For Redd Fish Restoration Society, purchasing a popular former candy stop and convenience store in the middle of Ucluelet is especially sweet.
The society held a soft opening at their new headquarters at 1728 Peninsula Road on Friday for a celebration that’s been a long time coming.
“This has been something that’s been on an agenda of a board meeting for 27 years, so we are finally at this really exciting stage where we have a piece of land and a beautiful building that we can create into something we’ve always dreamed about,” Redd Fish’s executive director Jessica Hutchinson told the Westerly News at the event.
“We’ve been saving money for many, many years now in order to make this purchase and buy this land. Kudos to all of our board of directors and all the volunteers and staff who have supported this mission through the years and taken us to where we are today.”
The site at 1728 Peninsula Road began its life as Murray’s convenience store, opened by Murray Payne in 1970.
It will now serve customers looking for coffee, clothing and creations from local artisans with all proceeds going towards supporting the society’s efforts, especially “underfunded projects,” according to Hutchinson.
“Restoration projects that we can’t find a dollar for, or there’s no money currently through the provincial or federal government, or a passion project for a local community or Nation. It just helps bolster our restoration efforts,” she said.
Redd Fish, formerly known as Central Westcoast Forest Society, is a non-profit organization that launched in 1995 with the mission to support healthy communities and ecosystems and to restore and rebuild wildlife habitats and populations, particularly salmon.
“We’ve been doing that for a long time now and we, like many non- profit organizations in the region, have moved from building to building and are just finally happy to find our permanent home,” Hutchinson said.
“It’s sort of the face of the organization where we can meet and greet residents of the communities and visitors to the region and tell them a little bit about what we’re doing…This is just the start of something we hope (will get) much bigger.”
She said the society hopes to establish an interpretive stewardship centre in the back of the building within the next two years to offer hands-on educational opportunities around stewardship, restoration and Indigenous led management of lands and waters.
A stream table is already operating in the middle of the new store offering local kids opportunities to get their hands dirty playing with hydrology and learning about river processes.
Hutchinson, who will celebrate her 20th anniversary with the society next year, noted Redd Fish hosts a variety of local activities where kids, students and adults can learn about restoration through outdoor activities, like guided trail walks, and the new home will serve as a hub for those pursuits.
“All of us know, as parents in this community, that on a rainy day there’s a limited amount of things you can do with your kids. As a tourist provider, there’s limited things to entice people to this region during the off-season and we hope the stewardship centre will be sort of like a Science World; a draw,” she said, noting the interpretive centre would complement the nearby Ucluelet Aquarium. “We think this is just going to be a great addition to this community and a great way to educate and provide more inspiration for other people and groups out there to invest in ecosystem restoration and wildlife recovery.”
She expressed gratitude to the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Government, whose traditional territory the new store operates within, as well as all the surrounding First Nations that have supported the society’s efforts through the years.
“We really could not be where we are today without the First Nations’ support,” she said.
Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Government president Charles McCarthy attended the soft-opening celebration and congratulated the organization for securing the space.
“We recognize and support the effort of Redd Fish and their ongoing commitment to restoration in Nuu-chah-nulth territory,” McCarthy said. “Congratulations on your collective hard work and success on the opening of the new headquarters.”
Mid Island-Pacific Rim MLA Josie Osborne also attended the celebration and was all smiles as she spoke about the budding facility’s potential impact.
“It’s spectacular to see a well loved local organization take over a space that everybody knows well and they’ve really made it their own. They’re keeping the community at the heart of everything they do with the products that they provide, the stories that they tell and the work that they do behind the scenes of course,” Osborne told the Westerly.
“It’s also fantastic to see a non-profit take the plunge into owning a building. I know that’s a dream of many non-profits. Just like the way sometimes renters have to move from house to house, non-profits have had to move from space to space and now they have the security of knowing that they own this and can count on it to be here for years to come.”
Osborne was thrilled with the idea of a stewardship centre where families and youth will be able to come learn about the natural environment surrounding them.
“I think the story of Redd Fish restoration is the story of the West Coast and seeing the transition from an economy that was based largely on an extractive industry and transforming into one of giving back, of restoration, of a more reciprocal relationship with people and the natural environment around us,” she said.
“It is such a fantastic complement to the Ucluelet Aquarium just down the road from here, the Raincoast Education Society, Strawberry Isle Marine Research Society, all of the non profits on the West Coast that have a mission to help people fall in love with the natural world around us and to steward it and protect it. It’s a beautiful story of evolution I think.”
She added that along with education and inspiration, organizations like Redd Fish also offer solid and meaningful employment opportunities.
“I think something we need to be really proud of with Redd Fish Restoration is the creation of good-paying, high quality jobs that give people meaning and a sense of purpose in the work that they do,” she said. “They train and educate youth and local people and bring them into jobs that really mean something. I think that we should all be really proud of the work that they and so many other non-profits in our communities are doing.”
The society’s board chair Mayco Noel said the space will bring “a new little heartbeat for our community” while providing a valuable venue for Redd Fish to share its message.
“We’ll be able to share our story with some comfort knowing that every dollar we invest in the building is going to be a dollar into the community and a dollar into what we’re fighting for,” Noel said. “This gives us the ability to not worry about landlords and just focus on the business at hand, which is restoration and having a little bit of fun in a new interpretive centre.”
Noel has chaired the society’s board for the past four years and said he was often told that securing its own building was an impossible goal for the society to set.
“This was told to me many times, that it was impossible,” he said. “It’s just a huge, huge accomplishment to show other organizations that are sometimes fearful about taking the next plunge that it’s totally possible.”
