It’s the final countdown to the 64th annual All Native Basketball Tournament in Prince Rupert, B.C. on Feb. 11 to Feb. 18, and three Nuu-chah-nulth teams are fired up to take to the court this year.

Ahousaht is sending the Kakawin Cheelth, an intermediate boys team coached by Devin Robinson, and the Maaqtusiis Ravens senior women’s squad managed by Courtenay Louie. The mighty Hesquiaht Descendants women’s team, captained by Mariah Charleson, will also vie to best their sixth-place finish from 2023.

The new year started off making a mark in history when Lily Gladstone, who grew up on the Blackfeet reservation, became the first Indigenous woman to win a Golden Globe as Best Female Actor in a Drama for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon.

“We all cried,” recalled Chad Charlie, an Ahousaht writer and producer, who was watching the Golden Globes with his fiancée and daughter. “We all cried because it's a historic moment.”

With the hope of reversing the effects of a “broken system” that has resulted in a growing wave of incarcerations for B.C.’s Indigenous people, two justice centres will soon be opening on Vancouver Island.

Vancouver Island’s snow pack is extremely low, averaging just 39 per cent of normal as of Jan. 1, but hydrologists with the River Forecast Centre (RFC) say there’s still lots of time in the season for conditions to improve.

The provincial snow pack is also low, averaging 56 per cent of normal across British Columbia, according to a snow survey and water bulletin by the RFC. Last year, the provincial average was 82 per cent on Jan. 1 and 62 per cent for Vancouver Island.

“There’s lots of Indigenous restaurants but none really capture the west coast,” says Kuu-us Café’s head chef Brandy Robinson.

Kuu-us Café & Gifts opened to the public on Jan. 15 in Port Alberni, offering up a menu filled with fish and game meats typical of a traditional Nuu-chah-nulth diet.

“We want to showcase west coast Indigenous food,” Robinson told Ha-Shilth-Sa. “So, we feature seafood, natural meats instead of just bannock tacos.”

A young college graduate answers an ad in the Alberni Valley Times. The West Coast District Council, an early incarnation of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, was launching a newspaper and needed staff.

“As I recall, the ad stated that they were looking for a reporter to start a monthly newspaper to serve the people of the 13 west coast tribes,” said Jan Broadland, one of Ha-Shilth-Sa’s first reporters.

It was late 1973 when Jan and her husband, Ken, began looking for work after the couple moved to Port Alberni from Duncan.