A beautifully carved 12 ft totem pole was revealed on May 22 as the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation welcomed community members and students from Ray Watkins Elementary and Gold River Secondary School for a traditional awakening ceremony in front of their newly constructed and owned Baymont by Wyndham Hotel.
The rocks were hot enough to use by about 7:30 a.m. on the muggy May 15 morning at Esowista on Long Beach.
With confidence and ease, Tla-o-qui-aht canoe carver Joe Martin instructed about a dozen shovel-ready helpers to shuttle the 150 stones from the fire to the cedar canoe holding about four inches of salt water. Like stepping into a time machine, the distinct hissing sound of steam and enchanting scent of smoky cedar seemingly transported the group back to a different era.
This past May long weekend, Tseshaht Lightening hosted a basketball tournament of a caliber that the Alberni Valley has not seen in years, bringing hundreds of players and even more family members to gather around a game dear to Nuu-chah-nulth-aht.
“It runs deep in Port Alberni and in [the] Nuu-chah-nulth community,” said Earl Tatoosh, of Hupacasath and coach of the Cheiftains. “It's kind of been my love since I was six years old.”
The squeaks of sneakers on hardwood rang out over the May long weekend as B.C. basketball players came together in Port Alberni for the inaugural Ć̓išaaʔatḥ Lightning Tournament.
The three-day open hoop tourney saw 46 teams in five divisions play over 80 games spread out over five venues, with the finale taking place at Coulson’s Gym in the Alberni Athletic Hall on Sunday.
The orphaned killer whale calf that made her way out of a lagoon near Ehattesaht in April 2024 is being celebrated through art.
It was in late March when a Biggs Killer Whale and her two-year-old calf entered a shallow lagoon near Ehattesaht when the mother became stranded on a sandbar as the tide receded. Despite community efforts to save her, the mother drowned, her female calf lingered nearby.
In early May a powerful sun storm made the Northern Lights visible from Vancouver Island, but no one predicted that the resulting magnetic disturbance would have been felt on the ocean floor as well.
Over the first full week of the month NASA recorded the strongest solar storm to reach earth in two decades. From May 3 to 9 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration observed 82 solar flares, which are giant explosions on the sun that send energy, light and high-speed particles into space.
The money isn’t all there, but the framing and the dream of a cultural library are moving forward as Hesquiaht elder and artist Tim Paul and friends press ahead with the construction of a cultural knowledge center. The new center is going up on Josephine Street in Port Alberni, at the site of the former NTC smokehouse which burnt down nearly 20 years ago.
A Port Alberni couple has been sentenced to 15 years after they pled guilty to manslaughter in the 2018 death of six-year-old Don-Tay Patrick Lucas.
Following sentencing, the judge allowed members of the Lucas family, including Don-tay’s biological father, to stand before the accused to offer words of forgiveness to them. There wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom as the family reached out with words of love and compassion.
After more than a decade of development and construction, the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline was completed early this month. For coastal residents, this means that the number of tankers passing by southern Vancouver Island increases from five to 34 a month.
On Thursday, May 16 the mother and stepfather of a six-year-old are scheduled to appear in Port Alberni Law Courts to receive their sentence for the boy’s death.
Don-Tay Patrick Lucas was only six years old when he was found unresponsive in a south Port Alberni townhouse on March 13, 2018. First responders and police were told that the child was injured after a fall down the stairs, but suspicions arose immediately and the death became the focus of a years-long investigation by the RCMP and BC Coroner’s Service.