As colder and wetter weather arrives for the winter, Victoria’s emergency shelter providers are concerned about their ability to increase the number of beds available.

“Folks find themselves in situations that [at] the last minute they need somewhere to go to that’s safe,” said Leah Young, director of Housing and Shelter for Our Place Society. “We also find folks, especially going into the colder months, they might be camping outdoors, and once the weather turns wet and cold that they need that indoor shelter setting.”

When one thinks of petroglyphs in the Alberni Valley, the etchings on a rock face at Sproat Lake Provincial Park might come to mind, but those are not the only local ones to have been ‘discovered’. There is another, lesser known petroglyph at nearby Great Central Lake with oral Hupacasath history to go with it.

Ocean Wise Canada, a conservation group that works to clean and protect the world’s oceans, has released their 2022 Dirty Dozen list. 

“Each year, Ocean Wise Shoreline Cleanup identifies the 12 most found items on Canada’s freshwater and marine shorelines,” they stated. 

Topping the list for 2022 was the 164,995 cigarette butts that were cleaned up by volunteers on Canadian shorelines.

After three years of work, decades of lobbying and multiple traffic fatalities the Bamfield road has been upgraded, offering a newly surfaced, safer passage to the Barkley Sound community.

On Oct. 5 the B.C. government announced its proposed amendments drug-use regulations, which would put illicit use more in alignment with the limits of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis in public places.

On Jan. 31 of this year, the province decriminalized personal possession of opioids (heroin, morphine, and fentanyl), crack and powder cocaine, methamphetamine (meth), and MDMA (ecstasy) in amounts of 2.5 grams and under.

Ucluelet Secondary students jumped right into the school year to learn about residential schools, preparing interdisciplinary projects for the third annual Legacy of Hope exhibit in recognition of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Day on Sept. 30.

A memorandum of understanding was signed on Wednesday, Oct. 4 between Nanwakolas Council and Vancouver Island University (VIU) to offer a new Indigenous Guardianship program, an intensive Stewardship Technician Training Program, with funding from the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills.

A new, 10-week program has been launched at Eighth Avenue Learning Centre in Port Alberni that will give students hands-on learning opportunities that blend Nuu-chah-nulth culture with typical school lessons. The Chaputs Learning project brought together several partners, who each contributed to an exciting learning module that will see students learn about chaputs, or canoe.