Eric Plummer

Off the western coast of Vancouver Island, within the rocky shores of Flores Island, an inexhaustible passion for basketball has been breeding for over a generation. On any given night of the week you’ll have a hard time finding free court space in the Maaqtusiis school gym, as the Ahousaht community continues its love affair with a sport normally associated with North America’s inner cities.

“In Ahousaht basketball is a way of life,” said resident Tom Campbell. “When they’re two or three years old they start throwing a ball through a hoop.”

In her team’s final game at the Junior All Native Tournament, eight-year-old Kai Sam played two minutes. During her brief but intense time on the court Sam faced players who were as much as five years her senior, in a basketball tournament that attracted 91 Indigenous teams from all corners of British Columbia. Hosted by the Snuneymuxw First Nation, the annual event was held at multiple venues in Nanaimo this year, from March 19-24.

A new watershed fund is being heralded as a critical shift in how the provincial government values the natural resource, with particular attention to long-held Indigenous values.

With $100-million to back up its claim, the province announced the Watershed Security Fund earlier this month, with a pledge that B.C.’s future will be different than the past century and a half of reliance on unsustainable resource extraction. 

Federal Court has approved the terms of a $2.8-billion settlement that Canada is calling the first compensation to First Nations communities for the loss of language, culture and heritage due to the residential school system.

A transportation Safety Board investigation is pointing to the combination of dense fog, instrument failure and fatigue from an overworked operator as factors that could have led a water taxi to crash into a rock during a routine trip from Tofino to Ahousaht.

The federal agency released its report today, with details leading up to the crash involving the Rocky Pass in early 2022. Four of the five people aboard the water taxi were seriously injured when it hit a rock in a shallow area between Tofino and Ahousaht on Jan. 25, 2022, including skipper Chris Frank.  

The consumption of herring by marine mammals and fish off the west coast of Vancouver Island is giving the species little chance to rebuild to a higher volume, according to indicators recently presented by a Nuu-chah-nulth-led research project.

The amount being consumed by predators – particularly hake, humpback whales and stellar sea lions – is coming close to what the herring population in Nuu-chah-nulth territory is able to support, said Jim Lane, acting manager of the Uu-a-thluk fisheries program, during a Nuu-chah-nulth Council of Haa’wiih Forum on Fisheries on Feb. 24.

Regulations that would protect a vast undersea mountain range west of Vancouver Island are currently available for public commenting, a step that brings the biodiverse region closer to being conserved under Canada’s Oceans Act.

In the wake of findings that list 67 children who died while attending the Alberni Indian Residential school, the Tseshaht First Nation is calling on Ottawa to get behind its push to dig deeper into what caused the tragedies.

This week a court in Vancouver hears from First Nations affected by residential schools to determine if Canada should proceed with a $2.8-billion settlement to help communities recover from long-standing harms caused by the assimilationist institutions.

After a disappointing first trial, the second batch of fish being raised in a semi-closed system in Ahousaht territory is “exceeding expectations”, raising hope that the technology will add another stage to salmon farming that removes contact between farmed and wild stocks.