Ahousaht leadership issued a joint statement on Feb. 6 that the nation is not prepared to host Canoe Journeys in 2024. The statement was made on behalf of Ahousaht Hawiih (hereditary chiefs) and the elected chief and council.

In August 2023 a video made at Ahousaht’s Thunderbird Hall showed a group of about 30 members inviting people to the Flores Island community for a potlatch on July 29, 2024. With the hashtag ‘RESPECT – Gathering of families’, people were invited to land in Ahousaht, presumably by canoe, on July 28. The potlatch was scheduled to continue until August 2, 2024.

An opaque fog fills the Alberni Inlet on a chilly February morning, the milky hue spread through the surrounding city streets. By the water’s edge the beeping of excavators and trucks pierce the morning’s silence, the grumbling hum of their engines heard from an expanse of concrete running along the edge of the inlet.

On Jan. 25, Ditidaht hosted a Health and Job Fair, organized by Grace Marshall and Esther Edgar, to showcase the employment available in the community, training and funding opportunities, as well as health services that are available.

At first Marshall wanted to bring in a dietician to teach the youth, who were taking a cooking class, about diabetes. But then she began thinking of the young adults in the community and jobs that are available to them.

Ditidaht has over 770 members, and almost 200 people live in the First Nation’s on-reserve village at Nitinaht Lake.

Changes to federal funding distribution for language revitalization programs has raised concern for the survival of programming at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre (VNFC).

The VNFC offers language classes to meet the needs of its diverse Indigenous community, including Nuučaan̓uɫ, Nihiyaw (Cree - Y dialect and TH dialect), Nedut’en Carrier, Dene, Dakota, and Anishinaabe.

An ongoing study is looking back on how COVID-19 affected Nuu-chah-nulth people, with attention to the effectiveness of the vaccine, people’s immune response and how communities were impacted by the pandemic. 

January 31 marked the one-year anniversary for B.C.’s three-year decriminalization pilot project, where people using up to 2.5 grams of certain illicit drugs would not face seizures, charges, or arrests. But as 2023 saw a five per cent increase in death rates, experts are pushing for expanding the prescribed safer supply to help users on their recovery journey.

Vancouver Island Pro Wrestling is bringing a steel cage match to Maht Mahs Gym in Port Alberni on Feb. 16.

A steel cage match takes place in a caged enclosure that surrounds the ring. Competitors can win by pinfall, submission or escaping the cage. Competing at the Port Alberni match will be pro wrestlers The Architects of Anarchy and the Legendary Moondog Manson vs. wrestlers from The Moment of Truth.