After a long five-year break due to COVID 19 and then staffing issues, the 38th Tlu-piich Games are back this year.

Led by Tlu-piich Coordinator Neve Watts, the games are set to take place in Port Alberni with the opening ceremonies on Aug. 10th, followed by events running through to Aug. 13.

“It will be very mellow,” Watts told Ha-Shilth-Sa, “not as it was in previous years.”

The Doobah Creek watershed, an area ravaged by industrial logging, can now begin its healing journey with $852,000 in federal funds to support restoration work over the next four years.

Located on the west coast of Vancouver Island in Ditidaht First Nation’s territory, about 92 kilometres southwest of Port Alberni via the Bamfield Road, the entire headwaters of the Doobah Creek were logged off multiple times — a poor industrial approach which annihilated fish spawning habitat. Forty years later, the Ditidaht people are starting to rebuild.

A music festival took over Pachena Bay this weekend, echoing a rhythm through the tall trees as throngs of bohemian-clad visitors rocked and swayed on the forest floor below into the early hours.

Momentum is building to have the Whalers’ Washing House returned to its original site at Yuquot, after the contents of the shrine have sat in a New York museum’s storage for over a century.

Substantial resources are coming from the province to support the land and resource management of modern treaty First Nations.

The new fiscal relationship between B.C. and modern treaty nations involves a co-developed funding model of about $1 million per First Nation per year for three years, which enables capacity treaty implementation work, according to the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.

With DFO’s latest Somas Sockeye Bulletin showing favorable numbers the Tseshaht and Hupacasath First Nations’ fishery departments are stating that the first half of this year’s season was a success.

“The high rain falls in June made the fishing conditions very favorable,” Les Sam, Tseshaht Councillor tells Ha-Shilth-Sa Newspaper.

On July 2, Canada launched its first National Council for Reconciliation. This independent, Indigenous-led organization aims to monitor and evaluate reconciliation efforts nationwide, addressing the long-standing injustices First Nations face.

As 2023 marked British Columbia’s “most destructive” wildfire season, with 2.84 million hectares of fires burning across the province, the Pacific Salmon Foundation recently released a list of possible human interactions to recover salmon habitat.

With a grand total of 2,293 wildfires by December, the province declared 2023 the “most destructive” year throughout British Columbia’s history. With the prediction of “larger, more intense and more frequent” wildfires in the future, the Pacific Salmon Foundation is concerned for B.C.'s wild salmon habitat and watersheds.

Saya Masso is grateful for the work that Tourism Tofino officials are doing.

But Masso, the lands and resources manager for Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, believes much more needs to be done before his First Nation can fully start reaping benefits it deserves.

Tourism Tofino announced last month details of a new initiative through an organization called Destination Think. Tourism Tofino is one of the founding members of this group, whose goals include implementing improvements in travel.

A unique ocean area four times the size of Vancouver Island has gained official protection from petroleum exploration, deep-sea mining and bottom trawl fishing.

Located about 150 kilometres west of Vancouver Island and off the southern tip of Haida Gwaii, the Tang.ɢwan-ḥačxʷiqak-Tsig̱is Marine Protected Area (MPA) is home to extraordinary seafloor features, including more than 47 underwater mountains, known as seamounts, and all confirmed hydrothermal vents in Canada. It is now the largest MPA designated under Canada’s Oceans Act.