A structure that still reminds former students of painful memories from the Alberni Indian Residential School could be torn down as soon as next year, with a commitment from the federal government to fund its demolition.

Vancouver Island University is featuring the works of Hupacasath artist Rodney Sayers in their VIU Faculty Exhibition. The exhibit features a Nuu-chah-nulth-style ocean-going canoe with a modern twist.

“Many years ago, I began gazing at the Nuu-chah-nulth canoes, studying them as sculptural forms. I became fascinated with how they could be so elegant to move through the water so seemingly effortlessly, yet be so incredibly strong and seaworthy,” Sayers wrote.

The Port Alberni Friendship Center is promoting healthy eating through weekly cooking workshops.

Every Wednesday from 1 – 3 p.m., families are invited to attend the healthy eating workshop—Eating in Balance—where participants will work together to make meals, discuss health and food related topics.

Participants who cook and clean will receive a $10 grocery coupon for Buy-Low Foods or Quality Foods and get to take home leftover food. There is also a childminder on site for those needing child care.

The streets of Port Alberni once again turned orange today, marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, but this year brought a particularly significant occasion for the community.

It was on Aug. 31, 1973 when the Alberni Indian Residential School (AIRS), on Tseshaht’s main reserve, closed its doors for good.

Charlie Thompson, a survivor of AIRS, recalls when the West Coast District Council of Indian Chiefs began to discuss the closure of the school in 1972. Thompson was working as a band manager for Ditidaht and attended meetings with his father, Webster Thompson, who was the First Nation’s elected chief councillor at that time.

Roughly six hundred students gathered outside ADSS on Sept. 28, where the residential school survivors' flag flew for the first time, while the Canadian flag rose from half mast to full.

For School District 70 (SD 70), the survivors flag now has a permanent home among their schools.

“This flag will be here for eternity,” said Tim Davie, SD 70 superintendent, “recognizing the work that’s also taking place in terms of moving forward and reconciliation across the district.”

With a gathering emphasizing Nuu-chah-nulth culture, this year an annual welcome dinner for Grade 8 students was opened up to all newcomers to the Alberni District Secondary School.

On Sept. 28 hundreds filled the ADSS’s lower atrium, as a circle began the event by singing Nuu-chah-nulth songs under one of the school’s totem poles. As hot dogs were barbequed outside, all present were also treated to a full dinner of potato salad, bannock, salmon and halibut.

A brand-new wooden shed sits empty, next to Tim Paul’s historic language pole in Millstone Park, at the corner of Roger Street and Victoria Quay in Port Alberni. The shed is a gift, donated by The San Group, a forest products corporation with facilities on the Lower Mainland and in Port Alberni.

Worth an estimated $90,000, the shed was built and donated to support the efforts master artist Tim Paul is making to assist in the revival of Nuu-chah-nulth language and culture, according to Kevin Somerville of The San Group.

After a summer of severe drought, Vancouver Island went from one extreme to another this week with the first storm of the autumn.

But despite the late September downour that hit the West Coast - brought by what meteorologists called a ‘bomb cyclone’ - after a year of lower-than-normal precipitation some are reluctant to say the drought is over.

A new tourism fee program is being investigated by the Huu-ay-aht First Nations that would support the development of ecological and cultural stewardship in the Bamfield and Anacla area. 

The potential project is in collaboration with the Island Coast Economic Trust and inspired by the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation’s successful Tribal Parks Allies program launched in 2018.