On Sunday, Sept. 24, communities all over B.C. came together to celebrate their rivers. For Port Alberni, a shuttle ran between Stamp River Provincial Park, where people could view salmon pooling and bears feeding, and Beaver Creek Community Club where community organizations prepared educational activities for the youth.
As the rain poured down on Sept. 25, Wally Samuel, Tom Watts, and Geraldine Edgar-Tom, residential school survivors, raised the bright orange flag of reconciliation to half mast in front of the Port Alberni City Hall. This is one of many flag raising ceremonies happening this week in recognition of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30.
“I’m really proud to be part of this,” said Samuel. “I'm proud that people are listening and believing us and willing to work together for [the] future of our community and our people.”
As Sept. 30, Orange Shirt Day approaches, Tseshaht First Nation hosted the Alberni Valley Bulldogs and Junior B Port Alberni Bombers Hockey Club to teach them about their territory, values, principles, and the history of the Alberni Indian Residential School.
When Wacey Rabbitt of Kainai First Nation in Treaty Seven territory moved to Port Alberni three years ago, it was to start his career as he joined the Junior A Alberni Valley Bulldogs as assistant coach.
As the First Nation looks to open up the area to more tourism, serious consideration is being given to extending the Trans Canada Trail to Huu-ay-aht territory on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island.
Spanning 28,000 kilometres by road, wilderness and waterway, the Trans Canada Trail is the longest network of recreational pathways in the world, extending to each of Canada’s three coasts. But currently just 566 kilometres of the trail is on Vancouver Island, running from Nanaimo to the Victoria area.
As cool fall temperatures set in, residents of Anacla and Bamfield are seeing their notoriously dusty, bumpy, and dangerous access road improve as crews near the end of the final segment of chip sealing just outside of Port Alberni.
Bamfield Main is a 76-kilometre industrial road, mostly located on the traditional territory of the Huu-ay-aht First Nations, that acts as a link between the communities of Anacla, Bamfield, and Port Alberni.
The town of Tofino has survived the tourist season that didn’t quite materialize in the summer of 2023, thanks to the Cameron Bluffs wildfire.
The fire itself closed Highway 4 for several weeks, starting June 6. For the rest of the summer the highway was either closed completely or open to single-lane alternating traffic as fire damage was repaired. The uncertainty of road openings drove tourists away from the west coast.
This month the Royal B.C. Museum began construction of a 164,000-square-foot building to house its collections that aren’t on display, but the institution doesn’t plan to include its First Nations pieces in this new facility.
Instead, as the RBCM aims to be “more proactive rather than reactive” in returning certain Indigenous artifacts to their home communities, it intends to keep the First Nations pieces at the main downtown location to facilitate more repatriation opportunities in the future, according to the museum’s communications department.
When the commercial vessel Ocean Provider was found fishing albacore tuna 42 nautical miles offshore of Barkley Sound without a valid license on a routine fisheries inspection, they were escorted to port, where 2,250 tuna amounting to 31,956 pounds were processed then seized.
After the owners pleaded guilty, they were sentenced the following summer in Port Alberni Provincial Court and fined $6,000. But when seizures were upheld to the Crown, it left the question: What happened to the seized tuna?
This August kayakers in Kyuquot Sound were astonished when they paddled upon a giant ocean sunfish.
Tashi Townley, his partner Megan Komori-Kennedy and her mom Violet Komori are still processing what they saw during their last-minute kayak trip.
A group of Nuu-chah-nulth master artists gathered at the Best Western Barclay hotel in Port Alberni at the invitation of Huu-ay-aht First Nations. According to organizer Kimmie McDonald, this is the first-ever Indigenous artist symposium held in Port Alberni and she hopes it won’t be the last.
Huu-ay-aht master carver Edward Johnson Sr. told the group of artists that when he first arrived, he wasn’t even sure what a symposium was, but toward the end of the second day, he said he understood and thought it was beneficial for Nuu-chah-nulth artists.