Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The panic buying that swept through Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland last week has not reached Cortes Island.

Eva, from the Gorge Harbour General store suggested that, “People on Cortes are probably better prepared.”

The only place she noticed the shortage was gasoline, because the provincial government was limiting sales to 30 litres.

Curt Cunningham, from the Squirrel Cove General Store, believes that rationing boosted his gasoline sales 50% – because most people purchased up to the limit!

Meg, from the Cortes Natural Food Coop, said while she had received notices of a possible shortage from one of her suppliers, another was trying to find buyers for produce that couldn’t be shipped to Alberta.

According to the Campbell River Mirror, there were gas line-ups in Campbell River and, on Wednesday, “the meat section at Walmart was ravaged and left empty”

Cst. Maury Tyre, of the Campbell River RCMP, said the rains “left Campbell River relatively unscathed,” but “fears of supply shortages have created an unnecessary buying fury in many of the gas stations and grocery stores in the area, thereby creating actual immediate shortages.”

The crisis began a week ago, when up to 252 millimetres of rain battered communities in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the Interior. There were reports of flooding, road closures and local states of emergency in numerous communities. This included northern Vancouver Island, where a local state of emergency was declared in areas of the Cowichan Valley Regional District, the Municipality of North Cowichan, City of Duncan, Cowichan Tribes, Halalt First Nation and Penelakut Tribe.

On Wednesday, November 17th, the province of British Columbia declared a state of emergency.

There were grocery shortages as far east as Manitoba, where the Brandon Sun reported, “Businesses face dire issues with shipping unpredictability because even now it is difficult to guess what will happen with the roads and rail lines in B.C. that have been affected by natural disasters.”

Rains washed away part of Highway #1 connecting Southern Vancouver Island to the gas storage storage facilities in Chemainus and Nanaimo. Panic spread through the Greater Victoria area Wednesday, as gas stations began to run out of fuel. A trickle of fuel trucks started making it over the Malahat Thursday morning, and by Friday two way traffic was restored.

This crisis appears to be something Cortes Island residents learned about through the media.

The Squirrel Cove General Store is probably selling 20% more groceries than usual.

“Supply has not been an issue. My pickups are on Mondays and last Monday there was no problem with supplies,” said Cunningham. “Same with fuel. I put an order in today and they do not anticipate a problem for Tuesday’s delivery.”

Two ferry trips away, in Campbell River, Constable Tyre explained, “The issue is not supply shortage, it’s how businesses order.”

This is based on normal sales volumes. When people panic buy, they put unexpected demands upon the system.

“So please, put down the 3 – 24 packs of toilet paper (you’ve probably got some stashed away from Covid panic buys anyway), re-shelf the 15 packs of ground beef in your cart, and put away the extra jerry cans you are bringing to the gas station,” said Tyre. “Hoarding will only create a temporary shortage that fuels people’s fears. If people just shop in their normal way, things will be fine.”

Photo credit: A washed out section of Highway # 1 - courtesy TranBC twitter feed

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - On Thursday, October 28th, a public hearing was held at Manson's hall on Cortes Island to discuss a rezoning application for the property known as Treedom the requested rezoning would permit the construction of an additional three homes.

Public input was overwhelmingly positive.

On Wednesday, November 17th, the SRD board agenda included a consideration of the application. and of the public hearing results. After brief discussion, the application was granted

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - I did a little oral history with seven local people who went to Fairy Creek to join that blockade: Margaret, Aaryn, Caitlin, Maya, and Dani from Bluejay lake farm, and Cec and Christine from Whaletown. Their voices have been woven together to create a narrative from multiple points of view, which will be broadcast as a series of half-hour episodes in November and December.

Camp life photo taken from the Fairy Creek Blockade Facebook page

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Dr Simmon Donner is an interdisciplinary climate scientist at the University of British Columbia. He studies some of the areas where the rise in global temperatures is most evident: ocean warming, sea-level rise; climate change adaptation in the developing world and coral reefs. In today’s Cortes Currents, he talks about the good news from COP 26.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Extinction Rebellion Vancouver Island and Dr. David Suzuki will host a Funeral for the Future in Victoria this Saturday, November 20th. It starts at 12:30 PM in Centennial Square, after which participants will march to Bellevue street opposite the Provincial Legislature.

Cortes Currents reached Dr. Don Goodeve, an organizer with Extinction Rebellion Vancouver Island, at his home in Campbell River.

“We could wait for other people around the planet to make a difference, but we actually have to start with what we're doing here. So what we're going on the streets for, on Saturday with Dr. David Suzuki, is to demand the climate leadership that British Colombians expect and need,” he said.

“The future is going to be bleak. We are going to see more extreme weather events. More floods, more heatwaves, more drought conditions, more crop failures. This is going to get worse before we have a chance of making it better, but we have to start making it better now.”

Goodeve asked, “how will future generations remember us?”

As the generation that left this planet with an absolute catastrophe? Or the generation that made changes.

“It's clear that the COP process for addressing this crisis is broken and it's not moving forward. We have the same old vested interests who are trying to protect their investments in fossil fuels and trying to protect the fossil fuel industry from what we know has got to be the end of it.”

The province’s clean BC plan would have been fantastic 20 years ago, but now we are in an emergency.

What is it going to take for the province to realize that?

“We have not had the action that's needed and across the board, we've got them proposing and putting money into the fracked gas industry and the coastal gasoline pipeline on the basis that, this is somehow going to be good for the province and good for our long-term future. It's clear with the events that are unfolding - they’re not.”  

He hopes the people of British Columbia demand that our government get responsive.

“Waiting for other countries to act, as a condition for us acting, is a suicide,” said Goodeve. “We actually need an emergency declaration. We need an end to fossil fuel subsidies, which were $1.3 billion in this province during 2020, and we need to protect our forests. The floods, the landslides that have happened and so many of the effects that we've seen come down to forest management practices that have caused slope destabilization. We need to understand that the forests we have, which have become a net carbon source, can be part of the solution.”

The people of British Columbia have a choice.

Schedule of events for this Saturday, Nov 20, 2021:

Event Starts - 12:30pm at Centennial SquareFuneral Procession - 1:00-1:30pm - down Douglas to Belleville St.

Speakers - 1:30pm on Belleville St. opposite Legislature

Symbolic Funeral Action -  2:10pm on Belleville St

Photo credit: Looking up from beneath the waves - Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Ready to change your mindset about money? Author and money educator Huong Luu joins Manda Aufochs Gillespie to dig deep dip into Money on Folk U Radio this Friday at 1 p.m. on CKTZ 89.5FM or cortesradio.ca.

In this session you will learn: How to make it, how to get over your hang-ups about money, how to pay off your mortgage in 10 years, what will next year bring and much, much more. Get your questions answered!!!! Call in Friday during the 1p.m. live show at 250-935-0200 or send your questions in advance to 250-935-0200.

Next in the Money Essential series:

Friday November 19th Folk U Radio: Cortes Island Macro to Micro Economics Lesson (repeat)**

What does it mean to have a healthy local economy on a tiny island like Cortes? Join Adam McKenty in this pre-recorded Folk U live session for a closer look at the ebbs and flows of money as they apply to Cortes Island and our future.

Folk University's new What is Essential series asks: What must we know, practice, and study to prepare ourselves for living in the world we now inhabit and the world we expect to come to inhabit? Together, Folk University and YOU are creating the syllabus of the future. Send your questions for any guest or your thoughts on What is Essential to [email protected]

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - What is CryptoCurrency and what can it do for YOU and your community? Learn about this form of currency, what it is, how it developed, and why it may matter to YOU. Adventure motorcyclist and cryptocurrency entrepreneur “Skenoo,” the eponymous CEO of Skenoo Ventures Inc joins host Manda Aufochs Gillespie to dig deep on this important and timely topic on Folk U Radio this Friday at 1 p.m. on CKTZ 89.5FM or cortesradio.ca.

Let’s talk everything crypto, what it is, what’s a token, what it means for local currency, and much more including why you aren’t taking your online security seriously enough.

In the second part of the show we will be joined by islander Dominic to discuss his project the Cortes Crypto Bank. https://www.cortes.money/

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws” — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild.

Folk University’s new What is Essential series asks: What must we know, practice, and study to prepare ourselves for living in the world we now inhabit and the world we expect to come to inhabit? Together, Folk University and YOU are creating the syllabus of the future. Send your questions for any guest or your thoughts on What is Essential to [email protected]

Upcoming….

Friday November 19th Folk U Radio: Cortes Island Macro to Micro Economics Lesson (repeat)**

What does it mean to have a healthy local economy on a tiny island like Cortes? Join Adam McKenty in this pre-recorded Folk U live session for a closer look at the ebbs and flows of money as they apply to Cortes Island and our future.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - School District 72 has not yet decided, but there have been discussions about the possibility of offering outdoor high school courses on Cortes Island.

“We've been engaging in discussions with the superintendent of the Campbell River school district to explore how we might do that,” explained Sadhu Johnston.

Since the advent of COVID, the academic year has been broken up into four blocks. Johnston is proposing that some students can come to Cortes for two of those blocks for an intensive out of classroom experience. Cortes Island offers a wealth of wildlife and ecologically significant ecosystems to explore. There are also local projects they could participate in.

“We're thinking anywhere from 15 to 25 students,” he said.

Some of these may live on Cortes Island, the others would either come from Campbell River or be international students billeted on Cortes.

Johnston has a vested interest in the project: two kids, aged 11 and 14, that are nearing high school age.

“I love the idea of our whole family not having to leave the island for high school.”

A lot of Cortes families move to Campbell River for their children. Some pull their kids out of the Cortes Island school a couple of years ahead of time.

“From my perspective, it really erodes our community socially and economically to have these families leaving,” said Johnston. “Many of them leave and never come back.”

Many of the families that remain on Cortes send their kids to board in Campbell River during the week.

Johnston is also helping to organize Teen Szene, which brought him into contact with local students. 

“A lot of the teenagers like leaving because they get to broaden their general social community, which makes a ton of sense,” he said. “So I liked the idea that we could be on Cortes more and have that social community broadened.  If there were a group of 25 students, for instance, they may develop those relationships here.”

This also offers new opportunities for Cortes families:

some may keep their kids on the island for half of the year, and send them to Campbell River for the remainder.

Others might homeschool their children for the remainder of the year, or take advantage of the province’s online learning program

If the province will allow the Powell River Partners in Education program to continue accepting Cortes students, there may be a way to integrate Cortes Island programs.

 

“I don't think it's going to be the solution, the end all and be all for everybody.  That's not what it's intended to do,” explained Johnston. “It's really intended to sell the amazing offerings of Cortes,  organizations like Reel Youth who work with youth and film all over all over the country.”

Screenshot of Sadhu Johnston taken during interview

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Frank Wayne Mottl’s new book opens up in Gibsons, on the Sunshine Coast, a little more than a century ago.  Like his first book, 'the Cumberland Tales', ‘Mother’s Keep’ blends the flavours of actual and imagined events. This has prompted readers to ask him about the characters.

Mottl said his granny, one of the many World War I brides who came over from England, was the inspiration for Mother’s Keep.

“She was a scullery. And the first chapter kind of deals with that. She was out in the woods gathering some firewood and she met this Canadian soldier out there. That part of the book is true,  he actually fell in love with her, but he was already married back in Canada,” said Mottl. “So he went back after recovering. The war was over. He went back home to Canada. And after two or three years, his wife passed away. So he wrote my granny back in England and said, ‘my wife passed away, come on over to Gibsons and live with me.’”

Mottl’s mother wrote down a lot of the family’s stories from the years that followed: the depression years; rural living in Gibsons; her best friend’s restaurant which ‘the Beachcombers’ made famous as Molly's Reach.

She is the inspiration for one of the three daughters mentioned in the book.

In reality, there were four daughters: “But in the book it's actually three girls and a boy. So I kind of twisted things around a bit and the book is told from the boy's point of view - who was actually a ghost.”

Granny moved in with Mottle when she was 80 years old and he was living in Cumberland.

“When I was a kid, we used to walk through the woods to get water. You have two pails, walked down the trail and it was just a big open well, and we carried them back again. Then finally she got a little pump well, off the back porch of the pantry. And then uncle Chuck, who is an electrician, brought electricity down this little wire. Uncle Ron and my dad installed a little pump underneath the pantry sink so she would have running water. She turned on a tap, looked at them, and said, ‘what the hell do I need that for? Pull it out.”

Mottl lives in Campbell River now, but wanted to launch ‘Mother’s Keep’ in Gibsons, “because that's where it all happened.”

The formal book launch has been delayed because of COVID 19. You can purchase it at Save on Foods in Campbell River, which also has copies of his first book ‘the Cumberland Tales’, or through Mottl’s website https://www.frankwayne.net/

He is currently working on another book, which incorporates Sam Yik and ‘Broken Back’ from ‘the Cumberland Tales.’ He also incorporates politics from Ancient China, including the story of a scholar whose poetry incurred the ire of the government authorities and was destroyed.

Photo credit: Frank Wayne Mottl at the launch of his first book, The Cumberland Tales

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - Most people are probably aware of the protest and blockade at Fairy Creek on Vancouver island. For over a year, forest defenders have blocked a logging road to prevent logging company Teale Jones from cutting intact old growth areas. For this special feature. I did a little oral history with seven local people who went to Fairy Creek to join that blockade.

After a public appeal for interviewees, I managed to schedule recording dates with Margaret, Aaryn, Caitlin, Maya, and Dani from Bluejay lake farm, and Cec and Christine from Whaletown. Their voices have been woven together to create a narrative from multiple points of view, which will be broadcast as a series of half-hour episodes in November and December.

I’d like to thank our interviewees sincerely for taking the time to tell their stories. I hope that this series will convey something of how it felt to be there on the ground at Fairy Creek; and I hope our listeners will find these firsthand accounts as fascinating — and as revealing — as I did during interview.

In the first episode (which aired Sat Nov 13, I ask our friends and neighbors, What inspired you to make that journey to ferry Creek? Why did you go? And what did you find when you got there?

Image credit: A picture of this massive Sitka spruce went viral earlier this year - photo courtesy of Lorna Beecroft