Hundreds of North Islanders caught up in the voluntary evacuation following the tsunami warning ended up being displaced for only a few hours.
The lessons learned by local emergency personnel in the hours following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake off Haida Gwaii may have a much longer-lasting impact.
There were no injuries or property damage reported on the North Island in the aftermath of the tsunami, which measured little more than 12 centimetres by the time it reached the area. But the event did provide a valuable live exercise for emergency workers and revealed flaws and questions in local plans.
The warning passed with no loss of life and little or no property damage throughout the quake region. A tsunami of 44 centimetres was recorded at Langara Island in the Queen Charlottes, and had diminished to just 12 cm by the time it reached Tofino on Vancouver Island's west coast.
Defend Our Coast, an organization dedicated to stopping the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. Coast, and the tanker traffic that would result, staged protests at MLA offices throughout coastal British Columbia in October.
Locally, since North Vancouver Island MLA Claire Travena does not currently have a constituency office here, the group gathered at the Port McNeill waterfront with banners to show their objection to the plan.
Students at North Island Secondary School will no longer have to choose between the provincial soccer championships and their graduation ceremonies.
But some North Island families may have to choose which school's grad to attend after administrators at NISS decided this fall to move the school's graduation date one week later in June.
The move, designed in part to alleviate conflicts suffered by the school's successful soccer program in the past few years, will put the NISS grad on the same night Port Hardy Secondary School holds its student grad ceremony in Port Hardy.
The new graduation day will move NISS from the first weekend in June, when the soccer provincials are held, to the second weekend of the month.
The world famous Knights Inlet Lodge was destroyed in a fire in October.
The lodge was a top ecotourism destination, with its owners, Dean and Kathy Wyatt, described as ardent champions of grizzly bear and salmon stewardship and conservation. Knights Inlet is located 80 kilometres north of Campbell River, with the lodge located 60 kilometres up the fjord, in Glendale Cove. The area is home to one of the largest concentrations of grizzly bears in B.C., with the fire coming in the peak fall viewing season, when the bears gather to feed on the salmon returning to the Glendale River.