Category Archives: Indigenous Nations

Food Security, Indigenous Nations

Indigenous food gathering nourishes culture and climate resiliency

Editor’s Note: Some First Nations members from within our listening area may have been among the hundreds of participants, ‘from both coasts and the length of the island,’ who took part in the Island Indigenous Food Gathering. The Homalco, Klahoose, K’omoks and Tla’amin are all Northern Coast Salish Nations. The We Wai Kai and Wei Wai Kum are Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

First Nations from across Vancouver Island celebrated and strengthened traditional food sovereignty in a bid to deepen Indigenous communities’ response to climate change and other emergencies.

The recent Island Indigenous Food Gathering near Port Alberni, B.C. , involved hundreds of members from the Nuu-chah-nulth, Coast Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations from both coasts and the length of the island, said organizer Nitanis Desjarlais.

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Arts, Education, Indigenous languages, Nature

The Cortes Island Academy looks ahead to 2024/25 & back at the past year

The Cortes Island Academy’s school year is over. Graduation was on January 25. Executive Director, Manda Aufochs Gillespie, just gave Cortes Currents an overview of the 2023/24 semester and a peek into the year that is just about to begin.

“This school year (Sep 2023-Jan 2024), the Cortes Island Academy was a lot of fun.  We learned a lot from our first year. So this year we really got to just revel in the model, the awesome kids and local knowledge holders that came out to make this year happen. It felt to me like a lot more fun, and a lot less trailblazing,” she began. 

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Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

The Scallop Rafts Being Built In Squirrel Cove 

Anyone visiting Squirrel Cove right now can see a series of freshly constructed rafts anchored close to the government dock. There were four of them when Cortes Currents first noticed, and another two being built on the beach. Now they are all in the Cove. There are piles of lumber and floats nearby, and a huge pile of hoop-like ‘lantern nets’ waiting on the Squirrel Cove Dock.   

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Indigenous Nations History

Tla’amin Nation set to reclaim village of tiskʷat 151 years after it was taken: ‘It’s like a long lost relative’

Indiginews, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

For the Tla’amin Nation, the loss of their village site tiskʷat has been like “a missing limb” for the community, according to Dillon Johnson.

Their home and salmon fishing site was stolen and sold by “British Columbia” 151 years ago at a time when the community’s population was decimated by disease.

For the next seven generations, Tla’amin people were separated from tiskʷat. People were moved onto reserves, salmon runs were all but wiped out by construction of a new dam, and a paper mill began operating on the site.

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Arts, Indigenous Nations History

Tangible bones store intangible culture, memories and stories

By Sheri Narine, Windspeaker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Until federal politicians start “valuing people in their own homes”, intangible cultural heritage will remain misunderstood and underappreciated, said Agnieszka Pawlowska-Mainville, author of Stored in the Bones.

“They always assume that intangible cultural heritage has something to do with materials, museums, archives, when really sometimes it just means valuing people in their own homes. Like a grandmother teaching her grandson or granddaughter how to cook, a father using his own hands with his own niece, nephew to do some kind of carving or some kind of sewing. It’s that element that I think (there’s) a lot of misunderstanding about,” said Pawlowska-Mainville, an associate professor in First Nations Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia.

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