Healing through dance: production brings Coast Salish story to life

Photos and story by Cara McKenna

An upcoming dance production will tell a Coast Salish story about the sun and moon through movement and music.

A contemporary dance titled The Sun and the Moon is based on Snuneymuxw author Celestine … Read More

‘Ignorance is no accident’: UBC apologizes to residential school survivors

By Cara McKenna

The education system has perpetuated ignorance around residential schools and therefore must bear part of the responsibility for the damage inflicted on survivors and their families.

That was the message that guests heard at the opening of … Read More

Students, elders connected through poetry

By Cara McKenna

High school students Amos Harris and Isobel Smith each held one of Stz’uminus Elder Buffy David’s hands as they walked across the stage of the Port Theatre in Nanaimo on April 4.

The Ladysmith Secondary students wrote … Read More

Snuneymuxw artist honoured for saving traditional style

By Julie Chadwick

When Coast Salish artist and carver William Good first started out, there weren’t many other Snuneymuxw artists creating in their own traditional style.

“We did a lot of artwork but it wasn’t really our artwork, our own … Read More

Coast Salish company develops oil spill cleanup equipment

By Cara McKenna

Bob Elliott’s grandmother always told him that when the tide is out, the dinner table is set.

Elliott grew up eating from the ocean, which is part of the reason he was a commercial fisherman for most … Read More

Weekly program empowers girls at Malahat Nation

By Cara McKenna

A weekly group at Malahat Nation is empowering girls ages eight to 14 through culture, critical thinking, food and feminism.

The program called Circles of Care-Circles of Courage has been running each Thursday at Malahat for nearly … Read More

‘Warrior women’ honoured as MMIWG hearings close

Indigenous women who have worked for decades for their sisters on the Downtown Eastside were gifted coppers at the end of the national MMIWG hearings.

Nearly 100 people signed up to testify during five days of the inquiry’s final scheduled … Read More

Maintaining our rivers

By Celestine Aleck (Sahiltiniye), Snuneymuxw First Nation

Before colonization, we as Coast Salish people always took care of our own territory. We did this to give back to Mother Earth, who has always taken care of us. In our village … Read More

Revitalizing sharing, gifting and trading

By Andrew Bak, Tsawwassen First Nation

Coast Salish people had always been wealthy.

From time out of mind, our ancestors lived in the big houses, which were strategically located within our territories; close to the waters which gave us sustenance, … Read More

Effervescent Agnes George, 1877-1979

By Elida Peers, Historian, Sooke Region Museum

I first got to know Agnes George in the 1960s, just about the time this photo with a smoked salmon was taken at the T’Sou-ke Reserve. An effervescent lady who always welcomed visitors … Read More