Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - British Columbia is considering whether to defer logging on 2.6 million hectares of the provinces most at-risk old growth forests.

Speaking as an individual, rather than Vice President of the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative, David Shipway’s response to news of the proposed deferment was, “It's essential and long overdue.”

According to Jens Weiting of Sierra Club BC, the government’s technical advisory panel identified two thirds of the province’s 11.1 million hectares of ‘old growth forests’ as being at risk. These are the big trees that most of us think of, when we hear the term ‘old growth.’ Roughly 5 million hectares of these large trees are unprotected and the government is proposing to defer logging on a little more than half of them.

“The BC Government was pretty clear about their intentions to implement deferrals for these 2.6 million hectares, but short on details,” he said.

Torrace Coste of the Wilderness Committee, commented. “For the first time we have the government basically breaking down old growth inventory based on science. In the past they’ve just lumped all old forests together and inflated the amount of actual iconic giant tree old growth forest. This analysis is put together by leading experts in the field of forestry and it reflects what is happening on the ground.”

A much different set of statistics are cited on the Truck Loggers Association website. There are supposedly 13.7 million hectares of old growth forst in the province, 72% of which will never be logged because it is either in parks or protected areas. As three trees are allegedly planted for every one that is harvested, there will eventually be no need to cut down old growth.

“Old growth harvesting will carry on into the future and the transition to harvesting a higher proportion of second growth trees will continue until we eventually fully harvest second growth,” it says.

The government estimates that the proposed deferment could result in the loss of 4,500 jobs; industry claims the numbers could be much higher.

Katrine Conroy, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, said, “We are committed to working in partnership with First Nations to make sure we get this right and to supporting workers and communities as we develop a sustainable approach to managing BC’s old-growth forests.”

First Nations have been given thirty days to decide whether they support the deferments, and were offered up to $12.7 million over three years to help them during the transitional period.

Coste pointed out that the government decision to not move forward on the deferrals without agreement from First Nations is inconsistent, as this type of agreement is not sought for logging.

He added, “More broadly, I want to say that the position that First Nations are placed in economically is only one parties fault - and that is the province of British Columbia. The federal government as well, but the dispossession of First Nations, of their lands, of their resources: that’s been done for 150 years by the Province of British Columbia.”

Coste said it does not seem fair to ask First Nations to make the decision whether to protect old growth, which the Government has already promised to do, unless they are offered adequate compensation for the revenues they would lose.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - On Sunday November 7, Bryan Thompson and Susanna Oreskovic will be bringing The Mystery Mountain Project to Mansons Hall on Cortes Island.

This is both a film and a book about about the 2018 Canadian Explorations Heritage Society (CEHS) trek to Bute Inlet, following in the footsteps of Don and Phyllis Munday’s 1926 expedition to scale Mount Waddington.

There are several Cortes Connections. Local historian Judith Wilson met the Canadian Exploration expedition on Quadra Island. They sailed to Bute Inlet with local tourism operator Mike Moore on board the ‘Misty Isles’ and the documentary opens with multiple views of Cortes Island’s well known schooner. There are only five stops in the book and film tour of Western BC, which starts at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria and also includes North Vancouver, Squamish and a virtual event in Comox. The Mansons Hall screening is brought to us by the Cortes Island Museum and Archives.

This was the second historical reenactment film made by the Canadian EH Society. The first celebrated the centennial anniversary of  Conrad Kain’s 1916 ascent of the Bugaboo Spire in British Columbia’s Purcell Mountain Range.

Trip organizer Bryan Thompson, who represents Don Munday’s brother Bert in this reenactment, said one of the biggest challenges they faced was adapting to the gear that would have been used in 1926. (‘Extreme Adventure done Old-School’ it says on the masthead of the Canadian EH Society website.) The straps of two of their homemade backpacks broke at the very beginning of the expedition. Their diet consisted of the foods on a grocery list compiled by the Mundays, most of which were canned goods and heavy. The six re-enactors set out through mosquito infested country without bug spray, wearing hob nailed boots that lack the suppleness of modern foot wear.

“What we want to do is educate Canadians who went about exploring this nation back in the day and the pristine wilderness areas that they went exploring,” said Thompson.

Oreskovic may appear diminutive with a 60 pound pack strapped on her back, but this is not the challenge that confronted her on the trip. She notes that while the membership of most mountaineering clubs is pretty equally split between genders, a European study found that 94% of the published literature was written by men. The film captured the climax of Oreskovic’s struggle with self doubt in a scene where she broke into tears, “I can’t do this, I can’t do this.” To which Thompson replied, “Of course you can, you’re doing it. You are here.”

Thompson said a whole new perspective opened up when he read Oreskovic’s book, “After reading it I was kind of I was kind of chuckling to myself because she really compares how us guys were processing things. We were not even aware of how we were processing things. All of this internal struggle, it doesn’t come to the surface.”

“The story is Don and Phyllis Munday were this powerhouse climbing couple. They climbed together for decades and they mapped out and climbed much of the Waddington range - which was really unmapped territory at the time. So they were hiking on Vancouver Island in 1925 and they spotted in the distance this peak that they had never seen before,” said Oreskovic.

Neither the Mundays or their modern imitators reached the summit in their initial expedition. Don and Phyllis were successful in 1928. Thompson plans to return with two other re-enactors in July 2022.

The reenactors with Mike Moore in front of the Misty Isles - Photo courtesy Susanna Oreskovic

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A new study suggests ‘the Blob’ of warmer ocean temperatures, which stretched over 3,200 kilometres off the coast of North America at its peak in 2014 and 15, may have temporarily dampened the Pacific’s ‘biological pump’ that acts as a carbon sink for fixed atmospheric carbon.

“Up until this particular study there really hasn’t been, to our knowledge, the opportunity to look at scale on the impact of heat, or impact of a large temperature anomaly on how the microbial community acts,” said Dr. Steven Hallam, a microbiologist at UBC and one of the paper’s co-authors.

“In the first couple of years of the Blog, there was a big decline in the phytoplankton biomass – which I think would have an influence on how much carbon dioxide the ocean is sucking, but then in the last year (2016) – all of a sudden they were growing again,” said Dr. Colleen Kellogg, another co-author and a research scientist with the Hakai Institute.

Their team was studying the DNA sequencing and oceanographic measurements from the open-sea buoy ‘Ocean Station Papa,’ when the Blob appeared. They were at the centre of the anomaly, 1,400 km off the coast.

From 2010 to 2016, they profiled the water column all the way from the surface down 4,000 metres to near the sea floor.

“We tried to relate the changes we observed in the microbial community structure to a model of what might be happening to that biological pump,” said Hallam.

He and Kellog stressed the fact that more research, over a much longer period of time, is needed.

One of the big questions: how are these changes impacting fish, marine mammals and seabird populations?

Kellog will soon be adding a much needed study of the microbial community in coastal waters.

The Hakai Institute started off Calvert Island in 2013 and Quadra Island the following year.

“Soon, hopefully, I will be able to report back to you, and others locally, about what is happening right around us and in our waters,” she said. “ .. One thing I found super interesting in our local waters is the phytoplankton is the northern strait of Georgia, so off Quadra Island, is often really small.”

“Why?” Kellogg asks.

This is the last place juvenile salmon swim through on their way out to sea.

What kind of impact does this have on salmon?

“The real challenge here is how do you balance out the need for generational science with fact there are real problems we have to address right now,” said Hallam.

“ …We have to get less carbon into the atmosphere; we know that. That’s a given, and we need to do it aggressively. Studies like ‘the blob’ help remind us that we can’t continue to behave the way we are behaving, in terms of our carbon emissions, without having, potentially, real impact on what we call ecosystem services that are just provided by nature. We’ve reached the point where can’t just rely on nature anymore to take the waste and deal with it. We have to make conscious choices.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Around 8,000 Chum Salmon eggs were harvested in Basil Creek, Cortes Island, on Friday, October 29th.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the Friends of Cortes Island Streamkeepers (FOCI) and the Klahoose Hatchery were hoping to collect up to 40,000 eggs.

DFO Community Advisor Stacey Larsen said that, if enough Chum return, there may be another chance to collect eggs this week.

“The opportunity to use genetically local stock and get Chum salmon back into that creek is what this is all about,” explained Cortes Island Streamkeeper Cec Robinson. “All of the salmon returns that we get on Cortes are just a shadow of what they once were. Including here at Basil Creek, which is the strongest run we get by far, but it still could be much greater.”

He said the natural runs in Cortes Island’s other creeks were ‘almost gone.’

There was no time for interviews once the operation commenced but, as the team was assembling, Robinson explained who they were:

Byron Harry, the new Klahoose Fisheries Officer, “his dad had that job in the past and was well respected and appreciated for the work that he did.”

Dave Ewart, former manager of the Quinsam River hatchery in Campbell River, who “keeps trying to retire from DFO but they won’t let him go.” Robinson added that Ewart owns property on Cortes and is a real mentor for the streamkeepers.

Five volunteer streamkeepers.

Larsen, DFO’s community advisor from the area stretching from Oyster Bay north to Sayward, and including Cortes and the other Discovery Islands, joined us just after this.

Ewart, Harry and the Streamkeepers put nets across the stream, to stop the salmon from escaping. Then they went after the trapped fish with scoop nets. Ewart was especially adept at differentiating females that are full of eggs from those that are already spawned out. Most of the salmon seemed to be released, but at the end of the operation four dead females and five males were laid out on the bank.

They were milked for eggs and sperms, respectively, and their bodies returned to the stream.

Cruel as this may seem, the salmon had returned to Basil Creek to spawn and die. Larsen explained that, depending how long they have been in the creek, the remainder of their natural lives would have been measured in days or weeks.

Robinson explained that as a result of the human intervention, 80% to 90% of the eggs being harvested would survive - instead of 5% to 10%.

Photo credit: Klahoose Fisheries Officer Byron Harvey scooping up Chum Salmon in Basil Creek - Roy L Hales photo

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The rezoning meeting for an additional three buildings on the Treedom Ventures property, at 1062 Seascape Road, in Mansons Landing Landing, was held Thursday. This would bring the total number of buildings on this 82 acre property to 8, with an additional cabin. Between 25 and 30 people attended attended the in person component of the meeting and an unknown number attended through the internet or by phone.

Four First Nations were contacted about this development. The Homalco First Nation had no objection, and the Klahoose, Tla’amin and K’omoks Nations did not respond.

The property was purchased by a limited partnership in 1999 and is currently divided into three segments:

40 acres of forest, protected by covenants held by the Land Conservancy of British Columbia.

2 acres of covenanted coastal ecosystem, also protected by an agreement with the Land Conservancy.

Members of the limited partnership occupy five houses in the remaining segment of the property

Cortes Island Regional Director Noba Anderson chaired the rezoning meeting at Mansons Hall and the other three member of the SRD’s Electoral Areas Services Committee attended virtually.

Trail in the conservation covenant – courtesy The Land Conservancy of British Columbia press release

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Yesterday, the BC Centre for Disease Control released the most recent statistics for the Greater Campbell River Local Health area, which includes Quadra and Cortes Islands, and extends from the Oyster River to Sayward.

There were 5 active cases between October 17th and 23rd. This is much better than the 35 listed in the Comox Valley.

From the onset of the pandemic until the end of September:

there were 623 cases in the Comox Valley, which includes Horby and Deman Islands, and stretches from Fanny Bay to Merville.

373 in the Greater Campbell River area

102 in Vancouver Island North, which includes Port Hardy, Port McNeil and Alert Bay.

and 20 in the more remote area of Vancouver Island West, where the main towns are Gold River, Tahsis and Zeballos.

Island Health does not report any COVID 19 school notifications for Campbell River area, but there were potential exposures at Queneesh Elementary School, in Courtesy, on October 19th, 20th and 21st.

This all suggests that the majority of the 50 active cases in North Vancouver Island, that Island Health reported yesterday, were in the Comox Valley Local Health Area.

Starting in November, Everyone British Columbian who is 70, or older, will be given the opportunity to receive a third vaccination. Invitations will be sent out by risk, age group and the date of your second dose. 

In January, this opportunity will be extended to the rest of province. If everything goes according to plan, you should receive your invitation within 6 to 8 months of your second dose.

According to the British Columbia COVID-19 Dashboard, as of October 27th there have been 10,486 active cases throughout Vancouver Island since the pandemic began. The vast majority of people recovered, but there are 89 confirmed deaths and 56 are currently in hospitals.

While the vast majority of infected British Columbians recovered, there have been 2,137 deaths.

As of October 27, 2021, the World Health Organization reports that there have been close to a quarter of a billion confirmed cases of COVID 19 and more than 4.9 million people died.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A new disaster preparedness app is about to be deployed in seven Vancouver Island communities.

Pilot projects will be launched in the Village of Tahsis, District of Tofino, City of Parksville, Town of Qualicum Beach and City of Nanaimo next month.

Preparations are underway to bring the project onstream in the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District.

Dr. Ryan Reynolds and team of UBC researchers created the Canadian Hazards Emergency Response and Preparedness Mobile App (CHERP) to help communities create preparedness, communication, evacuation and on-the-day emergency response plans for local hazards and potential disasters.

“The initial version that I built as part of my PHD work was pretty slim compared to what we have today,” said Reynolds.

A thorough list of details makes it possible to individualize plans for every household. For example: Do you have mobility issues? Or medical issues? If you live in an apartment, what floor are you on? Is someone in your household menstruating? Or incontinent? Do you have pets?

Reynolds traces the origins of the CHERP App back to his study of how 450 Port Alberni residents responded to the tsunami warning triggered by the Alaska earthquake of Jan. 23, 2018.

While the vast majority of residents evacuated the area within an hour of the alarm being sounded, there was some confusion. A number of people didn’t know if they were in the inundation zone. There were traffic jams as vehicles sought to reach higher ground. The reception centre was not ready to receive evacuees for almost an hour.

Reynolds concluded that more detailed information was needed in the community’s emergency planning.

“The Strathcona Regional District was one of the first groups to reach out for us, so we’ve done a pilot for the village of Tahsis,” he explained.

While everything from small to large communities are in the program so far, Reynolds says he has yet to work with an island. The Capital Regional District has expressed an interest in this for the next phase of the program.

“It is a very different look to evacuate the city of Nanaimo than, for example, Quadra Island – where you have either local boats or personal boats to use, or you have to deal with the ferry,” he said. “We can’t make ferries go faster, that is up to other groups, but we can at least help people to be prepared to be on those ferries a little more quickly.”

Q/ Let’s suppose that either Cortes or Quadra Island wanted to go forward with this program, what would be the cost?

Reynolds said the program does not charge communities for the app, but they would need to provide the necessary information. (This includes any associated costs, like collecting data.)

“Assuming that we are able to show this is working and is actually useful to residents, I think we will be able to start looking at alternative edge communities,” said Reynolds. “Bringing them in so they are no longer edge, making them equal citizens within our app.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The President of the Wilderness Tourism Association (WTA) says eco-tourism could offer communities a reliable and more environmentally friendly source of employment than either fish farms or resource extraction.

“There are some viable alternatives, if they had a fair shake and didn’t get booted out every time a clear cut wanted to go in,” said Breanne Quesnel, who is also one of the co-owners of Spirit of the West Adventures on Quadra Island. “As rural communities, it is very important that we sit down and have discussions about what we want our communities to look like and how we’re going to get there.”

Earlier this year, Quesnel told the Strathcona Regional District Board that wilderness tourism in the Discovery Islands brings in $40 to $50 million dollars in direct revenue.

This figure does not include the millions of dollars earned by hotels, motels, vacation rentals, restaurants, transportation and other support industries.

She pointed out that the decisions governments take to support one industry do impact other sectors.

Unfortunately, Quesnel said, both local and provincial governments currently focus on resource extraction.

“We need things like BC’s Forest & Range Practices Act (FRPA) to be modified to not talk about things like ‘the loss of timber harvesting land base’ and instead look at it as the gain to the people of British Columbia by the use of the land,” she said. “To not have forestry, mining and fish farming superseding tourism in every occasion, which they currently do.”

In the podcast she cites an example from the Johnstone Strait where tourism was clearly shown to be the better economic choice for a parcel of land, regardless of the scenario, but the government tenure still went to forestry.

On the local level, last April the Wilderness Tourism Association asked the Strathcona Regional District Board to support DFO’s decision to remove fish farms from the Discovery Islands.

“People come from around the world to see the iconic species: the whales, bears, large trees and wide open spaces. Without wild salmon, all of those species would be impacted,” said Quesnel. “If you look at any of the marketing that the province does, it is all about beautiful British Columbia and those iconic images.”

So the Wilderness Tourism Association is hosting a campaign called “We don’t want to go #bellyup.”

Quesnel explained, “This campaign is meant to highlight the fact that the tourism industry is a significant economic contributor to the province and without wild salmon it would be impacted. Wild salmon are such a backbone to so much on this coast that we can’t risk any additional pressures on them at this point in time.”

Photo courtesy Wilderness Tourism Association

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Teen vandalism is getting out of hand in Campbell River.

“In the last year we've had teens shoot out people's windows with pellet guns, throwing rocks through windows, steal or move traffic control devices (creating very dangerous situations on the roadways), breaking fences, smashing peoples lawn lights, and spray painting and keying cars,” said RCMP Cst. Maury Tyre. “In September 2021, a group of teens between the ages of 13 and 15 were drunk behind the new Campbell River Soccer Field House and chose to break the siding on the building for no apparent reason.”

RCMP are too busy with higher priority crimes, like robberies and sex assaults, to maintain a constant surveillance of the local parks, neighbourhoods, and construction sites where these acts of mischief occur.

Tyre reminded the public that some family’s budgets are so tight that the cost of paying for a new window might mean less food on the table that month. Or the stress of dealing with these incidents could be the final straw that results in someone having a nervous breakdown.

“Parents, guardians, please take the time to sit down with your kids and talk about what is going on in the community and what is acceptable,” said Tyre.

Photo credit: Cst. Maury Tyre talking about vandalism - courtesy the Campbell River RCMP facebook page

He added, “That's how we learnt not to disrespect other people and their homes” when “we were all young and foolish.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -Spirit of the West Adventures had a much better season than expected.

Co-owner Breanne Quesnel says that after BC’s interprovincial travel restrictions were lifted, last June,“we saw unprecedented demand for our particular outdoor experience.”

The kayaking company adjusted their routine to be more COVID friendly.

“For example we met customers in Squirrel Cove, instead of transporting them from Quadra,” explained Quesnel. “We didn’t accept as many reservations as we had previously; We were trying to keep it slow, limit group sizes and be responsible in that manner.”

Spirit of the West still had 80% of the volume they experienced in 2019, their peak year.

“Last year was about 10% of 2019,” she added. “We were only taking private levels; We were only running one tour.”

Her customers typically come from around the world, but have mostly been British Columbians for the past two years.

By the time the U.S. border opened this year, Spirit of the West only had three spots left.

“So we did have three Americans join us, but the rest were of our customers all Canadians this summer,” said Quesnel.

Though Spirit of the West is based on Quadra Island, they run tours all over the BC Coat. The Broughton Archipelago, Johnstone Strait, Bella Bella area, Nuchatliyz, and Great Bear Rainforest are all popular areas. Four or five times a year, they also come to Cortes Island to embark upon an expedition into Desolation Sound.

“The majority of our tours are in the Johnstone Strait region, so based out of Telegraph Cove and into the Broughton Archipeligo,”she said. “We run trip abroad in the winter as well - In Chile, Patagonia, and the Bahamas.”

Q/ Where is your favourite destination?

“I know it sounds like a cliche, but the whole coast! Everytime I get in a kayak, anywhere I go - you just can’t help but stop and pause and love it all. The Johnstone Strait region when you see a whale surface, or for that matter, off Rebecca Spit or in the backyard of Quadra or Cortes. We are just surrounded by beautiful places.”

Photo - courtesy Spirit of the West Adventures