Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales /Cortes Currents - At their September 23 meeting, the Strathcona Gardens Commission gave Strathcona Regional District (SRD) staff the authority to negotiate the lease of Pinecrest Park from Campbell River. The SRD Board was updated on October 28. 

Lisa Perrault from the Friends of Pinecrest Park emailed Cortes Currents that she is extremely disappointed with the decision to go forward with this project.

"Clearly, the parties involved are not listening to the concerns of the citizens who have communicated with them in so many ways. The paving of an appreciated greenspace to serve as parking for a hockey facility is a deeply flawed plan and yet this project is moving ahead right on schedule."

CAO David Leith told the Strathcona Gardens Commission, "This is just an offer to lease the principles of the lease agreement that we will bring forward at a later date. The city preferred that we have the SRD board confirm the principles of the offer here, which is obviously the Pinecrest Park, the amount of money to lease the park over the fifty-year term and the walkway. It highlights everything that the commission has seen in the past. Nothing new here, it just reaffirms that commitment. The commission or if the commission supports it in the board, then, we will work with the city on finalizing a lease agreement."

The staff report for this meeting, explains, "The proposed Lease and Licence would each be for a term of no less than 50 years, with the exact terms subject to negotiation. The Offer provides for prepaid base rent of $4 million for the term of the Lease and nominal consideration for the Licence. The Offer is intended to establish the framework for preparation and negotiation of the subsequent formal Lease and Licence. It does not constitute the final land agreements, which remain subject to a number of conditions, including approval of the project design, scope, construction schedule, budget and funding; City approval of the parking and walkway design and construction schedule; agreement on the final form of the Lease and Licence; and the required approvals of the City and Regional District."

Strathcona Gardens Chair, Susan Sinnott asked, "I did have one clarification. I saw the map, and I did have a question about the pathway. That's not binding us, right? There's room to fix that." 

David Leitch replied, "No, we have to do surveys and when we bring forward the lease agreement, we will. It's gonna follow the path that you see here, but this isn't exactly a legal survey, just a graphic interpretation of the parking lot, its distance and the path to get there.

The Gardens Commission passed the motion, "That the development and negotiation of the subsequent lease license and related agreements with the City of Campbell River be authorized with the final agreements being brought forward to the regional board for consideration."

Lisa Perrault wrote, "I’ve been working on the Pinecrest Park issue since I first heard about it in late June. I’ve put up “save the park” signs, written letters and emails to the SRD and City, talked with neighbours, attended the rally at City Hall, etc. So have many other people.

 

"We are hoping that the new members of Campbell River City Council (Councillors Brittany Colville, Laird Rueland, Joëlle Samson and Lucas Schuller) will find a way to reverse the decision on paving the park and find a more logical solution for parking at the potential new ice rink."

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Mayor-elect Kermit Dahl, his six councillors elect, and Chief Ronnie Chickite of the Wei Wai Kai First Nation were paraded into the Tidemark Theatre by bagpipes. There were only three items of business at the inaugural meeting of Campbell River’s new city council on November 2, 2026. The new council needed to be sworn in, appointments were made to the Vancouver Regional Library, and the directors to serve on the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board were chosen.

That last item was especially important.

Ben Lanyon: "One of the things that will be quite important going into the next term with the SRD is continuity with some issues that are currently in progress there. I think the organization itself will benefit greatly from having continuity of experience and relationships."

Aside from that, it was an evening of pageantry. Chief Administrative Officer Elle Brovold called the meeting to order.

Elle Brovold: "Good evening everyone, and welcome to the inaugural meeting of Campbell River City Council, 2026 to 2030. Wonderful to see so many people here in person, and I know many more are watching online on our live stream as well."

Chief Ronnie Chickite of the We Wai Kai First Nation was then called upon to give a welcome.

Chief Ronnie Chickite: "On behalf of the Liǧʷiłdax̌ʷ people of the Wei Wai Kai Nation and Wei Wai Kum First Nation, it’s my honour to stand before you tonight to welcome you to our traditional territory. I know at times some people don’t really understand why we do these territorial acknowledgements, but as I said to Kermit in the back earlier, this is something that the city and the nations have worked on, and it’s our honour to stand beside them as we do these territorial acknowledgements. So on behalf of the nations, I would like to welcome everybody to our traditional territory."

First Nations Cultural Leader: "We were happy to be here to share a ladies’ dance with you this evening to help bless these ceremonies and the inauguration of the new council. Of course, the women in our cultural society are held in high regard for the power they have. So we wanted to bring the ladies out here to spread some eagle down so that the new council can get off on a new foot."

Elle Brovold: "Thank you so much. We’re also very pleased tonight to have the Campbell River Children’s Choir joining us for a couple of numbers. First, please welcome the choir to the stage to lead us in the singing of our national anthem."

(They sing O Canada) 

Next, Judge Brian Dybwad received oaths of office and allegiance from each member of the new council. Mayor Dahl read out his speech. 

The first test of how well the new city council would work together came after the proposed list of appointments to the Strathcona Regional District Board was announced.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Ralph and Lannie Keller have been passionate advocates for the preservation of Read Island's ecosystems for decades. In addition to co-owning Coast Mountain Expeditions, a local family owned kayak adventure tour company, Ralph was the ad hoc Chair of the former Discovery Island Marine Tourism Group, Lannie is the co-ordinator of the the Discovery Islands Ecosystem Mapping Project (DIEM). They were both instrumental in the Read Island community's purchase of 20 acres of forest (Lot 302) in 2020 and, more recently, enabled Wilderness International's purchase of 1,250 acres. In this morning's interview, they talk about the forest on Read Island.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Students at Cortes Island Academy recently welcomed Nelson and Xochitl of Nomadic AlterNatives, an artist collective dedicated to curating public art and collaborating with artists, scholars, and storytellers. Through murals, music, and interactive technology, their work beautifies public spaces while amplifying underrepresented voices.

As guest facilitators, Nelson and Xochitl shared how public art and creative collaboration can be powerful tools for world-making. Students explored how art can shape communities, tell meaningful stories, and inspire positive change. Their visit encouraged students to think about the role creativity plays in building a more inclusive and connected world.

The project began with students learning about several of Nelson and Xochitl's murals and the stories behind them. From there, students divided into three groups to brainstorm ideas for the mural's three panels. As ideas were shared and refined, a unifying theme emerged that reflected Cortes Island Academy's yearly themes of Earth, Air, and Water. Each group sketched their concepts, contributing unique perspectives and creative visions

Using the students' drawings and ideas, Nelson created digital renderings of the mural, allowing the team to experiment with layouts and decide how the different elements would come together. Next, Xochitl led students through an engaging lesson on colour theory, where they learned about colour relationships and mixed many of their own custom colours for the mural palette.

Folk U Radio is taking old school viral every Friday at 1 p.m. and Mondays at 6:30 p.m./Wednesday at 6 a.m. @ CKTZ 89.5FM or livestreamed at cortesradio.ca. Find repeats anytime at www.folku.ca/podcasts.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - After a long heated debate, the SRD Board approved a Grant in Aid so that a non profit, wanting to build affordable housing in Quathiaski Cove, could hire a consultant to do the pre assessment work needed. This is not the request Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney brought to the Board. The Discovery Islands Affordable Housing Society already has the land. At the Wednesday, October 28 SRD Board Meeting, Director Robyn Mawhinney of Electoral Area C moved, “That a grant in the amount of $10,000 be provided to the Discovery Islands Affordable Housing Society from the Regional Housing Service to assist with the costs of retaining a project consultant for pre-development assessment activities.”

After encountering considerable pushback culminating in a decision to defer the application, Director Mawhinney put it forward as a Grant in Aid.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Have you ever wanted to find specific statistics about a community? Not just the population, but also details like the employment rate, number of police calls, or how welcome visitors are. RIEP's Community Economic Dashboard attempts to put all of the relevant data in one place. 

Statistics for Cortes, Quadra, and Campbell River are currently being uploaded. JenniferBanks Doll is giving presentations of this new resource on both Cortes and Quadra Islands this week

Jennifer Banks Doll: "This is a project of the Rural Islands Economic Partnership (RIEP) which is a non-profit that tries to bring together all of our islands in the Salish Sea: from the southern Gulf Islands all the way up to Alert Bay. They’re working to create conversations about our islands, our lives here, and our economies.

"The project is called Communities Talking, because that’s the goal: to get us talking: both within our communities on our islands and between islands.

"We’re starting by creating this Community Economic Dashboard. The vision is to take all of the information collected by governments, non-profits, and other organizations in our communities, and put it all into one place.

"There are a lot of surveys that happen in our communities every once in a while. Different organizations are asking questions like: What are your views? What information do we have about housing or wellness or other topics? Those surveys happen, and then we often ask, “What happened to that survey?”

"This dashboard hopes to bring all the information from those surveys, as well as information from Vital Signs, into one place.

"The Cortes Island Community Foundation and the Quadra Island Foundation both now do Vital Signs reports. Those are amazing surveys of data related to wellness in our communities. We’re also bringing in census information and different housing surveys done by government and putting it all in one place.

"So when we look for information about our community. whether it’s related to demographics, poverty, or the environment.

Right now what we're doing is working on building that dashboard, so going to all these different organizations that collect data or who would like to collect data and saying, "Can we put your data on this dashboard so that we can go and look at Quadra or Cortes or Gabriola?"

Those are the three pilot communities right now. We can look at them in isolation, or we can compare them. We can look at, how do we compare in terms of housing across our three islands? Who's collecting what data? On Gabriola, they're collecting data about this. Maybe we should be collecting that data too.

So next time we do a survey, we'll be better informed in terms of what we want to collect data on. The dashboard is just a really good starting point for so many other things.

Cortes Currents: Will it be updated regularly?

Jennifer Banks Doll: Yes, that is the plan. Right now we are trying to find all that data that's already been collected, but then as more data is collected, we'll be updating the dashboard

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The last meeting of the outgoing SRD board was on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Directors Mark Baker of Sayward, Doug Chapman of Campbell River, Julie Colburn of Zeballos, Martin Davis of Tahsis, Ron Kerr of Campbell River, and Michael Lott of Gold River will not be returning this next term. A spontaneous thank you session broke out when the board was considering new business.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - After close to two years of arguments, which have reached the point where lawyers are now involved, the Strathcona Regional District Board is not going to force Quadra Island residents to pay for Campbell River's Recreate Strathcona Gardens facility, at least not at the moment.

The vote was 8 to 6 against the proposed bylaw. The SRD board's Oct 28, 2026 meeting started out with an in-camera session, after which Bylaw 643 (the proposal to include Quadra in the catchment area) was moved to the front of the agenda.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Campbell River-based Wilderness International Canada recently purchased 1,250 acres of forest on Read Island. 

Tobias Huerten (Managing Director, Wilderness International Canada):
“We’re really involving the local community in this because we, as an organization, are based in Campbell River - not on Read Island. The people living there are the caretakers of that forest. We purchased the forest, the community supports that and now there are many other ideas about what we can do out there for youth education, for example, or environmental education. For now, we purchased it simply to protect it. There’s no more logging in those areas, so the forest can redevelop.”

The Celebration

Narrator: There was a big party at Surge Narrows, on Read Island, on October 24.

Lannie Keller (Read Island resident): “It was a wonderful celebration.”

Ralph Keller (her husband): “It was a forest love-in.”

Lannie Keller: “We just knew that this was something very special, and everybody was so extremely happy that it seemed like time to celebrate and bring ourselves together to be happy about a good news story. Wilderness International really led the celebration. It was their party. We definitely facilitated, and the Surge Narrows Community Association contributed space for the party at the community buildings here. We invited all of the community and a number of people from outside the community who had had special connections over the years.

“We set the date because Wilderness International had folks coming from Germany around that time. There was someone from Peru, a couple of people from Alberta, and local people gathered from as far away as Victoria. We provided a shuttle from the end of the road at Quadra. Ralph brought over a couple of big boatloads of people, and the dock was crammed with boats rafted on boats.

“The provincial election was on the same day, so that was overshadowed by our happy gathering, although it was happening in the schoolroom next door. It was a little bit drizzly, but it was a wonderful, wonderful day.”

Tobias Huerten: “At the peak of the presentation, we counted 93 people at the Surge Narrows Community Centre. We hosted a conservation celebration, had a community lunch, and then we had a presentation about what we at Wilderness International achieved. We shared some footage from wildlife cameras we already have installed and some scientific research we have been doing this May.

“There was also a presentation about the local wetlands from Cody Chamberlain, who is on the board of the Surge Narrows Community Association and also works as a scientist for Wilderness International, as well as Kai Sutherland, a local 16-year-old who goes to school there and helps with all of the scientific research. They presented on the wetlands, and after that, we went out for a forest walk, then went over to the bog, and ended the day with a barbecue at the community bunkhouse.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Chris Hatch, who writes the column Zero Carbon for Canada's National Observer, lives here on Cortes Island. He is periodical's former executive editor, has been a key figure in the environmental community for decades, and is the former Executive Director of Rainforest Action Network.  Thanks to some generous donors, you can receive Zero Carbon as a free Sunday e-mailout. I was able to interview him last month.