Victoria gallery showcases Tseshaht artist George Clutesi
''Clutesi, who rose to national and international recognition through his art and writing, including his participation in Expo 67, remains a towering figure in the history of Indigenous cultural expression in Canada. Yet his most profound legacy, Walsh says, may lie in the personal connections and inspiration he sparked in others.''
https://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2025-04-15/victoria-gallery-showcases-tseshaht-artist-george-clutesi

#Tseshaht “New book shares the story of Alberni residential school survivor”

The late Art Thompson attended AIRS from ages five to 13

#TruthAndReconciliation #Stories #FirstNations #CanPoli #CdnPoli
https://www.albernivalleynews.com/entertainment/new-book-shares-the-story-of-alberni-residential-school-survivor-7844578

#cišaaʔatḥ #tseshaht Elder Tom Watts turns 90 this month. He's a basketball star. He was the only Indigenous player on the 1965 ADSS team that won the Canadian Men's Basketball Championship.

If you want a great story about basketball, family, hard work, love, racism, indian residential schools, perseverance, kindness, and respect, here it is:

https://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2025-01-16/basketball-family-affair-great-tseshaht-athlete-tom-watts-and-his-grandkids

#Tseshaht #PortAlberni Rugby Olympian heads to UBC to further her studies and athletic career.
#ParisOlympics
https://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2024-09-06/olympic-medallist-tseshaht-continues-career-ubc-thunderbirds

Super proud of a local member of Tseshaht First Nation winning a silver medal with Canada’s Rugby Sevens team! She was a last minute call up in the reserve, didn't get to play on the field, but every team sport has those players and they are just as deserving as anyone else! The team can't exist without them!

CONGRATS OLYMPIAN SHALAYA!

#Olympics #ParisOlympics #FirstNations #Canada #Tseshaht #PortAlberni
https://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2024-07-31/its-part-me-tseshaht-player-looks-future-rugby-wake-olympic-silver-medal

#MonochromeMonday

#Tseshaht #FirstNation #TotemPole
2020.
Click image to expand view.

Bourque Bearskin & Victoria Dick of #Tseshaht are currently working on creating a #curriculum, “from the ground up”, called the #Indigenous #Graduate #Education & #Nursing #IGEN program for #UVic.

For Bourque Bearskin and Dick, the work they’ve been doing over the last few years, including the development of the #MastersProgram, is better aligning #healthcare with the principles of #UNDRIP.

https://www.capitaldaily.ca/news/two-indigenous-nurses-pave-way-overcoming-colonial-past-health-care

I have a recurring annual calendar appointment for March 16. Today is the 102nd anniversary of Comox-Alberni MP A.W. Neill's first speech in his 21 year career in the House of Commons (1921-45) where he called for a "white British Columbia”.

Neill was a white supremacist, anti-Asian racist, and one of the loudest voices for Japanese Internment. He was also an Indian Agent dealing with First Nations and Residential Schools on Vancouver Island's West Coast.

In 2021 his name was removed from a local school but he remains honoured with a street name.

I will continue reminding people of this until that honour is removed.

(A full report about him starts on page 82 of the City of Port Alberni Agenda from January 23, 2017)
https://www.portalberni.ca/sites/default/files/council_mtg/Jan23_Updated_opt_tf.pdf
#PortAlberni #ResidentialSchools #Canada #Tofino #Ucluelet #Ahousaht #Tseshaht #Nuuchanulth #JapaneseInternment

Someone at the local museum found this map today and sent it to me. It's from 1892 of Stamp Harbour in #PortAlberni near the very beginning of the settlement by colonialists in the area.

The mark that sticks out for me is “Remains of old Indian Vil.” (about 1/4 up the river in the top right). I believe this is what is properly known as “Nuupts’ ikapis” by the Tseshaht and Hupacasath First Nations.

That entire area became industrial in the past century with a large Paper Mill that employed thousands in the 1970s. It exists today. Other sawmills, the railway and government docks took over the Dry Creek land. Which is hoped to be restored to its pre-colonial natural state.

It is called “Stamp" Harbour because Royal Navy Captain Stamp literally threatened the First Nations who also had a settlement at "Dry Creek" and he “Alberni Deep Water Wharf” with the cannons on his ship if they didn't move up river to allow the settlements to be built.

So they named the Harbour after him…

I'm really proud that our community, the entire community, is taking action and proposing solutions to the toxic drug crisis. I feel very grateful that we have Tseshaht First Nation leading us in many ways in this effort.
#ToxicDrugCrisis #PortAlberni #Tseshaht #Hupacasath #Nuuchanulth #Drugs #LegalizeAllDrugs #HelpPeople
https://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2024-02-02/tseshaht-and-alberni-valley-advocate-fully-funded-detox-centre-new-strategy

Every once in awhile I go back to this map of local First Nation names for places and landmarks just to remind myself that they were here long before settlers came and renamed everything. These are from the map created by Hupacasath First Nation. One of two Nations that inhabit this part of Vancouver Island.

https://www.hupacasath.ca/about-us/interactive-places-language-map/

“If Canada can afford to build these buildings and run them in our territory for all the years they did… as residential school buildings, they can afford to tear them down and help us build new and heal from what happened here,” said Watts.”
#ResidentialSchools #Tseshaht #Nuuchanulth #PortAlberni #AIRS
https://www.albernivalleynews.com/community/tseshaht-looking-to-demolish-and-replace-last-vestiges-of-residential-school-7114760

This year marks 50 years since the Alberni Indian Residential School was closed. It was closed because of action by First Nations people here themselves, with the leadership of George Watts. Many other schools remained open for many more years. And the main buildings weren't demolished until 2009.

"It was in July 1973 that the West Coast District Council of Indian Chiefs (which later became Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council) sent a letter to the Department of Indian Affairs, propositioning the closure of the residential school. This letter, signed by the West Coast Council’s chairman George Watts, led to a meeting between Canada and Nuu-chah-nulth leaders. On Aug. 31, 1973, AIRS closed its doors forever.”
#Tseshaht #Hupacasath #FirstNations #ResidentialSchools #PortAlberni #AIRS #CanPoli #CdnPoli #NDTR
https://www.albernivalleynews.com/local-news/tseshaht-first-nation-gets-ready-to-mark-50-years-since-closure-of-residential-school-4516203

The fun thing about the substitutions/translations on the website into Nuuchanulth is that after a few words I started to get the hang of the Unicode entities and could put them in without consulting the reference list… just writing another language… to write another language :).
https://www.alberniweather.ca
Code for the forecast grabber is on GitHub: https://github.com/chrisale/ECForecastGrabber
#Indigenous #Tseshaht #Hupacasath #language #learning #coding #html #css #perl