US President Donald Trump has opened large areas of Alaska, including the Gulf of Alaska just north of the BC border to oil leases. The additional leases also allow more drilling the Arctic. If drilling and production does go ahead, which isn’t certain, that might also mean there could be even more oil tanker traffic […]
The Memorandum of Understanding between Canada and Alberta (pdf) exc-mou-goc-and-goa-energy-collaboration 41 civil society organizations oppose northwest coast oil pipeline and tankers West Coast Environmental Law (PDF) 41 civil society organizations oppose northwest coast oil pipeline and tankers _ West Coast Environmental Law Coastal First Nations dismiss pipeline MOU (PDF) Coastal First Nations Dismiss Pipeline […]
On Wednesay, November 26, 2025, the day before the details of the Alberta Canada Memorandum of Argreement, the Haisla Nation and District of Kitimat issued this joint statement. November 26, 2025 – Haisla Traditional Territory, British Columbia Yesterday afternoon, Haisla Nation and District of Kitimat met with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. The meeting provided an […]
With today’s announcement of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Canadian federal government and the government of Alberta, dicussions which excluded British Columbia and projects a new bitumen pipeline across northwest British Columbia, I am reviving Northwest Coast Energy News on a limited basis. I do not intend to do daily coverage as I did […]
In 1999, a tropical fungus called by scientists Cryptococcus gattii unexpectedly appeared on Vancouver Island. Spores from the fungus can cause a sometimes fatal pneumonia-like illness in humans, cats, dogs and marine mammals, including porpoises and dolphins. There is one reported case of the fungus infecting a great blue heron. Normally, the fungus is most […]
Analysis (Long Read) A crowd gathers at the Kitimat CN Station sometime in 1955. This picture may be of the station opening since the windows and trim are unpainted. (Walter Turkenburg/Kitimat Museum & Archives. ) See Note 1. UPDATE: There will be a public meeting to discuss the future of the station in Kitimat on […]
THE RIVERBANK PAPERS: After the flash flood on September 11, 2017, Northwest Coast Energy News filed Freedom of Information/Access to Information requests with a number of provincial and federal agencies who have jurisdiction over the Kitimat river and riverbank camping. The first response to the FOI request is from the Ministry of Forest, Lands […]
Two related scientific papers published in the past two weeks, one on the First Peoples initial settlement of coastal North America and the second giving a probable new timeline of the retreat of the glaciers during the last Ice Age, taken together are likely confirmation of the Haisla story of how that nation first settled […]
If some travellers, perhaps about 12,000 years ago, had headed up what is now called Douglas Channel, around the north end of Hawkesbury Island they likely would have seen a glacial retreat driven by a warming planet, something very familiar to the television viewers of 2017, video of 21st century coastal Greenland, where massive glaciers […]
Most historians and archaeologists believe that the First Peoples to arrive in North America came down the West Coast on what they now call the “kelp highway.” The review paper “The First Americans” was published this week in the prestigious journal Science. Evidence from archaeological sites from the British Columbia coast to the southern tip […]