Within Tla-o-qui-aht culture, food has always been more than sustenance. naaʔuu, the tradition of coming together to share a meal, is how teachings are passed and received. As we eat, we incorporate what we've gathered into our hearts and minds. Tonight, that tradition is the frame for something new.

Cooking for Co-Existence is an evening of food, live music, learning, and community gathering in Tofino, and its focus is one of the quieter challenges facing the ḥaḥuułi: invasive species.

kʷistuup, the event's subtitle, translates as "creature from another place." It's an apt description of what invasive species are, organisms that have arrived outside their original range, often carried here by the same forces of movement and commerce that bring people to this coast. European Green Crab, for example, now threaten the eelgrass meadows of ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ territory, habitat that salmon, shorebirds, and intertidal life depend on. ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ Tribal Parks Guardians have been working alongside Coastal Restoration Society to remove them. The work is careful, ongoing, and rooted in the Tla-o-qui-aht responsibility to protect and restore the tiičmis.

Tonight, Moss & Milk Café and Surfside Grill turn that same challenge into a question at the dinner table: what does it look like to coexist with what has arrived? Their kitchens are cooking with invasive species, and ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ Chef Leah Morgan is bringing Indigenous ingredients, techniques, and spices alongside, drawing on the foodways that have sustained Tla-o-qui-aht People on this coast for generations.

The dishes can be enjoyed individually or combined into a mezze-style platter, contributions from each kitchen sharing the same table. The outdoor space between the two restaurants becomes a gathering place, transformed by music, food, and the kind of conversation that happens when a community sits down together.

Gisele Martin and the ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ Language Team will be sharing knowledge and the language of invasive species, because naming something in the language of the land is a first act of understanding. Live music from Tsimka & Michael Red (+ Road Kill Squirrel) will carry the evening through.

All profits are donated to ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ Tribal Parks, the Tla-o-qui-aht Wolf Pack U13 Boys Team, and Rising Tide Surf (Mu̓łaa).

Saturday, August 22 | 5–8 PM | Tsawaak RV Resort, Tofino
By donation. No tickets required. Come hungry. Come curious.