Flurer Smokery is offering the traditional flavours of the West Coast to Port Alberni’s Fisherman’s Harbour with their hot smoked seafood products and processing plant.

Flurer Smokery has been a Vancouver Island staple for seafood lovers for the past 12 years. The company opened in Campbell River in 2009 by Kelly and Brian Flurer and the couple worked hard to make the wholesale and custom value-added processing plant internationally known.

A marine salvage contractor has patched a sunken freighter leaking fuel in Nootka Sound and identified next steps in a complicated deep-water spill response.

Despite this — and the gift of good weather — operations to stop fuel leaking from the 1968 wreck are far from over, said Gillian Oliver, Coast Guard incident commander.

Resolve Marine Group placed patches on the hull of the MV Schiedyk in late April using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), six months after fuel sheening was observed on waters off Bligh Island.

B.C.’s forestry watchdog has released a report critical of logging practices in the Nahmint valley, pointing to inconsistencies in protecting the area’s old growth forest.

While the RCMP and BC Coroner’s Service have not confirmed the identity of a person found deceased in a Port Alberni apartment, friends and family are saying that the man was Terrance Mack of Toquaht First Nation.

“He was so very gentle, he did not deserve to go the way he did,” said Sandra Mack.

Sandra was at the apartment building a week after her first cousin was found. Other family members were there to demand justice for their relative. She said that her cousin, whom she called brother, died by homicide.

A Dakelh blessing celebrated spring release of 15,300 chinook fry into the Blackwater River as part of emergency enhancement measures to offset Big Bar Slide impacts.

“We think it’s important of the community to do the ceremony in celebration of our culture, traditions and teachings to keep them alive, but also to give prayers to the ancestors to help guide these fish back to the ocean and back to us,” said Chief Leah Stump of Nazko First Nation after taking part in the April 27 ceremony.

In a move to prevent dangerous clashes from forestry protest activity in it’s territory, the Huu-ay-aht First Nations have introduced a checkpoint halfway down the road to Bamfield.

The checkpoint went up today on Bamfield Main. If a driver isn’t recognizable, personnel will inform the visitor that while in it’s ḥahuułi, Huu-ay-aht’s three sacred must be followed: ʔiisaak (Utmost Respect), ʔuuʔałuk (Taking Care of), and Hišuk ma c̕awak (Everything is Connected).

Amanda Aspinall, a Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council nurse stationed in the Central Region, administers a COVID-19 vaccination at the Port Alberni Friendship Center on Monday, May 10.

Nurses across Canada are being recognized for National Nursing Week, an event that could be even more important due to the role of front-line health care workers over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A young woman is in a Victoria hospital recovering from multiple gunshot wounds after the Ucluelet RCMP were called to the home for a domestic disturbance.

According to a statement released by RCMP, at around 5:12 p.m. on Saturday, May 8th, frontline officers from the Ucluelet RCMP were called to a report of a disturbance and a male needing medical assistance at a residence in the Port Albion community.

After months of peaceful protests calling for an end to old-growth logging near Port Renfrew, tensions between activists and forestry workers have come to a head. 

Logging in the Walbran Valley has been paused following the release of a video revealing an altercation between forestry workers and those protesting the harvesting.

The footage was shared by the Rainforest Flying Squad, an old-growth activist group.

Lucy Sager grew up along the Highway of Tears in Terrace. The 725-kilometre corridor of highway in British Columbia has been the location of many missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). 

Driven by a range of factors, including colonization, the disproportionately high number of MMIW is, in part, a result of poverty. Without a driver’s license or access to a vehicle, many First Nations are forced to hitchhike, she said.

“The cost of hitchhiking can be your life,” said Sager. “And certainly, I’ve seen that.”