Victoria’s Pandora Avenue has seen a rumbling of change this summer, as VicPD enforced a Safety Plan after a paramedic was physically assaulted while attending to a patient on the 900-block. While some service providers in the area believe what happened this summer has finally spurred much needed action for the housing, health, and addiction needs of Victoria’s unhoused population, other frontline workers have been facing frustrations and challenges.

Ideas will be critical for First Nations and forestry companies to make the best use of what’s left to cut, says those behind an upcoming conference being held in Port Alberni this September.

This summer the Tlu-piich Games returned to Port Alberni after five years, reminding Nuu-chah-nulth-aht of the health benefits of physical activity.

A whiteboard noting the Nuu-chah-nulth word of the day, ‘siiksaanapšiity̓ak’, meaning surfboard and pronounced seek-saw-nup-sheelth-yak, reels visitors in towards a new knowledge point on Long Beach in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, in Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations traditional territory.

From there, Indigenous Coastal Guardians Ivan Wells Jr., Chance Fred, Mohkin Masso and Andrew Clappis Jr. add a new layer to the usual Parks Canada visitor safety experience by sharing tidbits of Nuu-chah-nulth culture.

West Coasters won’t be surfing in their own poop anymore after the District of Tofino officially opened its new $77.5M wastewater treatment plant on Aug. 22.

The environmental impact of historically dumping raw sewage into the beautiful waters of Clayoquot Sound wreaked havoc on shellfish harvesting areas, according to a Nuu-chah-nulth cultural lifeways guardian.

“The north waterfront of downtown Tofino was a clam garden until recent decades,” said  Gisèle Martin.

Movable Feast Indigenous music and culture tour kicks off on Aug. 25 at the ‘Namgis Big House Field in ‘Yalis (Alert Bay) then on Wednesday, Aug. 28 the tour will barge all their equipment to Flores Island for performances in Ahousaht. Stop three and the last leg of the tour is on Aug. 31 in Toquaht Nation’s village of Macoah.

The Maggie Lake Forest Service Road (Toquaht Bay Road), located about 10-kilometres northwest of Ucluelet, and the Canal Main Forest Service Road (FSR), which runs for about 38-kilometres parallel to the Alberni Inlet south of Port Alberni, are getting upgrades.

Work includes widening and realigning the roads in multiple places, building new bridges to replace narrow ones and improving road surfacing, reads an Aug. 6 news release from the BC Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation (MIRR).  

Orange painted rocks line the main stretch of road in the heart of Huu-ay-aht First Nation (HFN) territory like memorials for every child that didn’t make it home.

HFN was a population of 2,800 in the late 1700s, but by 1881 the nation was decimated by a smallpox epidemic and colonization; parents were forced to send their children to Indian residential schools, it became illegal for HFN to sell fish and the Indian Act imposed rules that made it illegal to host cultural ceremonies like potlatches.

Campers at the Pachena Bay campground recently got a harsh lesson in how quickly the tide can change when they were stranded on the other side of the rising river.

On Aug. 17 during low tide the campers walked across the Pachena River, which runs from Panchena Bay and by the Huu-ay-aht village of Anacla. But as night fell Huu-ay-aht member Stella Peters said it became apparent an emergency was unfolding, as they hadn’t crossed back to the campground side of the river. The tide was rising, making the river too deep to cross.

It’s been an action-packed mid-August for the Alberni Valley Rescue Squad (AVRS).