Warning: This article contains content about residential “schools” that may be triggering.
By Anna McKenzie, The Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter.
On the shores of the town of Chemainus, on the traditional territory of Puneluxutth’, thousands of people in orange shirts gather in memory of the survivors, victims and intergenerational survivors of Canada’s residential “school” system.
Continue reading Remembering Kuper IslanD Residential School: Thousands march in ChemainusBy Roy L Hales
Everyone was talking about the murals, when they were first unveiled. Thirty-seven years later, the image of three proud First Nations faces comes to many people’s minds when they hear the name Chemainus. Municipalities throughout British Columbia embraced this former logging town as a model for how communities can be reinvented after their principal industry collapses. There are still hundreds of thousands of visitors coming to see this Vancouver Island town every year. I recently dropped in to see how how Chemainus Transformed itself.
Continue reading How Chemainus Transformed ItselfBy Roy L Hales
Though British Columbia’s hydrologists have fifty years of stream flow data to formulate its’ responses to climate change, a recent study from the University of Victoria shows this is not enough. Tree ring data shows that, since 1658 AD, there have been 16 droughts exceeding anything evidenced in the instrumental record. The most recent and severest of these events took place in 1958. According to one of the study co-authors, Bethany Coulthard, “It was a cool time and yet we still saw these extreme natural droughts.” Add problems like urbanization, deforestation and rising Global temperatures into the equation and we can expect a mega-sized drought coming to BC.
Continue reading Mega-Sized Drought Coming To BC
