Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Marc Doll was a high school social studies teacher, a community specialist realtor and the president of a communities association back in Calgary. He, his wife Jen and two daughters left that life behind in 2016. Now Doll is regenerative farmer and volunteer firefighter on Quadra Island. He hopes to be elected Regional Director for Area C on Saturday, October 15, 2022. The tagline on his websites is ‘empower community’ and in the first of a series of articles exploring his positions, Cortes Currents asked what this means.

Doll was President of the Marda Loop Communities Association, which governs a community of 20,000 people in Calgary, for 5 years.

“That's really the experience that I'm probably using and drawing on the most for this campaign,” he said.

“What's amazing is when you get people behind a vision and you get the people in a neighborhood wanna be connected and have the drive to make things better it just absolutely is impressive what can be done. So in this particular instance, we took something that had just become a rental hall and turned it into a community hub where we rejuvenated an outdoor pool, got millions of dollars in grants for infrastructure renewal. Brought a board that was hardly populated into completely full and where every position had people volunteering for it. We started a farmer's market, the list goes on and on and on.

This is a model of the kind of change he'd like to see Islandbrought to Area C, especially to Quadra Island. Reed Island is already further down that road, thanks to the Surge Narrows Community Association (SNCA).

“They are getting things done that are absolutely mind blowing. They just received a $2 million grant for a foreshore rejuvenation project. They completed a gorgeous pavilion for community events. That's the type of thing that can get done when people are working together,” said Doll.

“Quadra is a community in and of itself, but doesn't operate so much as a community. It operates as a bunch of really motivated, organized people in silos. From a community development perspective, we need to bring them together.”

Doll gave the example of a $12,000 food security grant that he, the Quadra Garden Club, and Quadra ICAN worked on.

“We are realizing that there was a hundred thousand dollars that we didn't even know about, because we didn't have the organizational capacity to keep our head up to go looking for that food security and climate change type of grant.”

“There's also folded into that, a political narrative that the Strathcona Regional District [SRD] is what I call the absolute worst way of organizing around community.”

He said the 5 municipalities, 4 electoral areas and single treaty First Nation of the SRD are ‘almost in competItion,’ rather than working together. Worse, when it comes to budgetary matters, Campbell River is ‘governing Quadra, Cortes and all the other rural areas and on Vancouver Island.’

“There are 35 votes at the table. Most of which are held in the hands of the directors from Campbell River or the counsellors from Campbell River who are sitting on the regional district committees,” explained Doll.

“That means our islands don't really have the ability to act as individual communities. We are enveloped by a larger urban municipality. A lot of the decisions that we're looking at are going to be largely made by the 20 votes that come out of Campbell River instead of the one vote from Cortes, or the two votes from Area C (Quadra Island and the other Discovery Islands).”

He added, “We need to have an organization where Quadra Islanders can come together and focus on the vision for our future. How we want to deal with development? How we want our voice to be heard at the provincial table, and at the SRD table?”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Union Steamship Company served communities along the West Coast up until they were supplanted by airplanes and small motor boats in 1956. Few would have guessed that as little as a generation earlier, when they were still the main way of transporting people and supplies. In the conclusion of her segment about the Union Steamship company, local historian Lynne Jordan talks about the company’s twilight years.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - When the Union Steamship company started operations, in 1889, there was a single ship servicing Burrard Inlet. Three years later they expanded their market to include the canneries, logging camps and small communities springing up along the coast. The first reference to a ship stopping in Whaletown is found in an 1899 story in the VANCOUVER PROVINCE. 

“There was  an elderly gentleman from Whaletown who had come down on the ship for medical reasons. He'd been ill for some time. His name was Hitchcock and I have actually found no listing of him in the gazettes or the early census listing. I have no idea what his occupation was, whether he was a logger or a farmer,” explained Lynne Jordan, former President of the Cortes Island Museum and author of a manuscript about Whaletown’s history.

She mentioned steamships with names like the ‘Comox,’ the ‘Coquitlam’ and the ‘Chelosin.’ 

A lot of people called the latter ‘Charlie Olson’ because it was easier to say than ‘Chelosin.’

Most ships came to in Whaletown at some point, often going to Mansons Landing either before or afterward. Other ships serviced Squirrel Cove and the Eastern side of Cortes Island. 

Big wharfs were built to accomodate those big steamships, in many rural coastal communities. 

Whaletown was no different. There was a small, long wharf when Moses Ireland owned the property. After he left, in 1893, the Drinkwaters added a small store and post office off what is now Bayview Road.

The Thompsons “ … built a bigger wharf so that the ships could come in more easily and safely to unload In downtown. It was considered downtown because so many things that were there. There was the store, of course, and eventually there was fuel supplies, but there was also the post office, the library, the church, the clinic and the school just up the road,” explained Jordan. 

“The Union Steamships really were a necessity of life for all those living along the coast. They were the connection to the outside world and they delivered supplies that had been ordered from stores and places in Vancouver.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Some Cortes Island residents are concerned about a proposed logging road through the wetlands between Anvil and Gunflnt Lakes on Cortes Island.

The Cortes Forestry General Partnership (CFGP) posted notice of its intention to log in the Anvil Lake area on its website in 2021, and at a public meeting in February. This was also discussed at the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative AGM in March. They also led a small group of local residents through the Anvil Lake area on Aug 13.

Between 15 and 20 Cortes residents held their own meeting at Mansons Hall on August 5, which was also attended by one CFGP Board member (Bruce Ellingsen).

On Friday, August 21, Nick Reed escourted Cortes Currents through the proposed logging route. He also produced a note stating the CFGP should be carrying out an ecological survey to assess the potential impact of this proposed logging:

on the wetland, which Reed refered to as the last surviving wetland in southern Cortes Island, and stated it supplies Anvil and Gunflint Lakes with water

on Anvil Lake, and the water supply for some of the neighbouring wells.

for possible impacts on the forest

Reed also mentioned sightings of three bird species at risk and the Northern Red Legged Frog.

Cortes Currents forwarded Reed’s concerns on to the CFGP.

Steve Brown, Interim Chief of the Klahoose First Nation and a member of the board, immediately responded, “Good afternoon, Thank you for your concerns. The decision has been made and we are continuing with our operation plans.”

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Erin Robinsong and Merlin Sheldrake discussed water, mycelium, creating, poetry, science and their recent books on the Friday Aug 26 edition of Folk U Radio on Cortes Community Radio CKTZ 89.5 FM.

Erin Robinsong is a poet and interdisciplinary artist originally from Cortes Island whose work focuses on ecological imagination. Learn more: https://erinrobinsong.org/

Merlin Sheldrake is thinking about fungi and looking at the world differently because of it. Learn more: merlinsheldrake.com

As always, listeners were invited to call in during the live show breaks at 250-935-0200 to join the conversation or send your questions in advance to [email protected].

Folk U Radio is taking old school viral every Friday at 1 and Mondays at 6:30 p.m. @CKTZ89.5FM or livestreamed at cortesradio.ca. Find repeats anytime at www.folku.ca/podcasts.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - More than 12 years of research lie behind local artist and historian Judith William’s exhibition, which opened in the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery on Friday, August 26. In an interview with Cortes Currents, three months prior to the Bute Inlet landslide, Williams spoke against the installation of power lines in that area because it is too avalanche prone. The Bute Inlet slide is featured in ‘Water/Colour,’ but the exhibition really focuses on a series of paintings she made using the water she has been collecting in that region since 2010.

“I spent a lot of time in Bute Inlet. When I heard that they wanted to put 17 run-of-the river projects in there, plus seven people were applying to take water off the waterfalls like Raindrop Creek, I felt that their applications were too big. It was too much for that inlet because it's so volatile and landslides at just a flicker of the eyelash,” explained Willliams.

“I started in 2010, collecting the water from as many places as I could. And also I was helped by a group of people who were concerned.”

She added, “It’s difficult sometimes for an artist to know what to do that is relevant to the issue and still remains art. This exhibition is called Water/Colour because it is an attempt to make art out of my desire to collect the water from all the waterways, creeks and rivers and the Inlet that were under stress, also the waterfall, and paint with the water itself.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Jen Stevens left this world on Tuesday, July 26, 2022. In today’s program, her daughter Darshan Stevens talks about Jen’s life, her medically assisted death (MAID) and the changes that came about throughout this process.

“My biggest grief was when my mom received her diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer and my longest grief is probably what I was going into now, after she's passed,” explained Darshan.

“That initial shock and devastation of finding out what my mom had, I've never had a moment like that before in my life! I guess I've been quite privileged and lucky to not have any other close family members die. I was absolutely wrecked. I was incoherently babbling. My mom told me on the phone and she didn't know what it meant, and I just held it together when she told me. After I got off the phone with her, I looked it up. Then I knew how bad it really was, that there was very little chance that she would have more than two years.”

Jen lived in a cabin on her daughter’s property during the last decade of her life. They were very close, almost like partners. You can hear that intimacy in Darshan’s voice, as she lists some of the things she appreciates about her mom in the podcast above.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Janeen Sutherland has been the Wilderness Tourism Association’s (WTA) Executive Director for close to three months.

She became the WTA’s Executive Director at the end of May and is about to embark upon a new strategic plan for them that will focus on areas of advocacy, marketing support and really building community.

Sutherland did not know how many tourism businesses there are in the Discovery Islands, but last year Breanne Quesnel (President of the WTA and co-owner of Quadra Island based Spirit of the West Adventures) said there are more than 60 whose combined revenues are between $40 and $50 million a year. They are on Quadra, Cortes and the Outer Discovery Islands, but are not all members of the WTA

“We have about 55 members total as part of our organization and most of them are actually coastal and Vancouver Island, A lot of them are. We're picking up more interior members and that's actually one of our goals of our strategic plan. We love to have more partners up north and more partners in the interior and also two more indigenous partners as well,” explained Sutherland.

“Our vision is to create a sustainable future for BC's wilderness tourism industry.”

How is that going?

“We're obviously coming out of COVID and recovering from that. I would say most of our members are really quite thrilled with this summer and how bookings have been and how business has picked back up. Things are going quite well in that regard.”

She added, “We really feel that tourism is the way of the future.”

Sutherland quoted some stats:

“Tourism brings in $20.3 billion per year and 130,000 jobs. That is more GDP than any other industry in British Columbia.”

“There's 149,900 tourism jobs and there are 1,291 BC fish factory jobs.”

“There are 19,748 BC owned tourism businesses and only half of one BC based fish factory is owned by British Columbia.”

“All the rest are foreign owned, and so why are we allowing that in our waters?”

Sutherland said the two issues that kept her membership up at night are protecting wild salmon and new regulations for the forestry industry

“Those are definitely two hot topics, At the WTA we recognize that both of those industries are very important employment for many folks, so it is a sensitive topic.”

“We are all about protecting the wild salmon and the Discovery Islands is the most important migratory route in the world for wild salmon. We know salmon are a keystone species. Without salmon, we won't have forests. They are just such a key part of all ecosystems. We really feel strongly that things are moving right now, the announcement that was made by the honorable Joyce Murray in the spring, are very positive steps in the right direction. We support responsible land-based aquaculture and we really hope that our government can make a shift in that direction.”

They would also like to see some of the forestry regulations changed, so that the industry did not have such a negative impact on tourism.

“Some of the wordings to some of the regulations really are not effective in protecting fragile ecosystems. Why do we need to log some of these pristine areas where some of our operators are going to pull up their kayaks? Why do they need to log that little patch right there by the water?”

Sutherland said the WTA will continue to advocate for change.

“We're really tuned into protecting these wild places and keeping them wild,” she explained.

“We have a pretty bright future ahead of us. Canada now, in the international marketplace: I'd say we are the hottest wilderness destination out there. So I think we've got some really important work to do in the years to come.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - On August 17, Cortes Currents published a review of David Broadland’s report ‘Land-use planning on Quadra Island has been undone by the Ministry of Forests.’

Broadland wrote that while all of the other Quadra Island woodlots leave big trees standing, Okisollo Resources fells a substantial number. In before and after satellite images from one of their cutblocks at Hummingbird Lake, he showed that 35 out of about 50 were logged in July and August of 2019.

In fairness to Okisollo Resources, this also means they left about old growth 15 standing. Cortes Currents visited a couple of their cutblocks last March and can also attest that they do leave some big trees.

Never-the-less, Okisollo Resources states that they only cut old growth to build roads, or for safety reasons.

To get some perspective on this issue, Cortes Currents contacted the Cortes Community Forest to find out how many big trees they find it necessary to cut for roadbuilding or safety reasons. In the eight years they have been in operation, the Community Forest has felled a single old growth tree and that at the express command of a WorkSafe board officer who ‘deemed it a danger tree and said it had to go.’

This is the same ratio Broadland cited among the majority of Quadra Island woodlots.

Prior to publishing its review, Cortes Currents wrote Okisollo Resources, “This seems like quite a difference, given that you both have a stated intention of increasing the number of old growth in your areas over time. Can you explain why your numbers are so different?”

Okisollo Resources finally replied by email on August 24:

“Mr. Hales, We are sorry to hear that you believe a topic as complex and rich as forest management can be summarized in a single statement.”

 

“With regards to the experience of the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative regarding individual old trees, it is impossible for us to have an opinion, based on the fact that we know nothing of the stands, terrain, or history of the areas that they are working in. Nor do they know anything about the conditions on our woodlot licence, and are thus in no position to make informed comparisons.”

 

“The removal of a limited number of scattered individual old trees pales in comparison to the permanent retention associated with the identified old growth stands within our woodlot licence area. As a reminder, the majority of the permanent retention areas include recruitment areas - mature forests that will develop into old growth stands. Additionally, there are multiple riparian reserves associated with lakes and streams which will develop into old growth forests over time.”

 

“You should be aware that this concern about scattered old trees has been raised by Mr. Burns not once, but at least 5 times to 4 different forest governance related bodies, and reviewed by multiple forest professionals. Each time it has been found that we are meeting or exceeding all our legal obligations with regards to the treatment and protection of old growth stands and old trees in our woodlot licence.”

 

“We encourage you to contact the provincial government if you have questions about forest management policies in BC.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -BC Ferries has announced that, thanks to $1.5 million in funding from provincial government grant, they have been able to provide WiFi in an additinal 14 small terminals. Whaletown and Heriot Bay are among them.

Daniel McIntoish, Communications manager with BC Ferries explained, “Now they will be able to access WiFI at the terminal. Previously they would have had to either pick up a signal from somewhere or use the roaming feature. So now when folks are waiting at the terminal, they should be able to access WiFi at that terminal free of charge.”

McIntosh pointed out that the provincial government put in $1.5 of the $1.7 million used in this project.

“Prior to this program, you really could only get access to WiFi at some of the larger centers. A lot of the smaller communities would go to their terminals, there would be no WiFi access and then you kind of lose that connection either with friends, family, but also business as well too,” he said.

“We know that obviously WiFi is a service that many customers and quite frankly our staff, as well, are appreciative to be able to access in our culture. It's become the standard that you can walk around and access WiFi at business sites and coffee shops, places where you hang out. It's a gathering point. So this is a real good service that we can offer and we're happy that we can bring it.

“Sometimes the logistics of offering this kind of service can be tricky. Obviously we know that when we live in some remote areas, and it's not always easy to get this stuff going. Thankfully through this partnership with the province of British Columbia, we have been able to bring WiFi to 14 different terminals and we hope that our customers and our staff can enjoy it.”

The installations were finished on July 28, but only announced today. This brings the total number of terminals with free Wi-Fi access to 21.

BC Ferries does not ask for credit card details or personal information to use Wi-Fi networks at terminals or on board vessels.