Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Quadra Island Outdoor Club made 6 trips this month, and 3 of them were off-island. They came to Carrington Bay and Grandmother’s Grove on Cortes Island, kayaked on the Sayward canoe circuit and visited the petroglyphs on Maud Island. Closer to home, they’ve walked Hyacinthe Bay at low tide, paddled around Gowlland Harbour to see the wild flowers and took part in a beach clean-up.    

“The Outdoor Club does provide a service to the community,  particularly for people who are new to Quadra, who both aren't familiar with the trail system and at the same time really want to meet other people with shared interests.  Most of them are perfectly capable of walking down those trails by themselves. These are mapped and maintained trails, but we also have in our membership a lot of people whose partners or friends don't share that interest. Particularly women may not be interested in doing the solo trip.  I think that is an important niche for us. It's a very friendly group and the social aspect is very important,” said Debbie Quigg (DQ).

She and her partner Norris Weimer founded the club in 2013.

DQ: “We usually have between 35 and 45 members.  So, it's pretty small. We don't have leaders or guides, nobody's trained. We're a group of peers. Everybody needs to be self-sufficient.  That works out pretty well. and we've never had any incidents or accidents. The group's compatible.”

“We are mostly retired and the trips are mostly on weekdays, but there is a demographic for that here, for the size of what we're after.”

“We've tried occasionally to entice younger and working people by taking trips on weekends, but often they have such busy lives that it's really hard for them to take those leisure moments and have that flexibility to join us even if it's what they would like to do. That's not always possible for them.”

“We try to have one outing per week and that's usually hiking or kayaking. In the winter, we do a bit of snowshoeing.” 

Cortes Currents asked Quigg to take us on a quick peek into their world, starting with their expeditions to Cortes Island.