Ha-Shilth-Sa Newspaper August 24, 2023

Smoky winds reminder of prolonged wildfire season

By Alexandra Mehl Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As wildfire season roars throughout the province, smoke travels from north and northwest of Vancouver Island making its way to impact Nuu-chah-nulth territories.

According to the Coastal Fire Centre, last week’s cold weather event caused a shift in wind direction to a northerly direction, which brought smoke to loom over the majority of Vancouver Island.

Over the weekend, as ash settled onto cars in PortAlberni, the particulate matter reached up to 50 micrograms per cubic meter, a measurement for pollutants in the air, but as skies begin to clear it has lowered to six micrograms per cubic meter.

According to the air quality index, six micrograms per cubic meter means the air quality is currently 1.2 times the World Health Organization’s air quality guideline.

“You don’t see our elders out doing much activities outside,” said Hupačasath Chief Councillor Brandy Lauder, who is currently down two employees due to asthma.

Lauder said that normally she’d prepare

for wildfires in the last three weeks of August, but this year has been the longest and earliest season which has impacted cultural practices, including barbequing and smoking salmon.

Category two and three fire bans have been in effect since May and a category one fire ban has been in effect since June of this year, making campfires prohibited in all areas of the province except for Haida Gwaii.

“People are so used to the sockeye coming up, we got fires in the backyard, [and] we’re cooking on the [tlup-chus] sticks,” said Lauder. “That’s out the window because you can’t even have a campfire in the backyard.”

“When you can’t cook fish on a [tlupchus] stick, it hurts,” said Lauder.

For Tofino, roughly 126 kilometers west of PortAlberni, most of the smoke has been pushed away by the winds. Though over the weekend ofAug. 19-20 Lone Cone, located on Meares Island, was not visible from across the Harbour, said Saya Masso.

“Fine particulate matter in wildfire smoke matter carries the greatest risk to people’s health because it can be inhaled deep into the lungs and cause inflamma-

tion and irritation,” reads a press release from the Ministry of Health.

The province is reminding people to stay safe as the poor air quality impacts the province. This is particularly important for those with health conditions such as obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, heart disease, diabetes and respi-

ratory infections, or for infants, children and older adults who are at a greater risk of impacts.

The province suggests sealing doors and windows of the home, staying indoors, keeping hydrated, using an air filter, avoiding overexertion, and even wearing a respirator outdoors.

Alexandra Mehl photo

Youth of the Mułaa, Rising Tide Surf team use a spokeshave to round the edges of traditional surfboards at Esowista. This month the team was visited by Lacy Kaheaku, a native to Hawaiʻi, to learn how to carve traditional wooden surfboards and the Indigenous roots of the sport. Story on page 10.

BC Wildfire Service photo Currently the Mount Con Reid wildfire is the largest on Vancouver Island, burning to nearly 1,500 hectares west of Buttle Lake in the territory of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation.

Port Alberni sees a weekend with heavy smoke, while vulnerable people in other parts of the island are warned

Tseshaht athlete held up as ‘woman holding the gold’

By Eric Plumer Ha-Shilth-Sa Editor

PortAlberni, BC - While Jolyn Watts was competing at the Special Olympics World Games, her father was running an excavator, building a bicycle trail alongside the highway between Tofino and Ucluelet.

“I was making a rock wall around this culvert,” recalled Lloyd Watts. “I was being real crabby.”

But Lloyd’s day changed after news came through his phone about the result Jolyn’s 1,500-metre race, a long-distance run that earned her a gold medal.

“I looked at it and there was a picture of her with the gold medal,” said Lloyd. “I turned my excavator around, I put my bucket down, and I just started crying. So proud.”

The recent World Games in Berlin, Germany were particularly successful for Jolyn, as she also came home from the international event with a bronze medal in the women’s 4x400 relay event. It’s an inspiring result that the Tseshaht formally recognized on Saturday,Aug. 12 with a gathering at the Paper Mil Dam Park on the First Nation’s reserve.

Fellow Tseshaht members began the gathering with singing and dancing, leading to Jolyn being carried on a platform by four men before those in attendance.

“I was on cloud nine for a week or two myself just for her accomplishment,” remarked Tseshaht member Les Sam, noting Jolyn’s outgoing personality.

“Anywhere I went, when I bumped into Jolyn she would go, ‘Hey Les!’as loud as she could anywhere she was.”

“Our family really wants to congratulate you in your accomplishments on such a long journey, far, far from home,” said relative Linus Lucas, who gave Jolyn a new name at the gathering. “She will today be known from our family as Quuana-aaksuq, woman holding the gold.”

As those in attendance awaited lunch, 50/50 tickets were sold, the proceeds going towards the PortAlberni Special Olympics.

“Abig thank you for helping my daughter along the way,” said Lloyd. “That

rock wall that I built is called ‘The Gold Wall’, between Tofino and Ucluelet.”

The successes of other young Tseshaht athletes who competed at the NorthAmerican Indigenous Games in July were also recognized onAug. 12. The First Nation has three bronze medal winners from the youth event, which was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia July 15-23. These medalists include Jaidin Knighton, who earned third place with B.C.’s under-16 girls basketball team, as well as Hayleigh Watts and Jamie-Leigh Lucas, who both won bronze with the province’s under-16 softball squad.

Jolyn Wa s is among four Tseshaht competitors to win medals this summer, as three bronzes came from NAIG

Eric Plummer photos

Jolyn Watts is carried before her fellow Tseshaht members at the Paper Mill Dan Park in PortAlberni onAug. 12.Watts won a gold and bronze during the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin, Germany in June.

Facebook blocks Ha-Shilth-Sa in response to legislation

News across Canada is blocked by the social media giant, due to legislation designed to ‘level

By Eric Plummer Ha-Shilth-Sa Editor

Facebook is being heavily criticized by federal officials, as the site continues to block news with British Columbia under a state of emergency and over 20,000 in the Northwest Territories facing an evacuation order due to wildfires.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took aim at the social media giant on Monday, Aug. 21, amid the worst forest fire season in Canada’s history.

“It is so inconceivable that a company like Facebook is choosing to put corporate profits ahead of ensuring that local news organizations can get up to date information to Canadians and reach them where Canadians spend a lot of their time online on social media, on Facebook,” he said.

This summer the social media site’s parent company Meta began blocking links to Canadian news sources, a move that extended to the Ha-Shilth-Sa, leaving the 6,600 who follow its Facebook page with a blank template as of mid-August. This has affected news sites across the country, along with many of their Instagram pages as well due to Meta also owning the photo sharing platform.

Facebook’s blackout to certain sites is in response to The Online NewsAct, legislation that received royal assent in Ottawa in June 22. Bill C-18 is designed to force Facebook and Google to make deals with news companies, sharing advertising revenue from articles that appear in online feeds. Its aim is to “level the playing field” between social media and news outlets through revenue sharing, establishing “a mandatory arbitration framework” when agreements can’t be reached, according to the federal government’s description of the act. Financial contributions can be required by the Minister of Canadian Heritage to help the “sustainability of the Canadian news marketplace” based on the estimated revenues of social media platforms in the country.

The tide of online viewership and profits has flowed to social media in recent years. For well over a decade newspapers have been bleeding money, causing many to close across the country or cut down on their staff to unsustainable levels. Meanwhile social media has transformed the means that many people get the information they want.As Facebook saw $32 billion in revenue over the last fiscal quarter, with $7.8 billion in profits, Canadian news companies continued to see losses, totalling $36.7 million over the first six months of 2023 for Postmedia, for example.

Meta has defended its action to shut out Canadian news, saying this was only done to comply with the new legislation. “We have been transparent and have made it clear to the Canadian government that the legislation misrepresents the value news outlets receive when choosing to use our platforms,” stated the Face-

book owner. “The legislation is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true. News outlets voluntarily share content on Facebook and Instagram to expand their audiences and help their bottom line. In contrast, we know the people using our platforms don’t come to us for news.”

But it appears that many do look to Facebook first to get up-to-date information, particularly among the Nuu-chahnulth audience. This is reflected in the high numbers of followers for the HaShilth-Sa page, as well as other Facebook sites likeAV Nuu-chah-nulth Chatter (2,200 followers),Ahousaht Nation (2,873), Tseshaht Events and Happenin’s (845) and Ditidaht First Nation (861). Courtenay-Alberni MP Gord Johns said Facebook is critical to reach many constituents in his riding, particularly those who live in remote communities.

“This is a serious issue when media and good local journalism is being blocked,” he said. “The fact that people can’t get that from our local news outlet is absolutely appalling, disgraceful and it’s totally unacceptable.”

Johns is concerned that Facebook’s current tactic is feeding the spread of misinformation on social media while emergencies are unfolding.

“This is what big corporations do, they bully when they’ve 80 per cent of market share,” he said. “They don’t want to share revenue, and now they’re bullying a whole country. We can’t back down.”

Johns wants the federal government to get the large media to negotiate.

“My understanding is that they are working with Google, but they need Meta to come to the table and get an agreement done,” he said.

Similar legislation was introduced in Australia in February 2021, resulting in Facebook blocking news on its platform in that country as well. But about a week later a deal was reached with theAustralian government, resulting in over 30 agreements between Facebook, Google and news publishers, worth an estimated $200 million inAustralian dollars annually for the country’s journalism.

But with the Canadian legislation due to take full effect at the end of year, it appears that Facebook’s owner has little interest in make news part of its future.

“Meta does not scrape content or links to news content,” stated the company.

“Posts with links to news articles make up less than three per cent of what people see in their Facebook Feed, and Canadians tell us they want to see less news and political content. We have repeatedly shared with the government that news content is not a draw for our users and is not a significant source of revenue for our company.”

“I’m hoping that with enough pressure they’re going to come to terms to the realization that they’ve got a monopoly on the market share right now, and they need to contribute so that we don’t lose really important, critical publications,” said Johns.

the playing field’

The Ha-Shilth-Sa Facebook page is now an empty template, blocking its 6,600 followers from any information.

n follo

Gord Johns

Ha-Shilth-Sa newspaper is published by the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council for distribution to the members of the NTC-member First Nations, as well as other interested groups and individuals.

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Nuchatlaht look at long court ba le

It could take years to examine more evidence as province opposes territorial claim

By Eric Plummer Ha-Shilth-Sa Editor

Vancouver, BC - Six and a half years after filing a claim to the B.C. Supreme Court, the Nuchatlaht are committed to continue the court battle to prove title over their territory on northern Nootka Island - even if the process takes several more years.

The small Nuu-chah-nulth nation seeks Aboriginal title over approximately 20,000 hectares in the remote region off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.

Designated as Crown forest under British Columbia law, it’s land that the First Nation has looked to and lived on as its traditional territory for countless generations. Western Forest Products currently hold tenure over the area, which is heavily logged in many areas, but harvesting has ceased as the Nuchatlaht case is considered in court.

The Nuchatlaht, who have less than 170 members, are tasked with proving exclusive occupation of the claim area since 1856, the date that the British Crown asserted sovereignty over Nootka Island. The provincial government is contesting this claim.

After the province and Nuchatlaht filed hundreds of pages of evidence, leading to over 50 days in court last year, Justice Elliot Myers delivered a decision on May 11. He recognized that the Nuchatlaht lived on northern Nootka Island in 1856, meaning that the First Nation is the rightful owners of portions of the area – but not all of it. The judge wasn’t satisfied that the evidence proves the Nuchatlaht used the entire claim area, which includes heavily forested inland areas with steep terrain. In his May 11 decision Myers wrote that the only “direct evidence” of historical occupation is in the vicinity of the shore.

This decision was met with a mixed response from the Nuchatlaht, who seek title over all of their territory, not just portions of it. OnAug. 16 the legal teams were back in court before Myers, undergoing a procedural hearing to determine which direction to take.

“From beginning to end, the plaintiff’s case has been a territorial claim,” said Jack Woodward, who leads the Nuchatlaht’s legal team. “There’s more evidence

out there that needs to be found and presented.”

Jeff Echols, who is representing the province, spoke of the need to identify specific locations of historical habitation to prove theAboriginal title claim.

“Their argument was that there was one territory used by one group. The evidence didn’t support that,” he said. “We can’t just have big general descriptions of these things.”

Expert accounts filed to the court found that numerous groups used the claim area in 1856, a collection that Myers accepted to be unified under the Nuchatlaht confederacy. Now the First Nation’s legal team is tasked with preparing two applications for the court over the next six weeks, both options that would entail reopening the case.

Woodward plans to apply to seek more evidence of historical occupation throughout northern Nootka Island. This would include archaeological surveys, such as identifying more culturally modified trees and drilling into these living historical artifacts to determine how long ago they were harvested.

The Nuchatlaht could also look to a collection of audio tapes at the Royal B.C. Museum which hold accounts of traditional use of Nootka Island. The necessary translating and transcribing would be a time-consuming, expensive process.

“If that’s what it takes, my client has instructed me to do that,” said Woodward.

If this approach isn’t accepted by the

judge, the Nuchatlaht’s legal team is preparing an application to produce more maps of the claim area, using the existing evidence that has already been submitted to the court. This could further the Nuchatlaht’s argument with more detailed evidence of occupation for certain sections of the claim area.

Depending on what route Myers accepts, this could prolong the case by years, with potentially dozens of more days in court. Myers has recently turned 71, and Woodward noted the Canadian law that requires a superior court justice to retire at 75, bringing the possibility that a new judge could be appointed before a resolution is met.

“None of us will live forever, but this case will live forever, if we need it to,” said Woodward, who is 72.

While the Nuchatlaht trial was underway in the spring of 2022, the provincial government issued litigation directives to its lawyers outlining a new approach that better aligns with the B.C. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. This approach stresses the need for the province to avoid lengthy, expensive court battles with First Nations whenever possible. The directives stress the importance of minimizing the costs and complexity of court cases by exploring resolutions with First Nations.

“Meaningful reconciliation is rarely achieved in court rooms,” stated the directives, which were announcedApril 21, 2022.

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Ha-Shilth-Sa belongs to every Nuu-chah-nulth person including those who have passed on, and those who are not yet born.Acommunity newspaper cannot exist without community involvement. If you have any great pictures you’ve taken, stories or poems you’ve written, or artwork you have done, please let us know so we can include it in your newspaper. E-mail holly.stocking@nuuchahnulth.org. This year is Ha-Shilth-Sa’s 49th year of serving the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations. We look forward to your continued input and support. Kleco! Kleco!

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Eric Plummer photo

OnAug. 16 the Nuchatlaht were back in the B.C. Supreme Court to assess the future of their title case. Pictured from left are Jack Woodward, Owen Stewart, Jennifer Macleod and Sue Klatt from the legal team, with Tyee Ha’wilth Jordan Michael and Nuchatlaht membersArchie Little and Edgar Smith seated in front.

Tseshaht member advances in Pow Wow Pitch

Chrissy Fred is shortlisted among entrepreneurs across Canada for selling items to purchase snacks for schools

By Sam Laskaris Ha-Shilth-Sa Contributor

PortAlberni, BC – It’s a good thing that Chrissy Fred did not get cold feet once again.

That’s because the Tseshaht First Nation member now has an opportunity to win up to $25,000 to help her relaunch her business.

Fred had first heard of the Pow Wow Pitch, a national competition that awards a total of $200,000 in cash to various Indigenous entrepreneurs, a year ago.

Pow Wow Pitch is a grassroots organization that is co-presented by RBC, Mastercard and Shopify.

Fred contemplated attending an event in Kamloops in 2022 to let others know of her business proposal, which consists of selling donated items in order to purchase snacks for local students at a pair of schools.

“I heard of it last year and I chickened out and didn’t go,” she said. “But this year I went.”

Earlier this month Fred attended the Kamloopa Powwow, which served as a regional qualifier for the Pow Wow Pitch.

About 2,400 Indigenous individuals from across the country took part in this year’s pitch, either by attending various events throughout Canada or by simply submitting an online proposal.

Afew days after attending the Kamloops event Fred was notified she was chosen as a semi-finalist in the Not-ForProfit category.

The Pow Wow Pitch also features 16 other categories including Tourism, Fashion, Technology and Youth divisions.

Fred had launched her business called Skookum Deals back in 2017. She would ask people to donate various items to her.

Fred would then have a garage sale at her home and take all of the proceeds to buy snacks for students at the Haahuu-

payak Elementary School in Tseshaht First Nation and at the EighthAvenue Learning Centre in PortAlberni.

Fred continued this practice, on and off, for a few years.

“When COVID started I had to stop,” she said. “And I haven’t done it since.”

But Fred is eager to start up her business again.And she’s looking to do it on a much larger scale.

Fred was originally only looking for small items, including clothing, to be donated to her.

“I didn’t have much room to store it,” she said.

But since flipping homes with her mother last year, Fred said she can now accept larger donated items, including pieces of furniture, since she lives in a

considerably larger house.

If she wins enough money in the Pow Wow Pitch, Fred is hoping to purchase a 20-foot insulated sea can container, which she can use for storage of donated items.

“Now I have tons of yard space,” she said. “If I win this money, I want to take my business to the next level.”

Fred said officials from both local schools would welcome food donations from Fred.

“I’ve reached out to the principals,” she said. “And they would take anything I can do for them.”

Fred had worked as an educational assistant for the Kindergarten class at Haahuupayak Elementary School from 2010-15.

“I personally saw all the teachers and how many times they were buying stuff out of their own pockets for the students,” said Fred, adding she also chipped in financially sometimes and helped her classroom teacher buy snacks for the students at various times during the year.

Fred, who is now 43, was a student at Haahuupayak herself. She started Kindergarten in 1985 and was at the school until the end of Grade 6.

Fred also has a personal reason for wanting to assist those at the EighthAvenue Learning Centre.

“I have a lot of nieces and nephews that attend that school,” she said, adding

several other family members were also previously students at the learning centre.

Even if she doesn’t win any money from the Pow Wow Pitch, Fred is hoping to soon start up her business again.

She would like to be able to offer students at Haahuupayak some food items including granola bars, bread and some fruit.And for the older students at Eighth Avenue Learning Centre she’s hoping to provide items such as bagels and coffee.

“The reason I really wanted to do this is because the rising cost of food is crazy,” she said. “Some families are struggling to pay their own bills and they can’t buy all the food they want.”

Fred is hoping her snacks provide a little boost for students when they receive them. She’s hoping her business takes off and that she can also start offering snacks to many other students.

“Eventually I would like to expand it to other schools,” she said.

Now that she’s a Pow Wow Pitch semifinalist, Fred was scheduled to record a video of her business pitch at the Tseshaht First Nation administration office on MondayAug. 14.

The public will be able to see video pitches of all of the semi-finals in September at the website www.powwowpitch.org

Members of the public will also be able to vote on which entrepreneurs they want to see advance to the finals.

Denise Titian photo

Chrissy Fred launched Skookum Deals in 2017, which sells donated items, using the proceeds to buy snacks for local schools. She has progressed her business concept to the latter stages of the Pow Wow Pitch contest.

Museum reopens Old Town with a new approach

Less than two years after RBCM announced closure of the iconic exhibit, the museum backtracks on its decision

By Alexandra Mehl Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Victoria, BC - In late 2021 the Royal B.C. Museum announced that they were shutting down their third floor to decant iconic exhibits, such as Old Town, to decolonize the museum. But less than two years later, Old Town reopened on July 29, with some changes and a new approach.

Old Town, originally created in the early 1970s, replicates a Victoria streetscape from the late nineteenth century to the early 20th century with cobble streets that visitors can walk while looking through window shops, the grand hotel, the train station, among other iconic features.

The last major update to the Old Town exhibit was the addition of Chinatown in the 1990s, done in collaboration with the Victoria’s Chinese Canadian community, reads a RBCM press release.

Although it was one of the museum’s most popular exhibits, Old Town was closed in January 2022 as part of a process of “decolonization”, stated the RBCM.An extensive public engagement process followed to determine how the museum can better represent the heritage of all British Columbians, and now Old Town is back.

“We have heard you,” said Lana Popham, B.C.’s minister of Tourism,Arts, Culture and Sport, in a press release.

“Old Town is Beloved by hundreds of thousands of visitors. I know people miss it, are passionate about it and want to access it.”

Though many of Old Town’s beloved features remain with its reopening, some new displays and contextual panels have been added and are forthcoming. The RBCM is referring to these changes as a reckoning.

“This street of wood cobblestones represents one layer and reconstruction of British Columbia’s past,” reads one of the panels. “Countless layers of lived experiences have gone unnoticed.”

“Each of these spaces represent different parts of British Columbia,” said Chris O’Connor, RBCM’s acting director of community engagement and regional partnerships, referencing the elements that make up Old Town. “But it’s all told through a perspective of museum staff, and often a particular kind of person, especially at that time.”

O’Connor said that though Old Town has been a very important and nostalgic space for many people, the exhibit doesn’t tell many stories.

“[Old Town] is supposed to reflect the diversity of lived experiences over time in British Columbia and needs to be told by the people that lived those experiences, or ancestors with those experiences,” said O’Connor. “That’s the only real responsible way of doing museum work these days.”

Among some of the changes is the Sleeping Car Porters installed at the Old Town train station, a feature that came from an exhibition co-created with the B.C. Black HistoryAwareness Society called “Hope MeetsAction”.

At the entrance of Old Town, panels acknowledge Lekwungen people, also known as Esquimalt and Songhees, asking that visitors “keep this in mind” as they walk through Old Town.

O’Connor explained that in partnership with Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, this space will be reimagined on their terms.

Near the entrance, where Charlie Chaplin was previously playing in the Majestic

Theatre, a series of films are shown that continue to be worked on, called Living Culture,Artist Profiles and Living Culture, LivingArchives.

“I’m really happy to see an Indigenous film in there,” said Brianna Bear (Thealiye) of Songhees Nation, who grew up going to the RBCM. “That’s the first thing that I gravitated towards.”

“I really like how they still have the Old Town, but it is that new approach where they’re wanting to honor the land, the people that are from this land, and also the people who immigrated here too, in such a really beautiful way without losing the touch of what everyone knows is Old Town,” said Bear.

Among those included in the Living Culture films playing in the Majestic Theatre is Joe Martin of Tla-o-qui-aht.

Martin received the name Tutakwisnapšiƛ from his late-father, Robert Martin Senior (Nook-mis) at a potlatch.

“It comes with a role and responsibility,” said Martin. “Of teaching the laws of the land.”

“For me, I take this as a responsibility to be able to share as much as I can with anyone who will listen,” said Martin when asked about the Living Cultures, LivingArchives films.

Steven Davies, the Indigenous Learning Program developer at RBCM, has been working for over two years with cultural ambassadors and leaders to produce the Living Culture films, which currently total 14.

“In my opinion, I think it’s really important that Indigenous perspectives and voices are centered within all cultural institutions and centers,” said Davies.

Davies explained that the Living Culture films represent the diverse history of Indigenous people in B.C., and their continued cultural revitalization told from their own experiences.

He added that each artist retains the rights to the films, each with a copy of the interview material and film.

“I feel it’s really important to counter some of the history of extraction that’s been characterized throughout media production,” said Davies. “In a sense, [the films are] currently on loan to the museum.”

Tseshaht artist Joshua Watts was a Nuu-chah-nulth representative when the museum began its modernization process

“I don’t know exactly what the new approach entails,” said Watts. “I would hope that it would show an honest history because it’s romanticized and not really shared in a perspective that a lot of that lifestyle was on the backs of genocide, and a lot of that lifestyle was… from racism and was from the removal of our people.”

Watts said that though he enjoys the Old Town displays, he also feels that with the knowledge he has it’s difficult for him to fully appreciate them.

“I do feel like those displays are exploiting the fact that a lot of people are uneducated, or in fact, kind of ignorant to the true history and the violence that happened here,” said Watts.

Watts explained that for him and his community, violence from the residential school system is a part of Old Town, but this is absent from what the tourists see.

“Historically speaking, these were places of exclusion either formally or informally,” said O’Connor. “We also want to be mindful of that and reveal that as well.”

“Not pretend like everyone was welcomed in spaces like this,” he continued.

O’Connor explained that the shift in the new approach is to have the museum take on a role of facilitator for exhibits rather than the authority.

“It’s very colonial posture to [have] museums as authority, telling the story of a place,” he said.

“What we’re really wanting to do is centre community voices [and] bring in actual lived experiences so that people understand that history from people,” O’Connor added.

Other iconic exhibits from the Becoming BC gallery, such as the Captain George Vancouver’s HMS Discovery ship, are to be “refreshed and reopened” in the coming year, reads the RBCM press release.

“The idea is that now Old Town is a community engagement space,” said Leslie Brown, the museum’s board chair, pointing to a for-lease sign in what was previously known as the drapers in Old Town. “We want to work with people to say, ‘What do you want to see here?’.” Brown said that in every space there has been something “updated or cleaned out.”

“This is just our first cut at it,” she said.

The First Peoples Gallery, located next to the Old Town, remains closed as the RBCM continues to work closely with First Nation communities to reimagine the space, said Brown, adding that they are hoping to open sometime in 2024.

“I’m really happy with the fact that [RBCM is] taking their time and letting people know that, yes, we will be honoring the land, more so than what we are right now,” said Bear.

“It’s our job to create space for… so many different folks to be able to tell their own story and facilitate that process in a way that makes sense for them,” said O’Connor. “And not on our terms.”

Alexandra Mehl photo Old Town, originally created in the early 1970s, replicates a Victoria streetscape from the late nineteenth century to the early 20th century with cobble streets that visitors can walk while looking through window shops, the grand hotel, the train station, among other iconic features. in 2019.

Families affected by mismanagement of child services

This spring $23.3 billion in compensation was awarded by Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for First Nations

By Konnar Oliver Ha-Shilth-Sa Contributor

Anew, revised final settlement agreement has been reached by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, following a complaint made over 15 years ago.

Over $23 billion will be distributed to those who have been impacted by actions that have been ruled as discriminatory by the CHRT.

“For far too long, the imposition of colonial laws and bureaucratic systems have held chokeholds on us, our children, and our families, and were left to do so untethered, unabated, and unacknowledged,” said Grand Chief and President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs Stewart Phillip in a statement. “The revised Final SettlementAgreement and the tribunal’s ruling advances broader recognition, both nationally and globally, of the heinous harms experienced by our people, at the hands of Canada,”

In 2005, just two years prior to the complaint being filed, five-year-old Jordan RiverAnderson died while in hospital in Manitoba.Anderson was born with multiple disabilities, and was not able to leave the hospital in the first place until he was two years old.

Because of his complex medical needs, Anderson was placed into the foster care system. This was only because the federal government would provide funding to foster parents looking after First Nations children with disabilities, but would not disperse the same funding to the child’s own family.

The federal and provincial governments were unable to determine who would be liable to pay for his home-based care. This was not uncommon, as different levels of government funded different services for First Nations children. This was doubly true for children who lived on a reservation.

Anderson was deemed eligible to be released from hospital, and the Norway House Cree Nation leaders were able to raise money to have a van outfitted to take care of his needs.Aspecialized foster home was found, and he was ready to be released from hospital. But because Anderson was stuck in one of these payment disputes, the government decided he should remain in hospital until the

Eric

Grand

“For far too long, the imposition of colonial laws and bureaucratic systems have held chokeholds on us, our children, and our families, and were left to do so untethered, unabated, and unacknowledged”

situation could be figured out. He would never make it out of the medical facility.

As doctors Noni MacDonald andAmir Attaran put it in an editorial for the Canadian MedicalAssociation Journal at the time, “the bureaucrats ruined it.”

In 2007, The First Nations and Family Caring Society and theAssembly of First Nations filed a complaint with the tribunal alleging that Indigenous children liv-

Jordan’s Principle stated simply that First Nations children would receive the care they needed when they needed it, and that payments could be sorted out later. Jordan’s Principle was passed unanimously by the House of Commons on December 12, 2007. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called for it to be implemented across all levels of government, and the following year that is exactly what happened.

But the adoption of Jordan’s principle was just part of the complaint that was filed.And while it may have been adopted quickly, the complaint as a whole was not. It would be another six years before the complaint would make it to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in 2013, and another three before the CHRT would make a decision.

In 2016 the tribunal agreed with the complaints made, and ordered the federal government to change its actions, reform the First Nations Child and Family Services (FNCFS) program, and echoed the call to fully implement Jordan’s Principle.

of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs says that a recent settlement for those affected by the government’s mismanagement of child services “advances broader recognition” of “heinous harms”. ing on reservations were not receiving the same level of care and welfare services as other children in Canada. Part of the proposed resolution was the adoption of Jordan’s Principle, named inAnderson’s honour.

September 2019 saw theAssembly of First Nations requesting a compensation decision from the tribunal, something the CHRT agreed with. The Government of Canada was ordered to pay families who had children on reserves in the Yukon who were removed from their home from 2006 on, as well as those who had been mistreated due to what they called a narrow interpretation of Jordan’s Principle.

Two years later in 2021, class action lawsuits were filed seeking damages for those who suffered due to under funding of the FNCFS and again for narrow interpretation of Jordan’s Principle.

In 2022, a final settlement agreement was announced in the amount of $19.807 billion. The CHRT, however, found that this settlement did not fully satisfy their orders. Certain categories affecting some complainants removed. The tribunal ultimately decided, however, that this was “substantially satisfied.”

But now, the final settlement agreement has been amended, bringing the total up to $20.3 billion and including all those who have been negatively impacted.

At the direction of the First Nations-inAssembly, this updated settlement was reached onApril 4.

“I know for many, the release of the tribunal’s Letter Decision, provided some much-needed encouragement and cause for celebration, amidst relentless child protection reform and resumption of jurisdiction work underway by our leaders and nations,” said First Nation Summit Political Executive Cheryl Casimer. “It reminds us to pause, celebrate our successes and acknowledge we are not alone in this fight for the justice of our children.

It is my hope that the Federal Court expedites its decision on the revised FSA, and that with the claims process supported by the tribunal, those entitled begin to receive compensation as soon as possible.”

The revised settlement has been submitted to the tribunal. It will now be submitted to the Federal Court for approval before the claims process can begin.

Plummer photo

Chief Stewart Phillip

~ Stewart Phillip, Grand Chief and President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs

‘We’re related somehow’: BC Elders Gathering returns

Despite the high costs of holding the event in downtown Vancouver, nearly 1,800 elders and helpers came to share culture and experience

By Eric Plummer Ha-Shilth-Sa Editor

Vancouver, BC - For the first time in four years, elders from First Nations across British Columbia converged for two days celebrating the role they hold in their respective communities.

The BC Elders Gathering openedAug. 15 at the Vancouver Convention Centre, bringing together nearly 1,800 elders and their helpers to an annual event that has been sidelined due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The last Elders Gathering was at the city’s convention centre in 2019, attracting a similar number of participants.

This year’s event brought groups from several Nuu-chah-nulth nations, including Ehattesaht, Nuchatlaht, Uchucklesaht, Ditidaht and Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tles7et’h’.

For the nearly two dozen Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/ Che:k’tles7et’h’members at the gathering, it took a full day of travel to make it to the downtown Vancouver venue.Approximately half came from the First Nation’s village of Houpsitas in remote Kyuquot on northwest Vancouver Island, while others ventured from Campbell River, Nanaimo and Victoria, said Tess Smith. The group booked their hotel a year ahead.

“We left home at 8 a.m., and we arrived here at 11:30 p.m.,” said Smith. “We’re all thankful that our nation helped us get here.”

This is the 47th annual Elders Gathering, and Smith recalls accompanying her mother to the event, long before she became an elder.

“Then I got older, became one of them,” she said.

Dorothy Shepherd was among the 15 who travelled with the Ditidaht First Nation, many coming from their home reserve on Nitinaht Lake. Shepherd was invited by the First Nation to take part in the trip.

“They called us and asked us if we wanted to go. Why not?” she said, adding that she appreciates meeting with elders from other First Nations. “We learn from each other.”

“We borrowed the nation’s school bus,” said Melody Thomas of the Ditidaht group, noting that it’s important for the First Nation to “keep all of our elders together, cherish them, honour them.”

“To me, it’s to live, laugh, love, teach, and understand we’re family,” saidArchie Little, who came with a Nuchatlaht group of seven. “We need to keep passing the teaching on.”

‘An important institution that we need to promote’

Since 1982 the BC Elders Gathering has had a king and queen each year, and after the procession of elders into the main auditorium the 2023 event began with an address by this year’s matriarchs Mary

and William Lawley of the Lake Babine Nation.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry also spoke to the crowd on the first morning, addressing “Indigenous specific racism” in B.C.’s health care system. She noted the difficulties from the COVID-19 pandemic’s social distancing and restrictions on gathering.

“Take joy in the faces that you see, and being together again,” said Henry. “I hope that this is good and healing medicine for all of you.”

The newly elected MLAJoan Phillip of the Penticton Indian Band spoke, who won a by-election in June for the VancouverMount Pleasant riding, followed by her husband Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the BC Union of Indian Chiefs.

“We all know we’re going from crisis after crisis,” he said, referencing the pandemic as well as displacement from flooding and wildfires in recent years.

“We’ve been forced into 50-year-old

Participants in this year’s BC Elders Gathering entered the event’s main auditorium in a procession at the Vancouver Convention Centre onAug. 15. first morning of the event included Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry (below). Pictured in the bottom centre are queen and king Mary and

Gathering returns after four years

came to share culture and experience at the first gathering since COVID

look way ahead just in order to afford for a few of our people to go,” he said.

“It’s fairly expensive in the area where it’s at,” saidAhousaht member Wally Samuel.

As part of a group tied to the BCAssociation ofAboriginal Friendship Centres, Wally and his wife Donna were able to attend this year’s gathering, one of at least 10 the couple have gone to over the years.

“It’s a social activity, you get to meet with family and friends,” said Wally. “You meet somebody new all the time and reconnect with friends.”

In the past, smaller communities have often hosted the Elders Gathering. But with 23 years of service to the event, BC Elders Communications Center Society currently stands as the default bidder if no other community steps forward to hold the event. The gathering also defaults to the society if a bidder is deemed not large enough to host.

“If we are called upon to be the host again for 2024, or future years, we want everyone to know ahead of time that it will be held in this lower mainland location again,” wrote BCECCS Coordinator Donna Stirling in the society’s Elders Voice newsletter.

The society hosted gatherings in Campbell River in 2000 and 2017, but this is no longer possible, noted Sterling.

“Campbell River no longer has a caterer large enough to handle the needs of such a large event and serve the elders’needs properly so it will not be back there,” she wrote. “The elders have been more excited about this location than any others in many, many years and even though it costs more to stay in the Lower Mainland, I would like to ask you to discuss the possibility with your elders of going to the VCC again after you have all had a chance to evaluate the experience.”

motels, yet we’ve prevailed because of our elders,” said Phillip. “In every community, the elders are the strength, the elders have the wisdom, the elders have the experience, and that’s why you’re the first people we go to and ask, ‘What are we going to do?’.”

Phillip stressed that the BC Elders Gathering “is an important institution that we need to promote”, pointing to First Nation governments, tribal councils and provincial organizations to help the event continue.

Fundraising,

grants needed to cover registration fees

Until late January it was uncertain if this year’s event would take place, as its host organization, the BC Elders Communications Center Society, was unsure if enough groups would register to cover the gathering’s $1 million cost. Registration fees have gone up since they were introduced in 2007, increasing from $400 per person in 2019 to $550 this year, due to the inflationary costs of renting the downtown Vancouver venue, which is served by unionized caterers. This year snacks were not included due to the additional cost.Although outside food isn’t permitted in the Vancouver Convention Centre, the organizing society encouraged groups to have extra food nearby for their elders.

As the Nuchatlaht have less than 170 members,Archie Little said the First Nation relied on grants to attend this year’s gathering.

“Normally we couldn’t do it on our own,” he said. “That’s a little costly.”

Edgar Smith said that the Nuchatlaht had been preparing for a whole year to send people to the Elders Gathering.

“We’re a small nation, so we have to

Two gatherings were hosted in Port Alberni

The Elders Gathering has been hosted in Nuu-chah-nulth territory twice, both times in PortAlberni. For the 12th annual event the PortAlberni Friendship Center hosted in 1988, drawing 241 elders from across the province. Then the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council and Tseshaht First Nation took on the gathering in 2006, bringing together nearly 5,000 elders and helpers for three days.

With no registration fees, lead organizer Vina Robinson said that approximately $500,000 was fundraised for the event, which used theAlberni Valley Multiplex arena as its main venue, with meals served in the next-doorAthletic Hall and workshops at North Island College’s nearby campus.

“It was absolutely amazing,” said Robinson. “Two of the nations hosted two of the meals, so that really helped out.”

Ateam of 24 people with designated roles began coordinating the gathering in late January, ahead of its opening on July 18.

“MatildaAtleo looked after all the catering,” said Robinson. “She went and did all the rentals in Vancouver, rented the big food trucks, freezer trucks.”

By the time elders arrived, dozens of golf carts were transporting people between venues. The event relied on hotels in other towns, as PortAlberni’s accommodation quickly filled up.

“We didn’t have anywhere near enough room,” recalled Robinson. “We bussed people to Parksville and Nanaimo.”

It’s a benefit to the event when a smaller community steps forward, noted Robinson, as a large city like Vancouver brings challenges that go beyond cost.

“If you host an elders gathering in Van-

couver, it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg. You cannot park anywhere free,” she said. “In a smaller community you’re going to have people that want to come forward and help, whereas if you’re in Vancouver, it’s a large city and trying to gather people is a lot harder than if you were in a smaller city like PortAlberni. It was so easy for me to form a committee of 24, everybody wanted to help.”

Little would like to see more smaller com-

munities step forward in the future, even if it involves travelling further inland.

“What I’d like to see is have it more local. There might be young people, so that they can see and learn and understand what we’re trying to pass down,” he said. “We could go support them, we could learn from them, we could see their history, and we’ll probably learn we’re related somehow, even if it’s through family, song, culture.”

Eric Plummer photos Vancouver Convention Centre onAug. 15. Speakers on the centre are queen and king Mary and William Lawley.

Alex Wells (above) and others from the Lil’wat Nation danced for attendees.

Reclaiming surfing as a traditional Indigenous sport

The Nuu-chah-nulth surf team take their space in the water while learning how to carve traditional sur oards

By Alexandra Mehl Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Tofino, BC -As the sun beamed onto Esowista beach, youth of the Mułaa, Rising Tide Surf team gathered around Lacy Kaheaku, a native to Hawaiʻi, to learn how to carve traditional wooden surfboards and the Indigenous roots of the sport.

“Women did a lot of the surfing in native Hawaiian culture,” said Kaheaku, adding that royalty, alongside warriors, would also surf. “But majority of the leisurely surfing was done by women.”

Since ancient times, Pacific islanders have surfed. The pastime is believed to have originated in Polynesia, where cave paintings from the 12th century illustrate people riding the waves.

During seafaring journeys the activity reached Hawaii, long before contact with European explorers and the process of colonization began.

Despite these Indigenous roots, hundreds of years later on the B.C. coast the sport has little First Nations participation, said Rachel Dickens, co-founder of Mułaa, Rising Tides Surf team.

“The surf culture [in Tofino] has been predominantly white male dominated,” she said. “There’s not many First Nations faces in the waters despite these being unceded Tla-o-qui-aht lands that most people are surfing on.”

Dickens said that Mułaa, Rising Tides Surf team allows youth to “explore and play and feel like they can take ownership of a sport that’s traditionally Indigenous, and learn in an environment with supportive Indigenous mentors or non-Indigenous allies.”

Mułaa, Rising Tides Surf team runs on Monday afternoons throughout the school year and holds a two-week intensive surf camp in the summer.

Hannah Frank of Tla-o-qui-aht has been surfing since she was nine years old, and joined the Rising Tide Surf Team when she was 12 or 13.

“I never saw natives inside the water,” said Frank, who grew up at Esowista, along the coast near Tofino. “It was very rare to see our people go into our waters, except for fishing and crabbing.”

“I got into surfing because it was all I knew,” said Kaheaku. “I wanted to be a professional surfer when I was in high school; that was my dream.”

Kaheaku said that the lack of representation in the surf industry is what influ-

enced her to stop surfing as a teenager.

“I just felt I didn’t fit the profile of what a surfer was,” she said.

“I would see girls that were blonde hair [and] blue eyes get sponsorships, and then I wouldn’t be seen,” she said, adding it didn’t matter how well she had surfed.

“That was a big part of why I stopped surfing.”

In Kaheaku’s first year of college she met her teacher, Tom Pōhaku Stone, who taught a surfing history class at the college level.

“That class - at that time - I did not know would change the course of my life,” she said.

Stone has been teaching Kaheaku for the last decade, and she has officially graduated to teaching her own workshops.

She returned to surfing when she had children and wanted to teach them the skills. Kaheaku and her six-year-old son entered their first contest together in 2022 and plan to enter another in the coming year.

“What I didn’t realize in that class was the movement that Tom Pōhaku Stone was making from a colonized surf industry, and reminding people and teaching people where it came from,” Kaheaku said.

Learning how to carve a traditional surfboard has built Kaheaku’s confidence as a surfer and a mother, she shared.

“I do feel like there will be a revolution

in the surf industry,” said Kaheakhu. “I do feel like native and Nati people will be seen, [and] I do feel like women will be seen.”

Kaheaku said she wants to remind women that “this is what we do.”

“You can dominate this industry equally as much as men, if not more,” she said.

Carissa Moore, a native to Hawaiʻi and a professional surfer, was the first woman on team USAto take home an Olympic gold medal in 2020.

“I do see that there is change,” said Kaheaku. “It gives me so much hope for the next generation.”

Frank said that she would love to see youth from the surf team enter in competitions.

“To have them train every day with somebody in the water and having an Indigenous representative from Tla-oqui-aht in that contest; I think that would be really cool,” said Frank.

The Mułaa, Rising Tide Surf team also aims to shift the mindset around surfing from that of a competitive nature to one that is more collective.

“Not just looking at the physical aspects of surfing, but also the emotional and spiritual parts of being outside and being on the water,” said Dickens.

Frank moved away to attend Shawnigan Lake School this past September and came back home for the summer. She said that getting back into the water made

her “very happy.”

“It was medicine,” said Frank.

The youth excitedly gathered around Kaheaku, some grabbing spokeshaves unable to wait, starting to carve as frequently as they could.

Kaheaku demonstrated to the youth how to use spokeshave to round out the corners of the board, explaining to walk slowly as though walking to the nose of the board when surfing.

“What makes it traditional is definitely the shapes,” she said. “The reason why the shapes are the way they are is because they’re supposed to represent different things in the water, they’re supposed to be used for different types of waves in the water.”

“That function is related to nature, the ocean, the type of wave, where you are, what kind of wood,” she continued. “The connection of the wood, the forest to the ocean is what identifies as native.”

Kaheaku shared that the close ties between Hawaiʻi and B.C. were connected through the tides bringing wood from the Pacific Northwest to the Islands.

“That’s how we got some of our biggest canoes [and] some of our surfboards,” said Kaheaku. “The connection between B.C. and Hawaiʻi is a lot tighter and closer than what we might realize.”

“If I just stare at the ocean, it’s very much like beaches at home,” said Kaheaku.

Phrase†of†the†week:†@aah=š†ah†%ukniš†%a>†%aa%ic^um†+aawaasin@up†Qaanum@aqniš†%a> Pronounced ‘Haa sup ugh nish alth aa each gym tla wah sin hup ka num ugh nish alth’, it means, ‘We always honour our elders! We hold them closer, they are our treasures.’Supplied by ciisma.

Photo by Alexandra Mehl

Youth of the Mułaa, Rising Tide Surf team use a spokeshave to round the edges of traditional surfboards at Esowista.

Illustration by Koyah Morgan-Banke

Ship has decades of service in Nuu-chah-nulth waters

Since 1955 the Uchuck III has traversed Barkley, Nootka, and Kyuquot Sound as a cargo and passenger vessel

By Alexandra Mehl Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Yuquot, BC - The Uchuck III is a beloved cargo and passenger vessel that has been serving Nootka Sound for decades bringing the Mowachaht/Muchalaht nation back to their ancestral home, Yuquot, while delivering supplies to remote First Nations and industry camps.

Each summer, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the Uchuck III departs from the Gold River dock, travelling through the Muchalat Inlet to Nootka Sound, past Bligh Island, and arrives two hours later at Friendly Cove, also known as Yuquot.

Since 1992, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht nation has hosted their annual campout and Summerfest, which invites their community to celebrate and connect to their ancestral homeland. This year, as it does annually, the Uchuck III brought Mowachaht/Muchalaht members, guests, and equipment needed for their annual Summerfest held onAug. 5.

“[The Uchuck is] really important especially for events like Summerfest, the campout, [and] people go out to berry pick,” said Margaretta James (Yakup) of Lil’Wat Nation, president of the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society. “[It’s] linking that path to going home.”

To Mowachaht/Muchalaht, Yuquot is their home community that they have inhabited “since creation”, a home for the Whalers Washing house, a place that has hosted representatives from other nations for over two hundred years, and a place of natural power and beauty, reads the Agenda Paper submitted in 1997. This document requested that the Historic Sites and Monuments of Canada commemoration of Nootka Sound be corrected to recognize Mowachaht/Muchalaht’s history in Yuquot.

“To outsiders, Yuquot appears to be at the edge of the world,” reads theAgenda Paper. “For us, it is the center of the world.”

James said that though there are water taxi services and other ways to travel to Yuquot, people enjoy the community

Yuquot on the Uchuck III.

Additional to Friendly Cove Day Cruises, the vessel makes its cargo deliveries twice a week throughout Nootka Sound and Kyuquot Sound to logging camps, fishing lodges, and to Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/ Che:k’tles7et’h’First Nations, bringing them supplies such as oil, fish food, lumber, and small logging

henna artist

By Aleesha Sharma

equipment pieces, said Sean Mather, current owner and captain of the Uchuck since 1994.

The Uchuck Years, written by David Esson Young, a former captain and owner of Barkley Sound Transportation Co., outlines the history of four Uchuck vessels that served as freight and passenger boats in Barkley and Nootka Sound for almost a century.

In 1952, with business along the coast growing, Barkley Sound Transportation Co. Ltd. purchased a striped-out hulk of an old US Navy minesweeper which would later be known as Uchuck III - the only of the Uchuck vessels that remain running.

The vessel, originally named YMS 123, was built in 1943 and was previously based at Mare Island near San Francisco, where it would patrol U.S. and Canadian waters, The Uchuck Years reads. “One of the reasons why this one survived for war [was] it never left California’s coast,” said Mather. “Just doing local patrols.”

When they purchased the stripped-out hulk, Uchuck I towed it around the southern tip of Vancouver Island to PortAlberni where they would begin the process of rebuilding the vessel with one of its most distinct features, the cargo-operating lift, also known as a union purchase mainstay. This lift-operating system was made with two winches and two derricks that

extend from the mainstay to either side of the boat. This design made for more control and mobility for onloading and offloading cargo, reads The Uchuck Years.

Using salvaged parts from vessels of the Canadian Pacific fleet, bridge telegraphs from the Princess Victoria, as well as a mast, derricks, wheelhouse steering gear, and lifeboats from Princess Mary, they finished building three years later, the book continued.

“They had vision, they had drive, they had knowledge, and they put it all together,” said Mather, referencing Dave Esson Young and George McCandless’effort to restore Uchuck III. “They converted it in 1955 and here we are in 2023 and the vessel’s still going.”

“Without a lot of changes,” he added, though the MV Uchuck III now has life rafts instead of lifeboats.

In 1980, it was advised by a senior surveyor from Canadian Steamship Inspection that the company buy a new boat, but instead they invested 12 years of upgrading, receiving new hull planking, new engines, winches, wiring, and electronics, among other features, reads the Get West Adventure Cruises website.

“I think this is the last wooden freighter on the coast,” said Mather.

To date, the Uchuck III continues to run deliveries and day cruises throughout Nootka and Kyuquot Sounds.

Alexandra Mehl photos

Sean Mather steers Uchuck III through Muchalaht Inlet into Nootka Sound during one of their day cruises to Friendly Cove. and social aspect of travelling to

Le er to the editor

We just finished our very first Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tles7et’h’

Annual Campout out on our traditional homelandsAktis Island in Kyuquot. It was the first time we had a KCFN Family Campout where we had urban and local Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tles7et’h’come home to Kyuquot to the family camp. There was roughly about 90 people that camped and we had members from Houpsitas that came over every day to visit and enjoy the campout with us. The campout started onAugust 4th 2023 and finished onAugust 8th, 2023. Our youth worker Sam Mayer and cultural workers Eleanor Nicolaye, Therese Smith and myself,Anita Buck planned some fun daily activities. We did family scavenger hunts, made fishing lines with the kids from driftwood to take them bullhead fishing in the tide pools, we went to Shell Beach to look for some Indian money, we had crafting days making necklaces with devils club beads, and we learned to make a friendship bracelet. We also did a play that Therese Smith put together from our Cultural Language Group. We did a play about Niipiilth- Basket Women, everyone enjoyed the play. Plus water activities, the kids enjoyed swimming, paddle boarding, playing on the reef that was at the beach, and some just enjoyed each others company visiting amongst each other.

Myself (Anita Buck) and Sam Mayer cooked all the meals every day for everyone. We enjoyed pancakes breakfasts, oats, lunch was like build your own sandwich day, a hot dogs and smokies day, and for dinner we did Indian Tacos NIght, Chili & Nachos Night, Burger Night.

&Community Beyond

On the first day we did draws of fun stuff for the kids. We gave out a kayak, swimming fun toys, fishing rods, tent set, then we did honorariums for the people who helped us get this campout a success (public works forAktis prep cleaning and clearing brush of the area we used for the campout, the supplies of tables, gazebos, generators). For us to use atAktis, also taking our garbage everyday, and refilling our fresh drinking water hauling it over to the Island, asAktis has no drinking water. Also, our Whit Wock boats to get our members from Fair Harbour toAktis Island, all the volunteers who helped families unload their camping supplies from the beach up to the field as there is no dock onAktis Island, you have to unload everything from the boat to the beach. We had our summer youth workers there helping with that, and some volunteers. This campout was an alcohol and drug free family event. It was so nice to see everyone participate and come over from the village to enjoy the campout. Everyone had a good time. The day we left was miserable weather, the boats couldn’t land on the beach, the weather was windy and raining, so they waited out in the water while we had a little boat that did like 80 trips back and forth picking up our camping gear and running it out to the boats that were waiting for us to depart Aktis Island.

We had some funding come from our education department, forestry department, Warriors Program, and our nations covered all the food costs, so we had a lot of help to fund this campout to make it happen. It was a huge success.

-Anita Buck

NTC Child and Youth Services

Every Wednesday of the summer

Canal Beach

10:00am – 1:00pm Hotdogs, volleyball, kites and cornhole. Bring your family and water bottles.

Uchucklesaht PeoplesAssembly

August 26, 2023

Via Zoom

9:00am PeoplesAssemblyAudit. Uchucklesaht Tribe Citizens and Enrollees send your interest to join the meeting via Zoom by providing your email to Carla.halvorsen@uchucklesaht. com and she will send you an invite.

International OverdoseAwareness Day

August 31, 2023

PortAlberni orAnacla Huu-ay-aht Government Office

11 a.m. to 130 p.m. Tiqʷasʔin (To sit together). Please join us for international overdose awareness day. This time is to come together and honor those we have lost, sharing stories, a meal, and interacting in other activities.

NTC Education and NETP

Graduation and Scholarship Ceremony

October 13th – 14th 2023

ADSS

More info to come.

Congratulations

Congratulations to me!!

AUG.31/23 I WILL HAVE 2 YRS SOBER. I’ve come a long way from voluntary giving my children up when I realized I needed help, went to Tsow-tun-le-lum 6 weeks, went to 2 weeks grief and loss and then 6 weeks of family treatment at Kackaamin. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way than being sober. I’m a mom of 3 young children, I pray every day for my oldest. I just want my children to have the life I wished for, they are my everything, they saved my life.Addiction is a very cruel world. Prayers to all who struggle in or out of addiction, we are all affected in one way or another. Stay blessed family and friends, all we got is one day at a time and healing starts within.

KLECO KLECO to all my friends and family who support me on my journey. I’m so angry at drugs and alcohol it took my mom, dad and big sister away from me. My angels are in my heart forever, no more pain, residential school site hurt our people. Its upto us now. –

Jolene Joe

For the Love of the Game tournament packs seats

By Holly Stocking Ha-Shilth-Sa EditorialAssistant

PortAlberni, BC - OnAug. 18 to 20 the AlberniAthletic was home to the second annual For the Love of the Game Tournament.

It’s an open men’s and women’s basketball tournament organized by Memphis Dick, Destiny Hanson and Jenelle Johnson Sabbas. Eight men’s and five women’s teams showed up for the double knock-out event, with the Ucluelet Guardians and the Island Lightening taking home the top wins.

Dick said she was inspired to organize

this event when everything was opening up after the COVID-19 closures, allowing a tournament where people could come together and play the game they love. Dick and the other organizers plan to do it again next year and hope to make it an annual event.

TheAlberniAthletic Hall’s seats were packed full with spectators for almost the whole weekend watching the event. Fundraisers were held to support the tournament, raffling off a PS5 video game system. 50/50 draws were done and the concession was open to raise money for the under-13 team going to the Junior All-Native Tournament in February 2024.

Submitted photo Island Lightening took first place in the tournament’s open women’s division.

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Visually-impaired lawn bowlers compete nationally

Competitors with partial and no sight rely on finger tip sensation, muscle memory & directions from assistant

By Sam Laskaris Ha-Shilth-Sa Contributor

Nanaimo, BC – Though he has zero vision, Randy Fred has won an estimated dozen national lawn bowling championships.

Fred, a member of Tseshaht First Nation, won his latest title at the 2023 Canadian Para-Bowls Championships.

This event was held at the Stanley Park Lawn Bowling Club in Calgary. The tournament ran from July 24-30.

Fred, who represents the Nanaimo Lawn Bowling Club, was the only competitor in the B1 category, for those that have no sight. Thus, he knew he would capture another national title.

But he did end up participating in a sixplayer grouping against others who had various percentages of sight.

Donn Sherry, a coach with the Nanaimo club, said Fred is a rather proficient bowler.

“He’s good,” Sherry said of Fred. “He played a round-robin with five other people who had some sight at the nationals.And in the round-robin he came in second out of the six players.”

Meanwhile, another Nuu-chah-nulth bowler, Jay Gatlay, a member of Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, placed second in his B3 category at the nationals.

Gatlay has zero vision in his left eye but can see fine with his right one.

The Canadian Para-Bowls Championships was open to any visually impaired or physically impaired lawn bowler who belongs to an affiliated club in the country.

This year marked just the second time the national tournament has been staged.

But Fred, who is 72, had previously participated in Canadian championships that were restricted to visually impaired bowlers.

He’s lost count of the exact number of national titles he’s captured but he estimates he’s won a dozen since 2000 when

he took up the sport of para bowling.

Fred hones his skills with weekly sessions that are held Tuesdays at the Nanaimo club. The lawn bowling season runs from lateApril until early October.

Fred said the main reason he enjoys para bowling is because of the friendships he’s made.

“The camaraderie is the greatest thing,” he said.

Visually impaired bowlers compete with the assistance of a director who will stand behind.

Fred said when he releases a ball he aims at his fingertips. His director will inform him whether to aim right or left of his projected target, which is called a jack and is a small white bowl (ball) that competitors try to get as close as possible to with their four shots in each end.

Plus, another individual will be standing

near the jack, which can range anywhere between 21-33 metres away. That individual will inform bowlers how far away the jack is.

“If it’s 21, there’s no backswing at all,” Fred said, adding he will incorporate an appropriate backswing once he is told how far away his target is. “It’s a lot of muscle memory.”

Though he ended up winning his category by default at the nationals, Fred was disappointed with the turnout.

“This is the first time there hasn’t been a good showing,” he said. “I think COVID had a lot to do with it. Some years we’d have 40 or more participants at nationals.

This year I think there was 18-20.”

Since they were unable to lawn bowl for a couple of years during the pandemic, Fred believes several previous participants at the nationals have given up the

sport.

But he plans to keep playing.

Fred is now waiting to hear whether he is eligible to participate in an international para-bowls tournament next year in SouthAfrica.

At this year’s Canadian tourney there was talk that B1 competitors would not be able to take part at the SouthAfrican event.

But Sherry said a final decision has yet to be made on which categories to include at the 2024 international tourney.

International para bowls events, hosted by different countries, attract players from around the globe.

Fred competed at a 2017 international tourney, which was held in New Zealand.

“I tell everybody I came second in every game,” Fred said, making fun of the fact he did not manage to win any of his 10 matches. “But they were really good games. I didn’t lose by a lot.”

Though it is not yet known whether B1 athletes will be able to compete in South Africa next year, Fred does have a bucket list of where he is keen to showcase his para bowling skills.

“I would love to go to Scotland or Israel,” he said. “But they haven’t announced that those countries will host an event yet.”

As for Gatlay, his second-place finish in Calgary qualified him to enter the South African tournament next year.

But the 52-year-old is not sure whether he will indeed participate.

“I’m hoping to go but I haven’t talked it over with my head coach yet,” said Gatlay, who lives on Gabriola Island. If he does decide to head to South Africa, Gatlay said he would then have to come up with a fundraising strategy.

“I’m hoping to find that out within the next week,” Gatlay said on Monday.

Meanwhile, another member of the Nanaimo Lawn Bowling Club, Dave Ruckman, who is not Indigenous, won a gold medal in the B4 category at the nationals.

Eric Plummer photo

Tseshaht member Randy Fred won in the no-sight category of the 2023 Canadian Para-Bowls Championship, which was held in Calgary July 24-30.

Youth restore clam gardens for future generations

By Alexandra Mehl Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

In late Spring, $80,000 was allocated to the Nuu-chah-nulth Youth Warrior Family Society with Ka:’yu:’k’t’h/ Che:k’tles7et’h to support food security and the development of clam gardens throughout Nuu-chah-nulth territory. Since then, youth from across Nuu-chahnulth have restored two clam gardens located in Tla-o-qui-aht and Huu-ay-aht territory with plans for more to come.

Hayden Seitcher of the Tla-o-qui-aht Youth Warriors told Ha-Shilth-Sa that the process to build clam gardens began when Gisele Martin, also of Tla-o-quiaht, proposed to the youth that they “restore and bring back clam gardens.”

According to the Clam Gardens Network, these sites are a prehistoric practice used by Indigenous people to increase the production of culturally significant seafood across Washington, B.C., and Alaska, with “hundreds, if not thousands” yet to be recorded.

Clam Gardens Network indicates that modified beaches have 150 to 300 per cent more clam production than unmodified beaches as well as double to quadruple the biomass.

Youth, community members, and elders have come together to share knowledge and methodically move rocks throughout the intertidal zones of Sarita Bay in Huuay-aht territory and Meares Island in Tlao-qui-aht territory to create clam gardens that can be utilized by their nations.

“Following lowest tide, you’ll be putting rocks along a wall,” said Seitcher when explaining what building a clam garden entails. “You’re creating almost like a filter for sediment to come in.”

Once sediment collects along the rock wall, a shallow sloped terrace forms creating the ideal intertidal conditions for clams to grow and spawn, according to Clam Gardens Network.

“And you’re clearing the rocks from inside that wall to create space for the clams to go in,” said Seitcher. “You’re making space for them to breathe.”

“The walls are meant to catch the eggs as well as sediment,” added Seitcher.

Daniel Blackstone assisted with the Tla-o-qui-aht clam garden along with two Ka:’yu:’k’t’h/Che:k’tles7et’h youth warriors. He said that the very next day he had the opportunity to revisit the site and found butter clams along the beach, which Blackstone said indicates spawning among the clams.

“Some of the stories have to do with recognizing that the clams populate in a given space laterally along the shore, which indicates that there’s a preferred

height of the beach that they would prefer to spawn in,” said Blackstone. “What they do when they build a rock wall is they broaden that spawning ground, they make it much wider and much higher.”

Blackstone added that over time by continuing to add rocks to the wall, the bed of the beach will raise to the ideal level to increase clam productivity.

“Alot of caretaking ways that have been in place over thousands of years have been heavily distributed by colonialism,” said Martin. “There are many sites where there used to be clam gardens, some of them have been totally destroyed.”

Martin added that the intertidal zone along Tofino’s downtown waterfront was used for clam gardens but has been polluted or destroyed to create urban environments.

“Because of how we have so much tourism in Tofino, it’s really impacted our food sovereignty,” Martin said. “Clams could make a lot of food for us.”

Seitcher, alongsideAndrew Clappis of the Huu-ay-aht youth warriors, echoed the importance of food sovereignty.

“We thought that [clam gardens would] be a really amazing idea especially after COVID when there was food shortages, and a lot of our members couldn’t pay for food, because they lost their jobs,” said Seitcher. “It’s investing into our future for creating food sovereignty and also

more independence for ourselves.”

“When roads are closed [and] we can’t access food we can go there and access all our clam gardens,” said Clappis.

Leonard Nookemis, coordinator for the Huu-ay-aht youth warriors, shared that he learned the clam garden restored in Sarita Bay had previously been a site for clams, oysters, and sea asparagus with an undocumented wall.

Seitcher said that not only do the gardens invite a growth in the clam population, but when the water is high enough these gardens can be a space to harvest squid, crabs, and other fish.

“It’s making so much more opportunity for food to come in than before,” said Seitcher.

For Nookemis, it was very meaningful to participate in the restoration of

the clam garden in Sarita Bay, which is located close to another prospering clam garden on his grandparent’s property.

“It means the world, honestly,” he said.

“All the warriors who participated got to put their name on this one for another generation who’s taking care of the clam garden.”

“Now we’re just waiting to see how it goes,” said Nookemis, adding that he hopes to see big clams grow from this garden.

“Why wouldn’t we work to create food that we would eat proudly and share with our families?” said Martin. “Especially if clam gardens can have a positive effect on biodiversity, then that is much more supportive of our own land vision and the ways that we approach our territories culturally.”

Youth, community members, and elders come together to methodically move rocks throughout intertidal zones

Submitted photos

Nuu-chah-nulth youth warriors restore clam gardens by installing a rock wall that follows the lowest tide point at Meares Island in Tla-o-qui-aht territory.

After a rock wall is built at the lowest tide line and rocks are removed from the intertidal zone sediment collects along the wall creating a shallow sloped terrace, the ideal intertidal conditions for clams to grow and spawn.

Andrew Clappis of the Huu-ay-aht Youth Warriors pitches in to build a clam garden by removing rocks from the intertidal zone to create space for clams to grow and spawn.

Netp farewell message -

As my time comes to an end at NETP, I want to express my gratitude for the time spent together.

I enjoyed working with each of you during these past 6 years, it’s been an absolute joy and wish you all nothing but success in the future. My experience serving you has been a tremendous wealth of knowledge that I will take and carry with me. Wishing you all the best, Melanie Cranmer