Work is about to resume in the Cortes Community Forest.
Mark Lombard, General Manager for the Cortes Forestry General Partnership, explained, “The spring cut is going to happen in the Coulter Bay area of the community forest. We’ll probably start a small segment of road in about three weeks. While the road is being built, maybe a month from now, we’re going to move over to Larsen’s Meadow. They’re both relatively small projects.”
Continue reading 2026 Spring Cut in the Cortes Community Forest
By Nora O’Malley, Ha-Shilth-Sa, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Jordan River, B.C. – At the mouth of Jordan River in Pacheedaht First Nation territory on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, the tide is pushing. Heat from a February sun warms the face as sets of friendly waves roll in under the backdrop of the Olympic Mountains. Parking at the day-use area of this regional park is squeezed on this fine Friday away from the screen.
A tugboat called Miss Jordan cruises by a bob of surfers, dragging a line of thick rope towards a raft of floating logs, otherwise known as a log boom. Some of the surfers catch a wave towards the cobble shoreline and exit the water.
“They’ll run right over us if we don’t get out of the way,” says a stand-up paddler.
“But it is a nice day for it,” he concedes.
Continue reading Could shifting gears from forestry to tourism pay the bills?
Forestry has been one of the three economic pillars of Campbell River. In the article that follows, Mayor Kermit Dahl states that ’70% of what the city does is resource-related, and their sales in the previous year were down by just over 20%.’ While many do not agree with the industry practise of cutting big tree old growth – the iconic subset which often comes to mind when hearing the words ‘old growth’ – there is much more to the story. The following article consists of select gleanings from statements made by Mayor Dahl and several MPs (including Aaron Gunn) at a recent meeting of the federal government’s Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
Continue reading The State of Campbell River’s Forestry Sector
By Nora O’Malley, Ha-Shilth-Sa, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The 15-foot wooden cougar sculpture erected this summer to block forestry workers from accessing the Upper Walbran Valley in Pacheedaht First Nations territory is a pile of cold ashes on the dirt road.
Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones, 85, has been a constant advocate for the old growth forest within Pacheedaht lands. He says his prayer hut and guest cabin were also torched during enforcement of the court-ordered injunction that was granted to C̕awak ʔqin Forestry (Tsawak-qin), which is 35 per cent co-owned by Huu-ay-aht First Nation and 65 per cent co-owned Western Forest Products (WFP), began on Nov. 25.
Continue reading High-stakes fight over old growth trees intensifies as police make seven arrests
By Aaron Hemens, IndigiNews, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Growing up in Nlakaʼpamux and syilx territories in the 1970s, Joe Gilchrist can’t remember a single summer when wildfire smoke ever trapped him indoors.
The Merritt, B.C., region’s semi-arid landscape still saw scorching summer temperatures back then, he recalled, but not the record-breaking fire seasons of recent years.
“That was thanks to our work that the Indigenous ancestors did on the land,” said Gilchrist, a Secwépemc Nation member who now lives on Skeetchsn Indian Band’s reserve with his daughter.
“Then, everything was still fairly spaced out; the fires were easier to handle.”
Although settlers’ wildfire suppression efforts had become the dominant form of land stewardship when he was young, Indigenous communities in the Nicola Valley were still using fire to “cleanse” the land, Gilchrist said.
Continue reading Amid climate impacts, leading Secwépemc firekeeper shares ‘a better way of looking after the land’
