Staff from Teechuktl Mental Health recognized Orange Shirt Day today, while adjusting to COVID-19 restrictions.

In recognition of residential school survivors, at 10 a.m. they walked from the Redford Street Quu’asa office in Port Alberni, along Fourth Avenue, stopping to sing in front of the Port Alberni Friendship Center and make an offering to children at the facility’s daycare. On route to the Harbour Quay the crowd also sang outside of the Thunderbird Building on Kingsway Avenue, where some former residential school students reside.

Under dark, stormy skies, dozens of boaters and kayakers gathered in the Tofino Inlet this past Saturday for a wild salmon flotilla in protest of the surrounding fish farms.

Tsimka Martin organized the event in response to the 19th recommendation of the 2012 Cohen Commission’s report. The recommendation calls for the prohibition of the Discovery Islands fish farms by Sept. 30, 2020, unless the operations are proven to pose only a "minimum risk of serious harm to the heath of migrating Fraser River salmon."

Orange Shirt Day will be held again this year to honour residential school survivors, but in Port Alberni the event has adjusted to follow COVID-19 restrictions.

On Sept. 30 the usual gatherings will not be held, instead a group of less than a dozen people will begin a walk from the Quu’asa office on Redford Street across Fourth Avenue, passing the Port Alberni Friendship Center to finish at the Harbour Quay.

Data recently released by the BC Coroners Service show that the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to bring high numbers of fatal overdoses, with 147 suspected illicit drug deaths in August.

This shows a 71 per cent increase over the deadly tally from August last year, but a continued decline from the results earlier in the summer. In May, June and July respective totals of 180, 181, and 176 have now been reported by the Coroners Service.

Males account for 862 of the 1,068 illicit drug fatalities reported in B.C. over the first eight months of this year.

Teara Fraser, the first Indigenous woman to start her own airline company in Canada, has joined the Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks Allies.

Fraser, a Métis woman who lives in Vancouver, founded Iskwew Air last year. Iskwew is the Cree word for woman.

Iskwew Air, which is based out of the Vancouver International Airport, provides charter services to communities throughout British Columbia.

Earlier in September Fraser flew to the Tofino-Long Beach Airport to participate in a ceremonial signing agreement with Tla-o-qui-aht officials.

Results from a snorkel survey last winter delivered an ominous clue about the status of Gold River’s winter steelhead run: Zero.

No steelhead — “qiwah” in Nuu-chah-nulth — were found when a crew co-ordinated by a half-dozen conservation groups went swimming in search of them along a six-kilometre stretch of the river in February.

Public consultation has resumed as the federal government edges closer to enacting Canada’s first specific aquaculture legislation.

Bounded by three oceans, Canada remains the only country in the world with an aquaculture sector yet no comprehensive legal framework governing the industry.

“The national association has been asking for an aquaculture act for probably 25 years, so it’s been a long time coming,” said Tim Kennedy, president and chief executive of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance. “We’ve been a lost child in Canada for some time.”

Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic half a year ago, British Columbia’s other public health emergency has escalated, causing health officials to grasp at approaches to curb the crisis.

The road to Happy Hill in Ahousaht just got a lot smoother thanks to a fresh layer of asphalt poured over the old pothole-pocked gravel road. Residents were pleased to see the section of newly paved road that happened in early September.

But it may be a long while before more paving is carried out, thanks to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the federal budget.

Elected Chief Greg Louie says the nation has been negotiating with the federal government for more than six years to get the road upgrades done in the rapidly expanding village.

A fisherman reported to the Port Alberni Port Authority (PAPA) that he saw a large sheen of diesel oil on the water near Port Alberni’s Harbour Quay on Saturday, Sept 12.

Mike Carter, director of operations at PAPA, confirmed the call, noting that at this time of the year, when rain is falling, oily sheen on the water is a common thing.

Carter, who had been in Nanaimo when the call came in, reported it to Emergency Management BC but said they indicated that they needed to hear from the original caller.