PAT DEAKIN
PORT ALBERNI – September is always a busy month in Port Alberni with the much-anticipated and beloved Salmon Derby/Festival, Fall Fair and Toy Run events on successive weekends. This year, other events added to this notable month.
At the 2021 BC Food & Beverage Gala in Vancouver, Cascadia Seaweed won the Most Sustainable Business Award. Cascadia, headquartered in Sidney, is a Port Alberni Food Hub (Dock +) anchor tenant with farms in the Alberni Inlet/Barkley Sound. Cascadia earned the title based on their impact along the entire sector value chain. Seaweed’s regenerative and sustainable nature produces mitigation of ocean acidification, sequestering of carbon, provision of habitat and utilization of the ocean to grow plant-based protein reducing reliance on arable land.
The Canadian Brewing Awards are a sanctioned blind tasting Beer Judge Certification Program event. At the 2021 Awards in Quebec City, Twin City Brewing won a Bronze award for their ‘Dissimulator’ Traditional German Style Bock and another for their ‘Swedish Gymnast’ North American Style Wheat beer. At the same event, Dog Mountain Brewing won a Gold for their BEES! Belgian Style Abbey Ale/Pale Ale.
An inspiring 10.7-metre-tall totem pole carved primarily by Tim Paul of the Hesquiaht First Nation was raised along the Somass River near the south end of Victoria Quay. Western Forest Products donated the 800-year-old cedar log and the San Group funded the installation of the pole. Paul said the pole, originally intended to mark the UN International Year of Indigenous Language, pays homage to women who hold the songs, history and cultural teachings of First Nations.
The Uchucklesaht Tribe’s Thunderbird Spirit Water, which comes from an underground artesian spring in their territory, won the Gold Award for Taste in the Still Super Low Category at the FineWaters TASTE & DESIGN AWARDS in Bled, Slovenia. This is the second world-wide award for them; the first being at the same awards in Stockholm, Sweden in 2019 when they were up against bottled water selling for 20 times their price.
The Coulson Group was featured on a CBS’ 60 Minutes segment about their Chinook helicopter fighting forest fires in the LA Basin. The modifications made by the company to this aircraft allow the filling of a 3,000-gallon tank in 90 seconds from any water source, the use of night-vision goggles and precision GPS technology that releases the water/fire retardant exactly where desired.
Congratulations All.
Pat Deakin is the Economic Development Manager for the City of Port Alberni. He can be reached at 250-720-2527 or Patrick_deakin@portalberni.ca