POWELL RIVER, BC—  Domtar has reached a deal with the Tla’amin Nation in Powell River to return an historical village site now occupied by the shuttered Catalyst paper mill. In a joint press release, the Tla’amin and Domtar – a subsidiary of the Paper Excellence Group – announced that a “significant portion” of the 300-acre site owned by Domtar and occupied by the now-shuttered pulp and paper mill, will be returned to the Tla’amin. In 2023, the B.C. government began work with the Tla’amin to recover a former village site, called tiskwat, for the Tla’amin. The Tla’amin were relocated from the village nearly 150 years ago. The Tla’amin have signed a modern treaty, which is still in the implementation stage. The possibility of returning the village site to the Tla’amin was not originally contemplated in the treaty, and only became an option when Paper Excellence shuttered the Catalyst mill and put the property up for sale.