It is incomprehensible to see such unnecessary loss of life at the hands of the RCMP,” wrote Chief Councillor Moses Martin in a statement. “It is obvious that the RCMP need more social service resources and community-based responders, to assist them when interacting with those members of the society that have mental health issues, or whom are currently going through other trauma.”

Help is on the way.

But it remains to be seen just how quickly that assistance will arrive and when the Tofino Bus, Vancouver Island’s only intercity bus service, will resume operations.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Premier John Horgan announced motor coach operators in the province, who have suffered tremendous revenue losses due to a massive drop in ridership in the past year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, would collectively be receiving $10.7 million from the B.C. government.

Ditidaht First Nation has started a community clean-up that will bring together DFN staff, volunteers and school children.

DFN Administrator Eva Wilson told Ha-Shilth-Sa that the project began Mar. 1, 2021 with DFN departments contributing resources for the clean-up.

Joe David has been studying Nuu-chah-nulth art professionally for over 50 years. It’s a craft he has dedicated his life to and yet, the master artist still struggles to describe the region’s visual signatures. 

“It’s not something that I have found easy to explain in words,” he said.

Communities, park staff and first responders are braced for another wave of rampant illegal camping on the west coast this season along with cantankerous campers, environmental damage, garbage and what some feel are dangerous callouts.

ACRD directors, concerned about a repeat of last year’s pandemic-related onslaught, voted unanimously March 3 to set up a strategic working group to deal with the widespread issue.

The 2021 Port Alberni point-in-time homeless count will begin on April 7 and will run for five days this year.

The last homeless count to take place in the Alberni Valley was in 2018, which recorded 147 individuals experiencing homelessness, 43 per cent of which were sheltered and 57 per cent unsheltered. The Covid-19 Pandemic caused a planned 2020 count to be post-poned.

Huu-ay-aht First Nations will be receiving more than half a million dollars to expand its Pachena Bay Campground.

But what is not known yet is whether the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation will indeed be opening its campground in 2021 or if the COVID-19 pandemic will result in a second consecutive year of its closure.

It was announced earlier this month that Huu-ay-aht First Nations would receive a grant worth $510,340 through the province’s Community Economic Recovery Infrastructure Program.

These funds will be utilized to upgrade the existing campground.

Island Health is about to roll out COVID-19 vaccine to senior citizens in the province’s general population as part of Phase 2 of the immunization plan. Included in this round are Indigenous seniors ages 65 and older living in urban areas.

Seniors aged 90-plus and Indigenous people 65 and older who don’t currently receive home support services or live in a seniors’ supportive housing facility will be able to book their vaccination appointment with Island Health.

Immunization appointments begin on Monday, March 15 in community centres throughout the island.

Opponents of old growth logging in the Ada'itsx/Fairy Creek watershed near Port Renfrew are demanding provincial government intervention, worried that dwindling stands will be lost before Pacheedaht First Nation concludes treaty negotiations.

Protest camps have blockaded logging activity in the area — part of TFL 46 in Pacheedaht First Nation traditional territory — since August 2020, preventing Teal Cedar Products from building a road into the upper Ada’itsx watershed.

For the majority of Steve Howard’s life, he lived by the phrase, “real men don’t cry.”

“Back in my day we were always taught not to cry,” he said. “We were always taught not to feel. So, we grew up kind of tough. Whatever we held in, we kept in.”

It’s a mindset that the Tla-o-qui-aht man is trying to shift by encouraging his four sons to openly share their feelings. And yet, his past traumas of physical, mental and sexual abuse continue to hold him back.