Chapter 22: The Emerging Scene

As Tofino shifted from a resource-based to a tourist-based economy, the changes affected every person and every business in the town. The pilots of Tofino Air saw the change as clearly as anyone. In the 1980s, their business had been mostly connected with logging activity and fish farms; by the mid-1990s, Doug Banks, then co-owner of the airline, reckoned that 80 to 90 percent of their float plane charters catered to tourists.

Statistics concerning the numbers of visitors flocking into the area are notoriously difficult to come by, but as the Westerly News stated on February 2, 1994, “any way you count them, we do know that 1993 was a record year for visitation in this area.” The article then quoted a Parks Canada estimate that in 1993 some 769,308 visitors entered the area. Although this may have included a good many locals, such a statistic at least gave an idea of the volume of traffic heading through the park, much of it ending up in Tofino. The sheer numbers of visitors, the long lineups in stores and restaurants, and the demands faced by locals left many in shock. In August 1994, The Sound magazine described what it termed Tofino’s “schizophrenic” attitude to tourists: “They feed us, maybe even make us rich. But they crowd us, distract us, annoy us, repulse us…they make Tofino a town of strangers…It makes us want to run and hide until they all go away and we can again walk down the street and actually say hi to someone we know.”

Many local people joined the rush to provide accommodation for the visitors, offering their homes as bed and breakfast establishments, and building suites and cabins for vacation rentals. As scores of such places began welcoming visitors, Tofino council faced one challenging decision after another about development, rezoning, and business licences, continually navigating a minefield of concerns about growth, the economy, the environment, and the very identity of the community. Heated debates arose about setting limits on the numbers of certain businesses, the pros and cons of permitting helicopter tours, even whether quotas should be set to limit the numbers of tourists allowed in the area. Bars and coffee shops buzzed with discussions—was Tofino becoming another Banff or a “Whistler-on-the-beach”? And where on earth was the town heading if this deluge of tourists continued?

To complicate matters further, many of the tourists who arrived after 1993 had very different notions from the early campers and counterculture adventurers who made their way across Sutton Pass on the new road to the coast in the 1960s and ’70s. These more affluent, often international, tourists required wilderness experiences on demand and had much higher expectations in terms of accommodation and amenities. Until now, services had been fairly limited and low-key. That began to change.

In the spring of 1993, Chris Le Fevre opened Middle Beach Lodge on MacKenzie Beach, an ambitiously designed structure with twenty-six rooms. Although Le Fevre initially envisioned a lodge with unassuming, family-friendly accommodation in a wilderness setting, providing neither phones nor television in the rooms, from the outset this new lodge attracted clients seeking something special. Among the first guests: Peter Garrett and his Midnight Oil bandmates, there to play their famous concert at the Black Hole; lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr.; a clutch of foreign media; and the first influx of the new ecotourists who began flocking to the west coast.

In surfing terms, Le Fevre caught the wave; his timing proved perfect. For the next few years he did not even bother advertising, benefiting from the rush of visitors who began arriving and who did his advertising for him by word of mouth. “People just kept coming,” he marvelled. Following the success of his first lodge, and realizing the appetite for better-quality accommodation, in 1996 Le Fevre built a second lodge with additional amenities on the promontory at the north end of MacKenzie Beach.

The idea of offering more sophisticated accommodation in and around Tofino caught on. In 1996 the Wickaninnish Inn and Pointe Restaurant opened on the headland at the north end of Chesterman Beach, fulfilling Howard McDiarmid’s long-standing dream of building a spectacular resort there. His son Charles, who by then had worked many years in the high-end hotel trade, drew up the business plan and sought out interested investors, including a number of local people. Building this resort required a change in zoning from “forest rural” to “tourist commercial,” a change bitterly opposed by many local residents. The McDiarmids found themselves vilified at public hearings in Tofino and saw a full-page ad denouncing their development in the local paper. After the zoning change had been approved by council, the group Friends of Chesterman Beach, having opposed the development proposal, appealed the new zoning in court. The judge upheld it.

Once it opened, the Wickaninnish Inn raised the bar dramatically for standards of accommodation and cuisine in the area. Other resorts followed suit. The ambitious Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge opened at the mouth of the Bedwell (formerly Bear) River in 2000, near the site of the short-lived mining community of Port Hughes. Back in 1899, a fourteen-room hotel offered accommodation here, “which would not be out of place in any city,” according to the British Colonist. The same location now presents a five-star resort offering wilderness experience with glamorous camping, or “glamping,” in elaborate eco-safari tents, complete with world-class cuisine: to stay there can cost thousands of dollars a day. Next to enter the lists of high-quality resorts, Long Beach Lodge on Cox Bay opened in 2002, offering “luxury adventure travel.”

Meanwhile, all around Tofino, standards rose in other hotels and restaurants, along with prices. Local people looked on in disbelief, bemused by the ever-increasing amenities, sometimes feeling unwelcome in these new places and astounded by the high prices. Some residents found lucrative employment in constructing the new resorts, and a significant handful of local artisans have had their work showcased in the top hotels. The skills of woodcarver Henry Nolla were integral in the design of the Wickaninnish Inn; his work there includes the massive adzed red cedar posts and beams that dominate the entranceways, the yellow cedar entrance doors inlaid with abalone, the twin eagles at the Pointe Restaurant, as well as the beam and detail work in all of the public spaces, and the fireplace mantels in each guest room.

Few new developments arrived without at least some controversy, as Chris Le Fevre discovered. Following his success in establishing Middle Beach Lodge in the mid-1990s, he went on to become Tofino’s most ambitious developer. He is responsible for most townhouse and condominium developments in town, including the Eik Landing condominiums, the Fred Tibbs building, and Rosie Bay Estates. In 2008 he built the Cox Bay Beach Resort, and two years later he acquired and refurbished the well-known Weigh West Marine Resort, which he renamed Marina West.

The Eik Landing development stirred up a colourful local dispute surpassing most others, and bringing considerable media attention to Tofino. Le Fevre had purchased the waterfront property once owned by pioneer John Eik, known to old-timers as Eik’s chicken ranch, and the site of one of the pre-war Japanese settlements in Tofino. On the property stood two massive red cedars, thought to be over 800 years old. Because of rot and the danger of the trees falling, insurers declared them hazardous and demanded they be cut down before the project proceeded. After one tree came down, some outraged citizens banded together to form the Tofino Natural Heritage Society to protect the other tree, which stood right beside the main road leading into downtown Tofino. The society began fundraising to save the massive “Eik Tree,” the last example of old growth in Tofino. In full view of every tourist and passing car, two young people climbed twenty-four metres into the tree and spent twenty-eight days living up in the canopy to protect it from the chainsaw. They garnered nationwide media attention, with the press once again focusing on Tofino as the “Tree Hugging Capital of the World.” Engineers and arborists worked to find some way to preserve the tree, and in the summer of 2002 engineers fitted the Eik Tree with a specially designed metal girdle, anchored into the bedrock.

That same year, Le Fevre purchased nearly six hectares of land adjacent to Tonquin Park, overlooking Tonquin Beach in Tofino. His plans to build forty-four condominiums and time-share properties there received approval from the municipality, but Tofinoites raised objections to a development so near the only wilderness park in town. In November 2002, the municipal council tabled the development permit and held a public hearing, attended by over a hundred local residents. Le Fevre threatened to log his property if the municipality rescinded the approval it had already granted. This forced opponents of the project to form the Tonquin Nature Reserve Committee. In the end they purchased the land, using capital from Tofino Community Investments, a development company made up mostly of local people espousing sound environmental and business principles.

The famous Eik Tree caused a furore when arborists declared it unsafe and a developer sought permission to cut it down. Two protestors spent twenty-eight days living high in the tree to prevent its removal. In the summer of 2002, engineers fitted the tree with a specially designed metal girdle, anchored into the bedrock. Ian Kennedy photo

All developers in the area relied on the provision of one absolutely essential element—water. In 1995, following the outlay of $11.3 million in federal grant money to upgrade its water system, residents felt confident they had solved Tofino’s nagging water problems. Not so. The construction of new resorts and new homes on the town’s outskirts over the next decade strained the system to capacity, particularly in the summer months. This led the Tofino council to present a referendum in June 2004, proposing a $3.8-million upgrade of the system. Fearing that if they passed this measure, even more development would ensue, Tofino voters rejected the proposal. The defeat forced the council to create a six-stage water-conservation plan. The plan imposed tight water restrictions during the summers of 2004 and 2005, but the following summer brought the water crisis to a head. Tofino once again hit the national and international headlines.

On August 29, 2006, after a two-month dry spell, Tofino mayor John Fraser announced that a severe water shortage forced him to impose Stage Five of the town’s water conservation plan: a total ban on all water use, other than for firefighting. The edict required all hotels and lodgings, as well as food-service businesses, to shut down completely, closing their doors to potential guests just as the Labour Day weekend loomed, with some 10,000 visitors expected. This draconian move provided sensational copy for the media. After all, Tofino records an average of 3.3 metres, or ten feet, of rain annually and has measurable precipitation for 202 days a year. Given Tofino’s renown as a moist tourist mecca in a rainforest, how could such a place be forced to shut its doors for lack of water? With phones ringing off the hook as concerned guests called about their reservations for the upcoming weekend, many hotels, as ordered, cancelled reservations, laid off staff, and phoned customers to tell them “Tofino is closed.”

Not everyone agreed with this approach. Chris Le Fevre immediately secured a supply of water in Ucluelet, over forty kilometres down the road, and arranged for it to be carried to Middle Beach Lodge in tanker trucks. The municipality then tried to force all businesses, by law, to shut down, whether they had their own supply of water or not. This caused an uproar that precipitated an emergency council meeting on August 31—one of Tofino’s more memorable civic events. With the meeting room packed, with people banging on the windows demanding to be let in, and with many reporters present, Le Fevre confronted the mayor about his decision to shut down business on one of the busiest weekends of the year. He stated that the mayor’s decision had been premature and challenged him to seek solutions rather than proclaim edicts. “What it costs to truck the water into Tofino is a peppercorn compared to the amount of money and goodwill businesses could lose...not to mention the trickle-down effect throughout the whole town,” argued Le Fevre. “I have tanker trucks ready to begin pumping water into the municipal system right now and I’ll put $50,000 on the table to set that plan in motion.” He estimated that trucking water from Ucluelet would provide Tofino with nearly a million litres per day, which, along with the small amount of water still available from the reservoirs, would keep the town going—with usage restrictions—for up to two weeks. Council approved the plan and rescinded the order for businesses to shut down for the weekend.

Despite the procession of water-filled tanker trucks travelling up from Ucluelet, water use was strictly limited. Restaurants used disposable plates and plastic cutlery, hotels provided guests with boiled water for drinking, use of hot tubs was banned, and surfers had to wash their wetsuits in a saltwater/vinegar combination instead of hosing them down with fresh water. Water restrictions remained in place until mid-September, when enough rain fell to replenish the reservoirs.

Following the water crisis, a joint federal, provincial, and municipal plan saw the town add a 4.5-million-litre reservoir at the Stump Dump near the airport, connecting it to the district’s existing system. The plan also added Ginnard Creek, on Meares Island, to the water system, creating a 22.5-million-litre capacity at the new Ahkmahksis Reservoir. A new submarine line carried water from the reservoir, under Browning Passage, to a treatment plant on Sharp Road that removed the brownish colour and partially chlorinated the water. These new facilities were earmarked for use during summer months, when the water system was under greatest usage. Despite these and other substantial improvements since 2006, demand for water continues to rise along with a growing number of visitors, and municipal officials remain concerned for the future in the context of a changing summer climate. With an emphasis on water conservation, a Water Master Plan for the municipality is currently under development with an eye on more infrastructure improvements and increased public engagement in conserving water, particularly in the summer.

Along with the water system, the question of sewage disposal has been a longstanding concern. Tofino has the dubious distinction of being one of the last communities on Vancouver Island still pumping untreated sewage into the Pacific Ocean, and ever since 1999 has been debating an upgrade of its sewage system. The municipality made progress on a three-stage liquid waste management plan, but in 2006 balked at the cost of building a secondary treatment plant; such expenditure presented massive monetary and taxation problems. The thorny problem kept resurfacing, year after year. “It’s simply not acceptable anymore,” said Tofino’s then mayor Josie Osborne in an interview with the Westerly News on August 7, 2013. “Here we are in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and we have a moral obligation to make as little impact as possible on the natural environment, hence we should have sewage treatment.” In 2013, estimated costs for wastewater treatment stood at $18 million. Over the following decade, sewage continued to be pumped into the ocean. By 2022, projected costs had risen to nearly 80 million dollars. Work began on the initial stages of a new waste management facility that autumn, and is well underway in 2023.

The question of sewage disposal received heightened attention with the construction of the new Tla-o-qui-aht Ty-Histanis village site in 2011. Located next to Esowista village, just north of Long Beach, Ty-Histanis stands on an 85-hectare parcel of land signed over by Parks Canada to the Tla-o-qui-ahts as an extension of the Esowista Reserve in 2007. The Tla-o-qui-ahts lobbied the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development for funding to build a housing project on this newly acquired land, and in 2007 the department allocated $26.9 million to build a state-of-the-art aboriginal community. The plans for this new development, to be built in phases, feature 171 single-detached units, 32 duplexes, and a 12-unit elder complex, along with a community hall, school, health clinic, pharmacy, recreation centre, and centres for youth and elders. Planners insisted on geothermal energy to heat every building and the latest in green technology, intending this village to become a showpiece for First Nations development.

When the first phase of the development opened in 2011, it soon become apparent that Tofino Airport’s old septic field did not have the capacity to handle the sewage from Ty-Histanis. The federal government then gave Parks Canada $3.3 million to connect the Green Point Campground and the Long Beach and Ty-Histanis water and sewage systems to the existing Tofino infrastructure. Funding for this also came from the Tla-o-qui-aht, through a 2009 government grant to fourteen First Nations for water and waste management projects. While this proposal pleased the staff of Parks Canada, who had long hoped for an upgrade to the park’s water and sewage services, many Tofino residents did not wish to add more effluent to Tofino’s sewers, increasing the amount being dumped raw and untreated into the ocean.

As tourism increased in Tofino and Clayoquot Sound through the 1990s and 2000s, everyone involved in the industry became part of a delicate balancing act, weighing commercial interests against the need to preserve the area. Many of the natural attractions eagerly marketed by local entrepreneurs and sought by tourists can suffer all too easily from exploitation and overexposure. One example among many is the concern, first arising in the early 1990s, about the multitude of whale-watching vessels approaching whales far too closely. As one whale-watching guide put it, “We’re hugging the whales to death, great mobs of us—it can’t be good for them.” Over time, a variety of guidelines set out how boats should keep their distance. Concerns have also arisen about protecting tree roots and delicate mosses on hiking trails, about ensuring visitors do not remove sea stars and shells from the beaches, about the constant noise of float planes, and about tourists who foolishly approach bears and wolves in the hopes of a good photograph or, even worse, who try to entice them with food.

The Tofino mud flats present another case in point. Teeming with life, the nutrient-rich mud flats support the largest eelgrass beds on the west coast, offering safe breeding grounds for herring and other fish as well as for crabs and clams. They comprise 1,700 hectares around Tofino, including Arukun and Duckling Flats on the southeast coast of Meares Island, and the complex of mud flats along Browning Passage on the east side of Esowista Peninsula. Hosts of migratory water birds stop at this rich feeding ground as they follow the Pacific Flyway en route from their Arctic breeding grounds to South America and back. The mud flats also support a wide range of local bird species. Sea lions, whales, and porpoises can often be found feeding in the shallows, while bears and wolves roam the shorelines and intertidal zone. The numbers of migratory birds are greatly reduced from earlier years, largely due to disruption or destruction of feeding and resting places along their migratory route. The Tofino mud flats offer an intensely valuable ecological area, beloved by bird watchers and duck hunters alike.

The mud flats bordering Meares Island and Tofino have long been a favourite locale for duck hunting. Two boys from Christie School, identified on the photo as “James and Sennen,” pose after a successful hunt in the early 1900s. Mount Angel Abbey Library

Early settlers marvelled when they saw the sky almost black with birds flying over in untold numbers. Father Augustin Brabant wrote of seeing “thousands of ducks and geese on the mud flats,” as he made his way along Tofino Inlet to Long Beach on his harrowing journey southward with Bishop Seghers in 1874. Local people have always hunted ducks and geese on the flats, within gunshot sound of the village, and most boys learned to hunt at a very young age. An article in the Colonist on December 6, 1911, noted that “Harold Sloman, aged 14, of Clayoquot, had a great day’s shooting lately, the bag consisting of 38 duck and 1 goose.” When George Jackson lived at Long Beach in the 1920s, he saw immense flocks of ducks and geese on the sloughs, in the mud flats, and in his fields. On January 3, 1928, he wrote in his diary “Got six widgeon with two shells,” and ten days later, “Fired only two shots and got eight Widgeon. Could have got a hundred if wanted, the eight was enough.” Haray Quisenberry and his wife, who homesteaded near the mud flats, relied on bird hunting for more than just food. Dorothy Abraham noted that “all of their pillows, cushions and eiderdowns, even the mattresses, were made from the down of ducks and geese they had shot.” Most settlers would have done the same, especially those with a bevy of young boys who loved hunting and loved eating duck. Walter Guppy recalled that in his home, “When it came to feasting on the game, the rule was one duck per person, except for teal or butterballs; of these an adult or elder son might have two.” Not to be outdone, Gordon Gibson, in Bull of the Woods, described eating three ducks at one meal on a particularly hungry day as a young man. As more visitors came to the area, duck hunting became an advertised attraction. In the 1950s, Betty Farmer’s brochure for Clayoquot Hotel on Stubbs Island stated: “For the seasoned sportsman, there is unparalleled Salmon Fishing by Fly or Troll, Trout fishing in nearby lakes and for the man with the gun, such Geese, Duck and Brant as he has heretofore seen only in his dreams.”

Early efforts to preserve the Tofino mud flats ended in a public relations fiasco in the mid-1970s. The BC government had formed the Ecological Reserves Committee in 1968 with the intention of preserving ecologically sensitive areas, and three years later an order-in-council set aside twenty-nine such areas in the province, including Cleland Island, just off Vargas Island. In 1973 the BC government’s Fish and Wildlife Branch proposed establishing more reserves, and through another order-in-council set about creating a wildfowl refuge in the mud flats of Grice Bay and also at Matilda Inlet on Flores Island. The government failed to involve or consult with local people in this process. In response, a public meeting in the packed school gym in Tofino in December 1976 turned into a “hellfire occasion,” according to Leona Taylor. Local duck hunters raised noisy objections, outraged that they could be banned from hunting on the mud flats, and others vociferously protested the high-handed tactics of the government. Archie Frank from Ahousaht and Shortie Frank from Esowista both spoke out in defence of Indigenous rights to harvest crab and shellfish in the mud flats. The clamour rose to the point that government representatives feared violence might break out. “People were still bitter about the autocratic takeover of the Pacific Rim National Park land and the way those living within its boundaries had been forced out,” Leona Taylor observed. “So by the time these provincial officials appeared with the ‘good news’ that an Order In Council would now make it unlawful for anyone to hunt in what had for long been our traditional bird-hunting territory, people were livid.”

The storm over the wildlife reserve eventually blew over, but it made provincial officials cautious about pursuing further initiatives. After decades of consultation and debate, in 1993 the BC government created its first wilderness management areas (WMAs), recommending that the Tofino mud flats be a top priority for inclusion. In 1997, the flats, officially the Tofino Wah-nah-jus Hilth-hoo-is Mudflats, became a WMA. Under this designation, a local management committee, working with community groups, created a plan to protect the mud flats as a significant wildlife reserve while providing compatible recreational, commercial, and cultural activities in the area. Sport fishing and hunting are allowed in the Tofino WMA under limited conditions, the Tla-o-qui-aht retain the right to carry on traditional activities in the area, and commercial clam and crab harvesting is still permitted.

“The mudflats are like the womb of Clayoquot Sound,” explained Josie Osborne, who in her work as a marine biologist lobbied for the establishment of the WMA. “They give so much life. Baby Dungeness crab, rockfish, salmon—a lot of creatures get their start in the mudflats.” Tla-o-qui-aht master canoe carver Joe Martin has described the flats as “one of the most important things in terms of ecology for the Sound. They have a huge influence on the First Nations that live around it.”

Since 1997, an annual Shorebird Festival take place in Tofino every May, featuring talks, walks, and “Bird Brunches,” and attracting great numbers of bird enthusiasts. While the WMA management committee supports such events, it is also acutely aware that there are limits to how much exposure the delicate mud flats can endure from an ever-increasing amount of tourist traffic.

On Chesterman Beach, with Frank Island in the background, young surfers run to catch the next wave. Courtesy of Sarah Platenius

Of all attractions on the west coast, the fastest-growing and most robust must be surfing. Every year more and more surfers flock to the beaches, and the fact that a number of star surfers have emerged from the area certainly helped raise the profile of the sport. Raph Bruhwiler, who grew up on Chesterman Beach, began taking surfing seriously from the age of twelve, when his parents sent him to California to attend a surf school. He won his first surf contest when he was thirteen, beating twenty- and thirty-year-olds, and in 2000 he became Canada’s first surfing professional. By the late 1990s, Raph, Sepp, and Catherine Bruhwiler, as well as Peter DeVries, also raised on Chesterman Beach, had all won major competitions as they travelled the world surfing circuit. They made sure to be back in Tofino in 2000 to take part in Surf Jam, Canada’s first pro-am surfing contest. Surf Jam began in 1988 as a small contest on Long Beach to showcase BC’s top surfers. The 2000 competition took place at Cox Bay, with Peter DeVries, Raph, and Sepp Bruhwiler placing first, second, and third. In the women’s division, Tofino’s Jenny Hudnall topped the field, with Catherine Bruhwiler second and Leah Oke third. In 2009, Peter DeVries became Canada’s top surfer when he won the O’Neill Coldwater Classic right on his own North Chesterman Beach, beating 120 of the world’s top surfers. This home-grown tradition of great surfers continues, with Reed Platenius winning the North American Pro Junior title in 2023, the first time a Canadian reached the top of this highly competitive international ranking. The biggest surfing championship, the annual Rip Curl Pro Nationals, started in 2006, and by 2023 boasted 185 competitors and well over a thousand spectators thronging the Tofino beaches.

Tofino stands out from most other surfing destinations because of the gender divide in the west coast waves. Girls and women make up anywhere from a third to a half of the surfing enthusiasts here, a phenomenon not seen elsewhere. Much of the credit for this goes to Surf Sister, a business founded in 1999 by Jenny Hudnall. Inspired by the Surf Divas of La Jolla, California, Jenny decided to encourage women to take up the sport in Tofino, and opened her surf school for women. Surf Sister began out of the back of Jenny’s truck, soon moving into a small cabin she rented near Liz Zed’s Live to Surf shop. Jenny hired only women to give lessons and found she had hit a niche market. Eventually her business expanded to the point she opened her shop in downtown Tofino, selling surf gear as well as operating the surf school. Surf Sister has proved hugely empowering, both for the instructors and for the women they teach. Today more women surf on the beaches of Canada’s west coast than anywhere else in the world. “We still cater mostly to females,” explained current owner Krissy Montgomery, “but we do give lessons to men too.”

Most surfing competitions have women’s divisions, but sensing a need for more female competition, Surf Sister and Tofino’s Shelter Restaurant co-sponsored the first Queen of the Peak event, exclusively for women, in 2009. Since then Billabong sportswear and the Wickaninnish Inn have also come aboard as sponsors for the competition, held annually each October. “Not so long ago when I started surfing on Chesterman Beach with my brothers, I was the only girl,” Catherine Bruhwiler recalled. “Now I am competing in a contest here in Tofino with fifty or sixty women. It’s pretty special to be part of that, and to have seen such a dramatic change in the surfing scene in such a short time.”

A keen group of young girls have taken to the waves, inspired by the women in Queen of the Peak. Chloe Platenius of Tofino, who donned her first wetsuit and started Boogie Boarding when she was two years old, took part in the new Princess of the Peak competition in 2012 at the age of six, as did six-year-old Sophia Bruhwiler. Aimed at girls under sixteen, the “Princess” event attracted some twenty young girls in 2013, with ten-year-old Matea Olin winning the title.

Surfing is central to the culture and economy of the west coast. Surfers inhabit the beaches year-round, no matter what the weather. Some nine surf schools operate in and around Tofino, and five surf shops brighten the area, with paddleboarding also on offer. Surfboards top every second car, and surfers ride to the nearby beaches with surfboards strapped to their bicycles. To honour the history and place of surfing on the west coast, local resident and surfer Devorah Reeves has opened the West Coast Surf Museum in Tofino.

Aaron Rodgers, Tofino’s Director of Infrastructure, maintains that “the greatest asset for the town of Tofino has become surfing.” Charles McDiarmid, owner of the Wickaninnish Inn, concurs: “Surfing is the new engine powering the future of tourism. Surfers may not be high end clients, but they are future high end clients and they bring with them friends, parents, grandparents to view surfing competitions.” On competition weekends, not a room can be found in the town, campsites and parking lots are full, and cars line the highway by the beaches.

Importantly for the economy of Tofino, surfing tourism attracts a broad range of people beyond the core community of dedicated surfers. Many visitors who have never surfed in their lives will don the gear and brave the waves just to say they did. Family outings and reunions sometimes include cheerfully amateur efforts at surfing. When Mary Wilkie and her gang of ten relatives decided to get together to celebrate a fiftieth birthday, they chose to go surfing at Long Beach in November as part of the fun. Many of them from Port Alberni, all of them female, and ranging in age from three to eighty-three, every one rented surfing gear and took a board to the beach. Getting into the wetsuits provided half the entertainment, as every age, every size, geared up in gales of laughter. Once in the waves, only two succeeded in standing on their boards for a moment or two; the rest played in the waves, posed for photographs, and had the surfing experience of their lives.

In 1980, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council presented a land claim to the federal government for much of the land along the west coast of Vancouver Island, its adjacent islands, and surrounding waters. In 1983 the Canadian government accepted that claim as a starting point for negotiation, and since then First Nations land claims on the west coast have been working their way through various slow and complex processes. The Meares Island blockade of 1984, and the subsequent claim by the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht that they held aboriginal title to the island, “spurred on the creation of the British Columbia Treaty Commission, and gave new hope to First Nations in BC,” according to Tla-o-qui-aht writer and band council member Eli Enns. The First Nations treaty process, which began in 1993, brings together representatives from the First Nations and the federal and provincial governments to determine the rights and obligations of all parties regarding land ownership and land use.

As an introduction to the treaty negotiation process, few voices from Clayoquot Sound carry more authority than that of Ahousaht hereditary chief Earl Maquinna George. In Living on the Edge he wrote:

Unlike most other regions of Canada, in British Columbia the government historically signed very few treaties with the First Nations. Between 1850 and 1854, Governor James Douglas, at the request of the British Crown, negotiated limited treaties with fourteen First Nations on Vancouver Island in order to purchase land for settlement. Eleven of these “Douglas Treaties” concerned land around Victoria, Sooke, and Saanich, with one at Nanaimo and two others at Fort Rupert (Port Hardy). These were the only land treaties in the province until 1899, when the federal government negotiated Treaty Number 8 with eight tribes in northeastern BC.

In 1973, Nisga’a chief Frank Calder, who served as an MLA in the BC legislature, launched a landmark case in the BC Supreme Court asserting that First Nations still held aboriginal title to their lands. The BC Supreme Court and later the provincial Court of Appeal upheld the province’s claim that “Aboriginal title did not exist in BC.” When this case reached the Supreme Court of Canada, the judges determined that the Nisga’a did indeed hold Indigenous title to their lands in northwest British Columbia prior to the arrival of British sovereignty, that this title had never been extinguished, and that it continued to exist. Despite making this all-important judgment, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Calder’s appeal on a technicality. Still, its decision recognizing the Nisga’a’s right to their land proved far-reaching, setting a precedent for all First Nations. This led to an immediate change in federal policy, with the Canadian government launching efforts to determine what rights Indigenous people had to land and resources, and also beginning negotiations with the Nisga’a over their land. Now First Nations in Canada do not have to prove aboriginal rights and title; these rights are recognized and protected by the Canadian Constitution. Furthermore, since the Supreme Court of Canada reached its decision in the case of Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, regarding a claim by the Gitksan/Wet’suwet’en people of northern British Columbia, First Nations’ oral history has been recognized by the courts as admissible evidence in land claims.

In April 1993, the provincial and federal governments and the First Nations of BC established the BC Treaty Commission to begin discussions that would lead to treaty agreements with 111 bands in the province. They established a six-stage process for new treaty negotiations, with the Nisga’a already moving forward in a separate treaty process that would become the template for other negotiations. In 2000, the Nisga’a became the first Indigenous people in British Columbia to finalize a modern treaty with the provincial and federal governments.

In 1995, each of the fourteen Nuu-chah-nulth tribes chose a representative to participate in establishing the initial framework agreement of the treaty process. One tribe, the Ditidaht, chose to negotiate separately with Canada and the province. The negotiations began while a number of other contentious issues, including hunting rights, commercial fishing rights, and compensation for abuse in residential schools, continued to be pursued through both provincial and federal courts. With few guidelines and a multitude of issues to be considered, and with discussions taking place all over the province with scores of First Nations, negotiations proceeded slowly. In April 1997, Chief Earl Maquinna George, who represented the Ahousaht at the negotiation table, pinpointed one of the main problems preventing agreement: “We want to govern our own people, look after our own land, be our own stewards of what we have, what they’ve taken away. We want that back,” he wrote. “We want to look after our own people and gain a sense of self-respect. It seems to me, based on the way the negotiators talk to us, that the government does not believe we can take care of ourselves and our resources. Thus, no real progress has been made toward a settlement.”

In an attempt to speed up negotiations, the chief suggested that only six Nuu-chah-nulth negotiators, the Tripartite Standing Committee, sit at the negotiation table, instead of one negotiator for each tribe. This helped move proceedings along, and by March 2000 the negotiators for all parties initialled the Stage 4 agreement in principle (AIP) document, which then went to the various tribes for community consultation and approval. Only six of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations ratified this agreement in 2001, among them the Ahousaht and Hesquiaht. The Tla-o-qui-aht chose to leave the collective negotiating table, and in July 2008 began negotiating independently with the provincial and federal governments.

In November 2008, the Tla-o-qui-aht signed an incremental treaty agreement (ITA) with the provincial government, which awarded the nation approximately sixty-three hectares of land on the Esowista Peninsula, including a 12.1-hectare parcel on MacKenzie Beach next to the Tin Wis Indian Reserve, granted to the Tla-o-qui-aht in 1993 and now the site of Best Western Tin Wis Resort. An incremental grant of $600,000 accompanied this agreement as an advance by the province on a future treaty settlement package. In 2012, after the ITA’s four-year term ended, the two parties renewed the agreement for another four years, as negotiations continued. While this took place, the Tla-o-qui-aht treaty negotiators presented their people with the Stage 4 AIP document for their endorsement. However, of the 269 ballots cast, only 42 percent of the voters supported the document, forcing the negotiators back to the treaty table.

For all First Nations in Clayoquot Sound, the treaty process has been long, slow, and often frustrating, and it remains unfinished. Working on the premise that aboriginal title to their traditional lands was never extinguished, the Tla-o-qui-aht, Ahousaht, and Hesquiaht all wish to control their territories, to implement their own visions for land use, and to expand their authority. They also wish to protect their resources and to have a controlling say in any future exploitation of these resources. Although land claims and treaty negotiations will not affect fee simple land, these processes have, over time, strongly influenced attitudes to and assumptions about land, both in Clayoquot Sound and elsewhere in Canada. They have also increased every citizen’s understanding of the significance and strength of aboriginal title. In the early 1990s, Pacific Rim National Park became more widely known as Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, a public acknowledgement that Indigenous land claims to these park lands have not been concluded, and therefore potential rights are unsettled and remain open for negotiation. Along with seven other national park reserves formed in Canada since 1970, Pacific Rim continues to be managed under the Canada National Parks Act, pending the settlement of land claims.

The ongoing discussions about Nuu-chah-nulth control of their traditional territories carry great significance for future resource development in Clayoquot Sound. One example in Ahousaht territory is provided by Catface (Chitaapi) Mountain, thirteen kilometres north of Tofino, and three kilometres from Maaqtusiis on Flores Island. Mineral exploration on Catface dates back a long time; the rich copper deposits there have been known since the late nineteenth century. Mining recorder Walter Dawley reported in 1898: “Work has been done on the properties on this mountain [Catface], a 20 foot [6 metre] tunnel having just been completed on one claim. The ore carries a considerable percentage of copper.” Dreams of striking it rich on Catface inspired many hopeful prospectors over the years, among them early settler Avery Rhodes. Shortly after Rhodes married Luella Stone at Ahousaht in 1907, Daniel McDougall, the former police constable at Clayoquot, commented in a letter: “Well Luella is out of Harm Way now…Two Crazy People ought to have a Wise family. She need not fear…Avery is able to take care of her with his millions of gold and copper on Cat Face Mountain.” Such unfulfilled dreams aside, no significant mining activity disturbed the potentially valuable rocks on Catface Mountain for many decades.

In 1960, Ontario-based Falconbridge Ltd. staked claims on Catface Mountain through Catface Copper Mines Ltd. Extensive exploration between 1960 and 1974, costing $10 million, determined that the Catface property potentially contained 300 million tons of copper ore that could best be extracted from an open-pit mine, with a life expectancy of twenty years. Walter Guppy, in Wet Coast Ventures: Mine Finding on Vancouver Island, speculated, “If it had been promoted earlier (in the late 1950s and ’60s) it would have been another major open-pit operation, employing about eight hundred people. But, by the time the Catface deposit had come to the attention of Falconbridge…the era of bringing large open-pit base-metal mines into production was over. Costs had become too high and markets were soft.”

From the late 1990s to the late 2000s, when world copper prices began to rise to record levels, Catface Copper Mines changed hands a couple of times. In April 2008, after Catface Copper had courted the Ahousaht for several years to win their approval for further exploration and perhaps a future mine, a small delegation of Ahousaht elders travelled to Vancouver to sign a three- to five-year Memorandum of Understanding with the company. This agreement allowed Catface Copper to carry out test drilling in Ahousaht traditional lands to confirm Falconbridge’s findings from the 1960s. For signing the MOU, the tribe received a signing bonus and an assurance that ten Ahousahts would be trained in diamond drilling and employed on site.

The Friends of Clayoquot Sound and other environmental groups immediately spoke out against any activity that could lead to an open-pit mine on Catface, fearing environmental degradation. The Tofino Chamber of Commerce also voiced its opposition to the project. In spite of this, the Ahousahts could sanction the mine if its people chose to move forward with the plan, given previous agreements with the government about resource management in the area. However, despite potentially large economic gains for the First Nation, protests have arisen among the Ahousaht about mining Catface. In 2013, representatives of Ancestral Pride Ahousaht Sovereign Territory travelled from Ahousaht to Vancouver to express their opposition to the mine, gate-crashing the AGM of Imperial Metals (which acquired Catface Copper in 2009) at the Terminal Club. “We, as sovereign Indigenous people and nations, will continue to protect our waters and lands from industrial genocide,” a spokesman declared. “Imperial Metals is not welcome on sovereign Ahousaht territory.”

Meanwhile, Imperial Metals is also exploring the possibility of reopening the old Fandora gold mine, located in Tla-o-qui-aht territory in the Tranquil River valley, about twenty kilometres northeast of Tofino. The company received a mineral exploration permit from the BC government in 2013, immediately drawing protests from the Tla-o-qui-aht, who claimed they’d been “blindsided” and that they were dissatisfied with the level of consultation by both the company and the provincial government. “Throughout those years of consultation, we have only sent the ministry letters of opposition and concern about the lack of process,” Tla-o-qui-aht band councillor Saya Masso said in an interview with the Globe and Mail. “We are trying to encourage our hatcheries, our green energy projects…we are not against development, it is sustainable development that we want.” Masso said that in correspondence with the government about the Fandora Mine, the Tla-o-qui-aht’s “strength” of aboriginal title had been questioned, with “letter after letter challenging our connection to the land and very antagonistic letters of ‘if you can’t demonstrate a meaningful arrowhead in the ground then we’re going ahead with this.’” As natural resource manager for the Tla-o-qui-aht, Masso devoted much of his energy to promoting run-of-the-river electricity-generating projects. The sustainable land use plan being developed by the Tla-o-qui-aht would be under serious threat if a mine were allowed in the area. However, given the catastrophic toxic spill in 2014 at the Mount Polley Imperial Metals open pit gold and copper mine near Williams Lake, one that cost the company $70 million to remediate, the interest in establishing mines at either Fandora or Catface has largely fallen silent. If and when interest resurfaces, environmental concerns will likely be even more acute than before.

In January 2014, five Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations won a highly significant case in the Supreme Court of Canada. Ending a decade-long court challenge, the court awarded the tribes, including the Hesquiaht, Ahousaht, and Tla-o-qui-aht, the right to catch and sell all species of fish in their territory. “The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada affirms what the Nuu-chah-nulth have always asserted,” said Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council president Deb Foxcroft. “Nuu-chah-nulth are a fishing people, dependent on sea resources for our food and our economies.”

In determining these First Nations’ rights to fish and to sell fish commercially, the court ensured the rights would be protected by law. No other First Nations in Canada have achieved such far-reaching rights to fish commercially in their territories; the lawyers for the Nuu-chah-nulth, Ratcliff and Company, stated that “this decision represents the broadest aboriginal rights success in Canadian history.” The ruling will allow the tribes to conduct a modern commercial fishery, not just a fishery limited to “food, ceremonial and social” purposes, as earlier restrictions had stipulated.

The question of economic development for the First Nations underlies every discussion of resource management in Clayoquot Sound, be it fishing, mining, aquaculture, or logging. The high unemployment in the First Nations communities makes any prospective jobs in local resource industries potentially attractive. The Westerly News of May 13, 2010, quoted Tofino’s mayor at the time, John Fraser, commenting on the Ahousaht chief and council’s interest in the controversial Catface mine proposal: “Ahousaht is suffering with Third World conditions,” said Fraser. “Unemployment is atrocious and the economic needs are desperate. So I can understand the huge pressure on the chief and council.” Deputy Chief John Frank of the Ahousahts countered, “We looked after ourselves for thousands of years. We don’t want the taxpayers to look after us.”

In the face of grave social challenges, many Ahousaht leaders and elders have worked hard over the years to maintain the traditional values of the community and to counteract the negative pressures faced by their people. In the 1980s, Ahousaht hereditary chief Peter Webster became a leading spokesman, participating in workshops at Maaqtusiis against alcohol, drugs, and domestic and child abuse. In a column he wrote intermittently for the Westerly News, he spoke his mind, particularly about alcohol and its effects, sometimes risking censure from his own people for doing so. “Those of us that don’t want to hear anything, it will be too bad for them…I know this [abuse] is caused by the great power of alcohol, and I also know somebody will give me hell for talking about alcohol.” Having been an alcoholic himself, his voice carried authority. “The reason why I fight against alcohol is I have lost two of my sons and two of my grandsons within the period of nine years...I now understand and see what [alcohol] is and hear what I did not want to hear.”

Webster also shared his heartfelt desire to revitalize the songs and the language of his people. As a child, he had been forbidden to speak his own language at the Ahousaht residential school: “One time I was sent to bed without supper because I’ve said our word for ‘where is it?’ And besides I didn’t know a word of English.” He never lost the language, and in the 1980s he assisted at the Ahousaht school, teaching the Nuu-chah-nulth language and encouraging a resurgence of interest in the language, a movement that has grown stronger over time. “I know this linguistics will be something very good for every student that wants to learn,” he wrote in March 1986. Now young children going to school in Ahousaht all learn some of the Nuu-chah-nulth language, and even at Wickaninnish School in Tofino, everyone hears a Nuu-chah-nulth “word of the day” in the daily announcements. For some time, local Long Beach Radio also broadcast a “word of the day,” thanks to Gisele Martin, daughter of the renowned Tla-o-qui-aht canoe carver Joe Martin.

In any way he could, Peter Webster, along with other elders, supported passing on traditional knowledge. He wrote with great pleasure of seeing an Ahousaht team participate in a “Bone Game Tournament” in Port Alberni, recalling how this traditional bone game, Lahal, accompanied by traditional songs, had been forbidden in his youth. “In my school days we were not allowed to do this game because we were singing Indian songs. Those Principals were crazy.” Watching the Lahal tournament, Webster wrote: “I felt like crying in my heart overjoyed and we were about 150 people singing behind [the players] and after they won the game they sang the victory song.”

The opening of the band-run Maaqtusiis School in Ahousaht in September 1986 was hailed as a major step forward for the community. Nine years in the planning, the school welcomed students from Grades 1 to 12, and it attracted a number of Ahousahts, who had left to live elsewhere, to return to their native territory. The community of Maaqtusiis slowly expanded. An article in The Sound magazine in February 1992 began: “Ahousat is a fast growing town. There are 780 people living there...but there is a serious housing shortage...As in any expanding town, Ahousat is suffering some growing pain and sometimes these pains take the form of alcohol or drug abuse.” The town by then had a Holistic Recovery Centre to deal with addictions. Just across from Maaqtusiis, on the other side of Matilda Creek, the facilities run by Hugh Clarke had slowly expanded ever since he purchased the old store, post office, and dock in 1959. A small motel and restaurant appeared next to the store, and with improved moorage and a fuel dock, fishing charters sometimes ran from there.

Since the mid-2000s, an ambitious expansion has been underway in Maaqtusiis, with some 200 homes slated to be built in a new subdivision, with many amenities provided. To serve the growing population, a high school opened at Maaqtusiis in 2011, operated by the Ahousaht Education Authority. This eased pressure on the older Maaqtusiis School, which by then was cramming some 215 students into its K–12 classrooms. The new high school had seventy students in its Grade 8–12 classrooms. At the opening ceremonies in September 2011, Ahousaht hereditary chief Shawn Atleo, at the time national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, addressed his community on the importance of education. “It’s not always easy to accomplish something great like building a new school,” he said, likening the creation of the school to the preparation for a whale hunt. Traditionally the entire community would work together preparing for the hunt, the fruits of which would sustain and nurture the community. “Education is the new whale,” he said.

With fourteen fish farms operating in Ahousaht territory, many Ahousaht people are directly employed in the aquaculture industry and in support services for the industry, making this a major source of locally based year-round employment. In 2012 the Maaqutusiis Hahoulthee Stewardship Society was established to create and oversee future economic development projects for the Ahousaht people, its long-term goal to develop strategies for economic self-sufficiency. A year later the Maaqutusiis Hahoulthee Forestry Company was formed to involve more Ahousaht people in forestry activities. The forestry company operates a cedar salvage operation, producing cedar shakes and shingles for a company in Abbotsford.

Ahousaht involvement in tourist-related activities is on the increase. Since the establishment of the Ahousaht Wildside Trail in 1996, a regular stream of hikers has tramped the twenty-two-kilometre trail through old-growth forest to the outer beaches on Flores Island and back to Maaqtusiis. A new Ahousaht-based company called Spirit Eagle Adventures offers cultural tours of the area, plans are in development to open a campsite, and in 2013 the twenty-four-bed Aauuknuk Lodge opened near Maaqtusiis to welcome visitors.

Tla-o-qui-aht Tsimka Martin, wearing a cedar bark hat, steers a dugout canoe carved by her father Joe Martin. These excursions are among the attractions offered by her T’ashii Paddle School, welcoming visitors to experience Clayoquot Sound in a traditional manner. Courtesy of T’ashii Paddle School

The First Nations of Clayoquot Sound have generally taken their time deciding how best to respond to tourists and adventurers wanting to visit their territories. Relatively few Indigenous-operated tourist enterprises have developed, most of them in or near Tofino. For several years, Gisele Martin’s Tla-ook Cultural Adventure Tours took visitors on cultural tours in traditional dugout canoes carved by her father, Joe Martin. Her sister, Tsimka Martin, transformed that business into her T’ashii Paddle School, offering paddleboarding and traditional canoe tours out of Tofino.

In more distant areas of Clayoquot Sound, like Hesquiaht Harbour, the impact of tourism is so far negligible, although discussions have arisen about establishing and servicing hiking trails in that area. This heartland of Hesquiaht territory sees comparatively little traffic, for only highly motivated hikers venture this far afield. By contrast, countless boatloads and planeloads of people visit Hot Springs Cove, where the principal Hesquiaht village is located. The hot springs have become a major tourist attraction, drawing thousands of people a year.

Hesquiaht Harbour features the Hooksum Outdoor School, housed in an immense cedar longhouse on the shore, an innovative and unusual facility that has welcomed groups of students since 1999. Initially students attended First Nations cultural “Rediscovery” camps, expanding on the camps that had been operating at Hesquiaht since 1994. Hooksum has also offered Outdoor Leadership Training as well as customized programs for school, university, youth and adult groups. Owned and operated by Karen and Steve Charleson of the Hesquiaht First Nation, Hooksum applies traditional Indigenous knowledge to outdoor education.

This sign at the top of Sutton Pass on Highway 4 welcomes visitors into the territory of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation. Ian Kennedy photo

Building on the initiative of their first Tribal Park, established on Meares Island in 1984, the Tla-o-qui-aht have divided their entire territory into four different Tribal Parks. This designation allows for some low-impact tourist activities and limited resource development, while keeping the well-being of the ecosystem a priority. In 2008 the tribe created the Ha’uukmin—“like a great feast bowl”—Tribal Park, encompassing the entire Kennedy Lake watershed. Within Ha’uukmin, the Tla-o-qui-aht created the Clayoquot Valley Witness Trail, a hiking trail in the Clayoquot River valley. After entering into a partnership with West Coast Wild Adventures, they also set up a zipline to carry thrill-seekers high above the Kennedy River as it runs parallel to Highway 4 between Sutton Pass and the Tofino–Ucluelet junction. In 2013 the Tla-o-qui-aht created two more Tribal Parks, the Tranquil, which takes in the Tranquil River valley and the area surrounding Tofino Inlet, and the Esowista Tribal Park, encompassing the Esowista peninsula. Long-time Tofino resident Michael Mullin favours this move, suggesting, “The Tribal Parks present an opportunity that is different from having a casino and selling cigarettes. Someone once said that ‘Enlightened native stewardship of the natural resources is our best long term option,’ and I agree. It is their land and hopefully they will make better decisions than mining companies and Ottawa.”

“We support any direction that will feed healthy homelands,” said Saya Masso, speaking for the Tla-o-qui-aht. “I see a one hundred year economy, a one thousand year economy...I want to support the sustainable [jobs]. I want fish in our rivers and tourism, campgrounds, trails, and a value-added forestry industry with a lower footprint—and everyone working together to recognize and achieve that.”

The Tribal Parks designations put added pressure on the First Nations logging company Iisaak, by further limiting the areas it could access. By 2000, struggling with the debt incurred buying timber rights in Clayoquot Sound, the company began lobbying the provincial government for the right to log in the unprotected forested valleys of the Sound. In April 2011, Iisaak received permission to construct a logging road into the ancient forest on Flores Island, a move that flew in the face of its mandate to log in an environmentally sensitive manner. In 2012, following protests from environmental groups, Iisaak withdrew its application for a permit to log in Flores Island.

By the 1990s, former residential school students began to make themselves heard across Canada, giving public testimony about their experiences at the schools. Lisa Charleson, a Nuu-chah-nulth crisis worker, attended a meeting in 1994 about the effects of these schools on her own people. Afterward, she wrote a letter to the editor of The Sound, saying, “Up until the conference I hadn’t heard anyone breathe a word about residential schools, good or bad, except the odd comment about the horrid oatmeal.” Once they started, however, the revelations kept coming. In 1995, Arthur Plint, a former principal of the Alberni Indian Residential School, was found guilty of committing thousands of acts of sexual abuse against a group of eighteen former students at the school. This was the first case to appear before the courts alleging sexual abuse at a residential school on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It was not the last.

In 2001, the BC Supreme Court awarded substantial damages to an unnamed plaintiff who sued the Oblates of Mary Immaculate for “vicarious liability” in repeated incidents of alleged sexual abuse by a man employed at Christie School in the late 1950s/early 1960s. The alleged abuser had died in 1986. The BC Court of Appeal overturned this judgment in 2003, ruling that the Oblates could not be held responsible for the behaviour of an employee. The case then went to the Supreme Court of Canada, where once again it was overturned. In 2004, three former pupils of Christie School brought another case against the Oblates in which two employees of Christie School, one of them a brother, were named as perpetrators of sexual abuse in the school dormitories.

Over the years, more allegations of abuse at Christie School have surfaced, describing beatings, humiliation, and sexual abuse of students at the school. Some of these allegations have been made in statements by former students to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which began its work in 2008. At TRC hearings all across Canada, former students have shared publicly, and often for the first time, their memories of residential school, with the declared aim of revealing the truth of events in the past and working toward reconciliation. Some former students have alluded to the pain and abuse their parents, and even grandparents, suffered at residential schools. Several have named names.

“Brother Samson—he was a cruel man,” Simon Lucas of Hesquiaht recalled in his statement before the TRC in March 2012. At least three other former students of Christie School spoke of Brother Samson’s cruelty; this is the brother whose photograph in a school publication from 1950 carries the caption “Disciplinarian.” Simon Lucas attended Christie School for eight years during the 1950s. Like many others addressing the commission, he spoke of the pain of being punished for speaking his own language, and the grief of separation from his parents. He recalled leaving them at the cannery at Ceepeecee, his mother saying, “We don’t want you to weep,” and travelling by boat to the school with his brother, crying all the way.

Tom Curley also attended Christie School in the 1950s, from five years of age. He spoke before the TRC of staying awake at night, listening to other children crying in the dormitory. He described the confusion and fear of repeated sexual abuse, seeing a shadow by his bed at night in the dark dormitories, “and if he didn’t get me he’d get someone else.” He tried once to tell his parents, but they did not believe him, saying, “They’re religious people, they don’t do those things.”

The theme of loss emerged most clearly from the testimony of former Christie School students. Loss of language, loss of identity, loss of pride in culture and family. Some spoke of anger, some of self-hatred, some of shame. Several related the current problems of their communities to their experiences in residential school; with no connection to their own families, they could not know how to be good parents themselves. At the end of twelve years in residential school, Pat Charleson asked himself “How do I learn to be Native?” adding “My kids are still suffering from spinoffs of residential school.”

In their TRC testimonies, while most former students shared comparable experiences, some people spoke of having gone through a healing process over many years, and they said they believed they could move on. “I can walk proudly now,” Harold Lucas of Hesquiaht commented. “On the healing journey I said to myself I am no longer the product of the system.” Cliff Atleo of Ahousaht asserted, “We have survived, we are gonna turn things around.”

Following the closure of Christie School at Kakawis on Meares Island in 1971, the old buildings stood mostly silent for three years, occupied only by a few former staff and caretakers. Convinced that the facilities could be used to help their people, two former students, Louie Frank and Barney Williams Sr., joined in a campaign to establish an addiction treatment centre at Kakawis. The book Healing Journeys: The Ka Ka Wis Experience, 1974–1994, quotes Louie Frank talking of how a treatment centre would help people “come to grips with the alcohol problem…Some of us saw the potential at Christie and…somebody had to get the ball rolling.” Barney Williams wrote letters to chiefs all along the coast, asking for support for what became known as the Ka Ka Wis Family and Community Development Project. A core community emerged to guide and support the centre, including representatives from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Sisters of Saint Ann, from nearby First Nations, and from the wider community of counsellors and health care workers. The first residential facility of its type in North America, the centre offered support and living space for all members of its client families, not just for the addicted person. Families attended six-week-long sessions, working with staff and with other families to address addiction, health problems, unemployment, and domestic strife. Up to sixty-five people could be accommodated at a time, and on occasion the centre welcomed as many as seventeen children of their client families.

Later known as the Ka Ka Wis Family Treatment Centre, this facility operated on Meares Island for over thirty years, coming through many difficult times and perpetual financial challenges. It also survived a catastrophic fire in the summer of 1983, which saw the original Christie School buildings go up in flames. The immense blaze lit the sky for kilometres around. Macmillan Bloedel donated some fifty modular buildings from a disused logging camp up the Bedwell River so the centre could be operating again quickly. As time passed, the centre became a spiritual and therapeutic healing centre, with increased emphasis on First Nations spirituality and traditional ceremony as part of the “healing circle.” From the late 1990s onward, it was clear that the facilities at Kakawis no longer served the needs of the centre, and a new and more convenient location was required. Finally, in 2009, the renamed Kackaamin Family Development Centre opened near Port Alberni, where it offers live-in family treatment programs and other services for First Nations families, aiming to restore Indigenous values, culture and beliefs.

At Kakawis, on the property where Christie School stood, wild daffodils bloom in the spring around the site of the former school. The large crucifix that once rose above the curving, south-facing beach has long since been removed; few traces remain of the large and domineering institution that operated here for so long. Some say the place is haunted yet by the spirits of children who attended the school during its seventy years of operation, and by the voices of parents still seeking their sons and daughters. Others believe the wounds of the past have begun to heal, that a time of reconciliation has come. Kakawis faces change and renewal in the hands of the Ahousaht people, for in January 2013 the Ahousaht band’s economic development branch, the Maaqutusiis Hahoulthee Stewardship Society, purchased the 175-hectare property on Meares Island from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The elected chief and council hosted a celebration in honour of the acquisition and looked forward to developing tourism and business opportunities at this location, renamed Matsquiaht.

On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to all former students of residential schools across Canada. “The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language...The Government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.”

Another historic apology affecting the First Nations of Clayoquot Sound took place in July 2005. Over 200 years after the events of April 2, 1792, when the American trader Captain Robert Gray destroyed the village of Opitsaht, setting fire to 200 homes, Gray’s descendants made a public gesture of reconciliation. Along with several family members, William Twombly of Corvallis, Oregon, travelled to Tofino to apologize for the actions of his forefather. The party sailed up the coast aboard a replica of Gray’s trading vessel, Lady Washington. Off MacKenzie Beach, several Tla-o-qui-aht chiefs pulled alongside in dugout canoes and heard Twombly’s apology. “We are sorry for the abduction and insult to your chief and his great family and for the burning of Opitsaht,” said Twombly. “We have heard your words and accept,” answered Barney Williams Jr., the band’s chief councillor and beach keeper. Escorted by the canoes, the Lady Washington continued into Tofino Harbour, to be greeted by crowds of people. The Tla-o-qui-aht and Gray’s descendants exchanged gifts and feasted, bringing together the five hereditary chiefs, a hundred band members, and hundreds of guests and dignitaries. Among the guests, William Kendrick Strong, of Glendale, Arizona, a descendant of American trader Captain John Kendrick, who traded on the West Coast aboard the Columbia Rediviva.

On November 17, 2012, the spirit of reconciliation for past wrongs again surfaced in a public event involving the Hesquiaht. Ida Chong, then the provincial minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, expressed regret for the wrongful public hanging of John Anietsachist and Katkinna at Hesquiaht, following the John Bright shipwreck of 1869. Many people had stoutly maintained their faith in the men’s innocence over the years, believing the two had been shamefully treated. Anyone looking at court documents of the trial could see that faulty translations of the men’s testimony likely contributed to the convictions of Anietsachist and Katkinna; anyone reading the inflammatory newspaper reports of 1869 could see they had been assumed guilty from the outset. At the time, both Bishop Charles Seghers, who attended the hanging, and Father Brabant, who lived many years at Hesquiaht, publicly asserted their belief in the innocence of the men. Perhaps more importantly, stories and songs of their innocence had been handed down as part of the Hesquiaht oral narrative ever since the event. Hereditary Chief Victor Amos, a great-great-great grandson of Anietsachist, finally determined to clear his ancestor’s name and approached the provincial government. In 2008, the Hesquiahts raised a carved memorial pole at Home-is near Estevan Point in honour of Anietsachist. Four years later, at a feast of reconciliation attended by hundreds, Ida Chong spoke on behalf of the provincial government, saying: “On this day, what took place was an offer from the province of regret, and an offer from the Hesquiaht of forgiveness.”

In his book Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview, Ahousaht hereditary chief E. Richard Atleo explained the overarching principle of heshook-ish tsawalk, which translates as “everything is one.” Expressing a continuum between the spiritual and physical worlds, tsawalk has guided the Nuu-chah-nulth way of life for millennia. “The nature of creation,” Atleo wrote, “…demands constraint and respectful protocols rather than brute, barbaric and savage exploitation of resources.” In this worldview, spiritual practices, hunting, fishing, family life are all profoundly connected, and all major decisions affecting the people and the land require careful deliberation and consensus.

The centuries following European contact with the First Nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island have seen more aggressive action than consensus, more division than unity. Different worldviews have collided along the coast, sometimes disastrously, as traders, missionaries, settlers, and resource seekers pursued their own agendas, all too often with no consideration for the Indigenous people—or for the impact of their actions on the land, the water, the wildlife. One after another, invaluable resources were overharvested: sea otter, fur seal, salmon, herring, forests—to name only some. One after another, the Indigenous people along the coast faced grave losses, as their land, their health, their language, and their culture came under threat.

In more recent times, and very gradually, important changes have been taking place. The many fragmented and mutually exclusive worldviews of this area, its people, and its resources, have been slowly coming together as more people are listening more carefully to each other. It has become apparent that environmental concerns, tourism, and the economic health of the area are profoundly interconnected, as are the rights of First Nations and the interests of resource industries.

“We have a vision of land management that means sharing and educating,” Saya Masso stated, “and we’re expecting more banner years than broken years in managing our land and resources.” As local resident Michael Mullin put it: “We can have a wholesome place and manage it without destroying it…People come back again and again because Clayoquot Sound isn’t Disneyland. It’s healthy, it’s battery charging.” And Josie Osborne, former mayor of Tofino, pointed out how much the whole area had changed in recent years. “When I first came here…I worked for the First Nations, I worked in all the various communities, I went to a lot of meetings and I’ve…[seen] a lot of fists pounded on tables and there was a lot of division. Today the way people relate to each other is changing…there is a new view and a new degree of empowerment.”

Residents of Tofino and Clayoquot Sound are keenly aware that challenges and surprises lie ahead. They expect nothing less. After all, this is an area where people live with the knowledge that a tsunami could easily engulf them. This is where locals have seen the effects of a massive environmental protest radically change their economy, their image, their sense of community. People here know what it is to be scrutinized, damned, and praised by national and international media, and they truly know what it means to be one of the most popular destinations in Canada. None of this has come easily. Yet through it all, the people of Tofino and Clayoquot Sound have shared, and continue to share, a sense of being very fortunate to live where they are. Meanwhile, they ready themselves to catch the next wave of change, not knowing where it will take them. Here on the west coast, another wave is always about to break.

Sealing schooners like Pathfinder carried a dozen crewmen and up to twenty aboriginal harpooners. With the hunters’ dugout canoes stacked on deck, from the mid-1880s onward the schooners sailed up to the seal rookeries in the Bering Sea, on voyages lasting several months. Image B04177 courtesy of Royal BC Museum, BC Archives