Recent investments in the Barkley Sound village of Ethlateese are putting the remote community on track to cut down its reliance on diesel fuel by 90 per cent, according to the province.
Announced in December, the $2.8 million development in the Uchucklesaht Tribe’s village is among the most recent to help with energy sovereignty in remote First Nations settlements. The funds go towards battery energy storage for Ethlateese “that is essential for the construction” of a 750 kilowatt solar power system and a 250 kilowatt run-of-the-river generator, according to the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions. This follows the province’s announcement in February 2024 of nearly half a million for the run-of-the-river and solar power initiatives in Ethlateese.
The waterfront village on Hucuktlis Lake is only accessible by boat or float plane, home to around two dozen residents. In 2019 the Uchucklesaht Tribe removed all existing homes in the waterfront village, replacing them with 14 safer structures. Ethlateese isn’t connected to the provincial electricity grid and has been entirely reliant on diesel-fueled generators for power, which are operated by BC Hydro. But a move towards renewable power is evident in the village, where a new wellness centre is equipped with solar panels on its roof.
With the recent funding announcement Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix stressed the province’s commitment to cutting down on diesel usage in off-grid settlements.
“First Nations are leaders in this transition as we work together to build cleaner and healthier communities for people living in B.C.’s most remote places,” he said in a press release.
Formerly known as the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, the ministry has been rebranded since the provincial election in October. For his new post Dix received a mandate letter from Premier David Eby on Jan. 16, a document emphasizing the “foundational” importance of mitigating the causes of global warming and climate-related disasters. The letter also stresses the need to “dramatically accelerate permit approval for clean and low-carbon energy infrastructure.”
During the First Nations Energy Summit in December Dix spoke of a need to respond with the same urgency that was displayed during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period when he served as health minister.
“We need urgency, or people will become cynical of the processes,” said Dix during the energy conference in Vancouver. “We declared a public health emergency in the second week of March 2020. In the four weeks after that we made 24 or 25 of the biggest decisions that I have made or will ever make as a public official. We did it because there was urgency.”
British Columbia currently has 44 communities that are not connected to the electricity grid, most of which are Indigenous villages reliant on diesel.
“Diesel can produce harmful emissions when it is burned, and it needs to be transported to communities by barge or truck,” said Dix. “A clean energy project can support remote communities to reduce their use of diesel, from economic development, cleaning the air and contribute to energy sovereignty.”
Support for Ethlateese is part of $7.7 million that was announced for remote B.C. First Nation communities in December. Distributed by the New Relationship Trust, other recipients include the Gitga’at First Nation, which received $2 million for a 948-kilowatt hydroelectric generator connected to a lake, an initiative that pledges to reduce diesel consumption by 95 per cent. The Ulkatcho First Nation got $1 million to help build 3.8-megawatt solar farm, cutting down on diesel consumption by 64 per cent, while the Dease River First Nation is benefitting from $930,000 for a 550-kilowatt run-of-the-river hydro facility at Good Hope Lake.
The Old Masset village council received $600,000 to install a biomass heating system for its local hospital in Haida Gwaii, the Heiltsuk got $200,000 to support a pre-feasibility study on using hydrogen for power and Tahltan Nation benefitted from $200,000 in support to finish installing a small-scale solar power system.
Ethlateese sits by Hucuktlis Lake, a particularly advantageous location to harness the power of running water. Formerly known as Henderson Lake, the site gets more rainfall than anywhere else in Canada with an average annual precipitation of almost 7,000 millimetres. By comparison, Ucluelet sees 3,350 millimetres, while Port Alberni gets 1,907 and Vancouver sustains 1,159.9 millimetres of average annual precipitation, according to data from Environment Canada. The rainiest month for Hucuktlis Lake is November with 1,198 millimetres, and this falls to an average of 227 millimetres in July.
