Days before nearly all of B.C.’s salmon farm licences were due to expire, the DFO has granted them licence to operate for another two years, as Canada pushes through on a promise to phase out the industry’s standard open net pen practice by 2025.
By the time Kyle Harry aged out of foster care at 19, he was full of resentment towards the system that oversaw his upbringing since infancy.
“I’m still angry. I didn’t like Usma,” said Harry. “But I’m glad where I come from, from Ehattesaht.”
He recalls living in 12-15 different homes in Ahousaht, Kyuquot, Campbell River and Port Alberni over his childhood.
Island Health says it works to involve patients in decisions regarding their care, but a Tseshaht member recently had to fight through institutional barriers while her niece stayed at the West Coast General Hospital.
Rosa Ross, who has suffered from asthma since infancy, went to the Port Alberni hospital on June 3 with breathing problems. She was brought by Gloria Ross, Rosa’s aunt who also serves as her home care provider.
What was announced as “the largest, most transformative investment in salmon by any government in history” is largely Fisheries and Oceans Canada funding itself, leaving those who rely on the species out of decision making, according to concerns from West Coast First Nations.
This is how Canada’s former Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan introduced the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative in June 2021, a $647-million commitment to “stem historic declines in key Pacific salmon stocks and rebuild these species to a sustainable level,” stated the DFO.
A heavy mist chills Nootka Sound one morning in mid May, as Ray Williams scans the rugged shores he has known for his whole life. With the motorboat resting in shallow water, Ray’s son Darrell has jumped from the vessel’s driver seat to search for a painting on a rocky cliff that Ray encountered over 30 years ago while helping with an archaeological survey in the area.
“I’d know exactly where it was if I had my eyesight,” admits the 80-year-old as Darrell scales a cliff in Hisnet Inlet.
Today the federal and provincial governments announced that small quantities of illicit drugs will no longer bring criminal charges, a long-awaited move that health authorities hope will curb a fatal crisis that’s escalated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A five-member jury from a coroner’s inquest into the death of Chantel Moore is calling the tragedy a homicide, with a list of measures to improve police response in crisis situations.
The inquest released its findings today regarding the death of the 26-year-old Tla-o-qui-aht member on June 4, 2020 during a police wellness check in Edmundston, New Brunswick. A coroner’s inquest is a formal court proceeding that cannot determine legal responsibility, but rather makes recommendations to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
Unlike the empire that claimed sovereignty over Nuchatlaht territory and other parts of British Columbia in 1846, the Nuu-chah-nulth nation did not document its history with written records.
Although the legacy of habitation on Nootka Island was transferred from one generation to the next orally, other evidence of ancient ties to the remote area can be seen in the forest, which archaeologists and Nuchatlaht members look to as proof their land was stolen when the Crown asserted authority 176 years ago.
On May 10 the First Nation’s KCFN Marina and Campground Limited Partnership announced the acquisition of West Coast Expeditions, a company that has been offering guided wilderness retreats in Kyuquot Sound since 1972.
After being closed for two years over the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ka:'yu:'k't'h'/Che:k'tles7et'h' First Nation’s resort is reopening this summer with a larger facility and future plans to become more than a fishing lodge.