Tag Archives: Great Flood

Indigenous Nations, Politics

Chief Darren Blaney: Responses To The Conservative Party

Press release from the Homalco Nation

In a press release in February, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives included a quote from Chief Darren Blaney of the Homalco First Nation in a news release regarding their plan for a First Nations Resource Charge (FNRC) without consultation or consent. This was only recently brought to the attention of leadership. The Chief and Council unequivocally denounce the use of this and any future quotes of their leadership without proper consultation and call on the Conservatives to remove any Homalco-related quotes from past, current and future new releases.

This revelation comes on the heels of calls for Aaron Gunn, the Conservative candidate in the federal riding in which the Homalco community reside, to be dropped from the election campaign. Social media posts from the recent past indicate that Gunn holds extreme views regarding residential schools, minimizing the history and trauma caused by residential schools, attacking 2SLGBTQ+ people, and sympathizing with warmonger Putin. We join other leaders today in calling for the removal of Aaron Gunn from the Conservative Party.

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Cost of Climate Change, History

Magic mountain, melting snow: Climate uncertainty in the Comox Valley

Editor’s note: Some of the places mentioned in this article, like Mount Washington and the Comox Glacier, are only about 20 km southwest of Cortes Island as the crow flies. Mount Cain is about 100 km west of us. If the snowpack has been decreasing since 2005, is it surprising that we’ve been experiencing droughts during the summer on Cortes and other parts of the Greater Campbell River since 2021?

By Madeline Dunnett, The Discourse,  Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

My dad, far left, and students in a ski retail and repair class he taught at Forbidden Plateau in the early 90s. Submitted photo

When I was a kid, I used to play with the pile of toys at Ski Tak Hut in Courtenay while my dad closed up shop.

Ski Tak Hut has been selling skis and snowboards in Courtenay since 1976. My dad has worked there since before I was born, and when I was a baby he would divide his time seasonally — working as a fishing guide in the summer and at the ski shop in the winter. He became a store partner in 1993 up until his recent retirement, and in a way it became part of the family. 

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Disaster, Indigenous Nations

The Squamish Nation’s Great Flood

By Martha Perkins, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

High atop Canada’s Western mountain ranges, geologists have been amazed to chance upon the fossils of prehistoric aquatic creatures.

How did remnants of a vast tropical seabed wind up touching the sky?

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