Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On Friday August 6th on Folk U Radio 89.5 FM cortesradio.ca Ayurveda practitioner Muneera Wallace joined host Manda Aufochs Gillespie to go deeper into how to use this ancient wisdom for better understanding one’s self and being more proactive in creating a healthy and balanced life.

To get a 101 primer on Ayurveda also with Muneera Wallace listen to Muneera’s Ayurveda 101 Folk U here: https://cortescurrents.ca/ayurveda-a-holistic-healing-science-from-the-east/

What are your health and diet questions? Email them in advance of the show to [email protected] or call on Friday to 250-935-0200.

What are you reading? Share your favourite reads by emailing in advance to [email protected] or by calling on Friday during showtimes to 250-935-0200.

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

Anastasia Avvakumova/ CKTZ News - The Cortes Community Housing Society (CHS) is launching a summer fundraiser to expand and improve the trail system in the south end of Cortes Island.

Executive Director Sandra Wood explained the fundraiser’s goal is $80,000, which will be used for:

Planning the trail route

Clearing undergrowth

Creating level pathways

Installing culverts

Creating signage

Tree limbing and maintenance

Firewood production

Building park benches

CHS places an emphasis on generating local economic development and hopes to hire local tradespeople and craftspeople, and use primarily lumber from Community Forest and on-island mills.

The trail improvements will include

An east-west segment from Manson’s Hall to the Health Center

A bypass of part of the logging road which will be decommissioned once housing construction begins

Aligning the entrance from Cemetery Road to be across from the Siskin Lane trails entrance and raise it to avoid mud in the winter

Ultimately, a continuous connection of Smelt Bay to Manson’s Landing

Provide pedestrians and bicyclists a safer alternative to the road, thereby increasing foot and bike traffic and decreasing automobile usage

All donations will receive a 2021 Canadian charitable receipt from the CISS–Housing Committee. You can donate online now by clicking here

or by sending a cheque to:

Cortes Island Seniors Society–Housing Committee

PO BOX 27

Mansons Landing, BC,

V0P 1K0

American donors can get a US tax deductible receipt via TIDES-US Foundation by designating your donation to the Cortes Community Housing Fund – 2250 via this link

Two exciting events with prizes will also be announced in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, CHS will continue to work with architects and engineers to successfully reapply for BC Housing’s Community Housing Fund, likely in 2022, to begin work on the housing units.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Is reading a lost art? Not on Cortes and the surrounding Salish Sea communities! What then are some great and popular reads to inspire you.

This week Juli Nelson of B.C. tiniest bookstore, Marnie's Books, and Bernice McGowan of the Louise Tooker bookmobile lending library will join host Manda Aufochs Gillespie to talk more about these tiny and inspiring sources of books as well as to share more about what they and your neighbours are reading. Juli will also share more about the new Literary Arts Journal being published on Cortes.

Anastasia Avvakumova/ CKTZ News - On Wednesday, August 4, the Vancouver Island Health Authority declared an outbreak of COVID-19 at a long-term seniors’ facility in Campbell River when 3 staff tested positive.

The news bulletin identified the situation at Discovery Harbour long-term care home to be low risk since no residents have experienced any symptoms. The 3 staff members are self-isolating at home, and twice-daily screenings continue for all staff and residents.

Island Health has increased personnel presence onsite to take proactive measures, such as identifying anyone who may have been exposed. Additionally, the families have been notified and visits restricted to essential. Admissions and transfers are on hold for the duration of the outbreak, enhanced sanitation protocols are being followed and any symptomatic staff or residents will be tested for COVID-19.

As of Thursday, August 5, Island Health is reporting a total of 5 active cases in North Vancouver Island, with a total of 89 across the whole health authority. The British Columbia Center for Disease Control reported the total number for the same area as above 100 active cases, due to a difference in reporting time frames. Of these, only 1 person is hospitalized and none are in critical care.

August 4 saw the first Walk-in Wednesday, when clinics across the province administered COVID-19 vaccinations to 33,000 British Columbians. Nearly half this number was patients without an appointment and over 8,000 received their first doses. The BC government news channel reported that as of Thursday, 81.7% of eligible people 12 and older have received their first dose and 68.4% have received both. Fully vaccinated people are accounting for roughly 5% of symptomatic infections.

Data reported at the end of July shows that nearly all positive samples across the province were attributed to variants of concern. On Vancouver Island, sample prevalence for the Delta variant was 100% of the total 30 positive tests in the week ending July 24.

Overall, case incidence rates for all age groups remain low and relatively stable.

Roy L Hales/ CKTZ News - Green party MLA Adam Olsen has been listening to the calls for a better ambulance service since 2017. The need became even more apparent after 808 people died during the last five days of June. 75% of them are believed to have perished because of the heat wave that stuck the province. A large number were allegedly waiting for ambulances that arrived too late.

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Photo credit: Adam Olsen - submitted photo

Anastasia Avvakumova/ CKTZ News - A month into BC’s phase 3 of re-opening, locals and visitors to Cortes Island are able to enjoy well-loved perennial as well as brand new reasons to gather.

On July 1, British Columbia officially lifted its mask mandate, opened up to Canadians for recreational travel and now allows for gatherings of 50 people indoors and 5,000 outside.

Although still scaled down compared to pre-pandemic times, Cortes is not only seeing an influx of vacationers, but also regular events. Here is a selection.

The Gorge Harbour Marina Resort is delivering live music 5 nights a week for the rest of the summer. The impromptu stage on the Fireside Patio hosts musical acts -- some local and some from further afield -- from 7:30 to 9:30pm.

The Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery is in the midst of their first show of the season, running for two more weekends. Thursday through Sunday from 2 till 6pm, the gallery is open for viewing of the pieces by 24 member artists in a wide variety of media.

A Squirrel Cove resident, Reid Wescott, and a few friends set up a volleyball court near the General Store, and weekly games just switched from Wednesday to Thursday evenings. Come from 5pm onwards to play and swim. Wescott says, “It is a great location, and we are hoping for more sand. We always need more players!”

At the south end of the island, Cortes Men’s Circle is having another open night on Wednesday August 11 from 7 to 9pm, thanks to a community microgrant. Host Tommaso Biasiolo started the bi-weekly event several years ago on Quadra after being inspired by an online men’s circle. He also saw the opportunity to address the underlying issues he felt led to societal dysfunction such as became exposed by the Me Too movement. The circle meets at the Sanctuary on the Hollyhock campus.

Hollyhock Leadership Institute has presenter evenings, which are free or by donation events open to the whole community. All proceeds go toward the Island Scholarship fund, which enables reduced program tuition for Cortes residents. The next one is Saturday August 7. It is entitled “Yoga as Intuitive Movement” with teacher Robin Stamm, and runs 8-9:30pm.

Roy L Hales/ CKTZ News - CKTZ news recently asked Dr Diana Allen, head of the Groundwater Resources Research Group in the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University, some vital questions about Cortes Island’s aquifer.

Does drilling a well threaten to collapse Cortes Islands aquifer and thus inadvertently threaten the community’s water supply?

The question arose during an interview last week, in which it was also pointed out that what used a to be year round wetland now dries up every summer.

Local well driller Red Williams says that while he sometimes hears the idea of collapsing an aquifer, he has never encountered a case of this happening. The main problem he has seen is shallow wells going dry: you will always have shallow wells that dry up and the aquifer is replenished by rainfall.

“Yes, I agree with him,“ said Allen, who immediately added, “Well, I guess it depends what someone considers to be collapsing an aquifer.”

Allen went on to talk about subsidence, adding that she has heard of it in places like California’s Central Valley and Mexico City, but not British Columbia.

“When you take ground water out of an aquifer that consists of interlayers of sand and clay, there is the potential for the clay to lose whatever water it has in it and squish. That can cause subsidence,” she explained. “You have to take a lot of water out … huge quantities, or also where oil and gas have been taken out of deep sedimentary rocks … but for small aquifers, like what you would find on Cortes Island, I do not think subsidence would be a real problem.”

Taking CKTZ News on a tour of the registered aquifers on the iMapBC website, Allen discovered that all three of the aquifers that cover much of Whaletown (#843, #844 & #845) are in crystalline bedrock rock, where subsidence is not an issue.

Aquifer #841 which feeds most of the land between Mansons Landing and Sutil point, is sand and gravel.

“When the glaciers were all melting, they would have dumped a whole bunch of sand and gravel on this point. This is actually a confined aquifer, so there is some clay over the top of it that is providing natural protection to that aquifer. So this would be a good quality aquifer,” she explained.”

Aquifers #842 and #846, which feed the area between Mansons Landing and Cortes Bay, are in rock.

“So it is really only this southern tip. All the other areas that have been mapped with aquifers show bedrock,” said Allen.

The aquifers feeding more than three quarters of Cortes Island – Tiber Bay, Squirrel Cove and all the lands in the north – are not mapped.

Allen explained that this would have been because this area is so sparsely settled.

The 2002 geological survey of Cortes Island map show that most of Squirrel Cove is sand, mud and gravel, but the rest of northern Cortes is primarily rock.

So, if Cortes Island’s aquifers aren’t collapsing, how do you explain that wetland, that used to be filled with water year round and has dried up the last few summers?

She explained, "That's where Climate Change comes in."

Photo credit: Photo by Roy L Hales

Anastasia Avvakumova/ CKTZ News - The air quality and visibility over the weekend was noticeably affected by particulates in forest fire smoke traveling across the landscape, and will likely be present in the region into Wednesday afternoon.

The BlueSky Canada interactive online visual tool shows an animated forecast of wildfire smoke as it’s expected to behave over the next 2 days in specific geographic regions. According to the website, Cortes Island and surrounding area have been experiencing an elevated PM2.5 rating, colour-coded to represent a range of 10-28 micrograms per meter cubed (µg/m3). These elevated levels nevertheless do not cross the threshold considered unsafe during a 24-hour period by Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards.

The large cloud of smoke from the interior is predicted to start clearing by early afternoon on Monday. However, the closest fire situated roughly 45 kilometers north of Powell River will likely send more smoke our way as wind direction changes. This fire, which is under control, has an estimated size of 7 hectares and was discovered on June 27. Its approximate location is stated as Daniels River.

As of 8 p.m. Sunday, August 1, there were 244 active fires across the province, according to the BC Wildfire Dashboard. Seven were new as of this week, and 6 of those had been added to the total since noon on Sunday. A small fire of less than 0.01 hectares was briefly shown on Vancouver Island between Qualicum Bay and Qualicum Beach on Sunday afternoon, however it was no longer being reported by the evening. There were no other fires on Vancouver Island.

The vehicle which started a fire on the Brewster Lake FSR. The blaze was extinguished by RCMP and nearby campers – photo courtesy Campbell started River RCMP

In a news bulletin released on Friday, July 30, Campbell River RCMP detailed a vehicle fire that had spread to the forest in the vicinity.

“This was the third incident of a vehicle fire on Forest Service Roads in as many weeks in the Campbell River area.”

Photo credit - screenshot from Smoke Forecast.ca - Wildfire smoke forecast for August 2, 2021

Roy L Hales/ CKTZ News - The preliminary stages of Cortes Island’s first wetland restoration project are underway at Dillon Creek, on Linnaea Farm.

“Back in 2014, we had a very large algae bloom in the lake. There was a very annoying smell and taste in the water for about two weeks and then it lingered on for about another two weeks with the smell in the air,” explained lead author Rex Weyler, when the first Hague & Gunflint Lakes Monitoring Report was published in 2017.

The problem was human septic and livestock nutrients draining into the lake.

“Everyone who lives around the lake is a contributor,” said Autumn Barrett-Morgan, a Biological Monitoring Technician with the Friends of Cortes Island Society (FOCI).

However, Dillon Creek has been a vector for a significant amount of the nutrient and sediment input into Gunflint & Hague lakes. Prior to the advent of what is now Linnaea farm, the field used to be a wetland and a series of meandering streams that would have naturally filtered out nutrients and sediment. This wetland was drained via man-made Dillon Creek, and turned into agricultural land decades ago. Draining wetlands was a common farming practice around the world, to gain access to rich soils and relatively flat land.

FOCI and Linnaea Farm have partnered to restore wetlands in a lower portion of the field, up from the mouth of Dillon Creek into Gunflint Lake.

The construction work will take place from August 15th to 17th, but in the meantime FOCI has been carrying out invasive species removal and biological monitoring.

CKTZ News interviewed Autumn Barrett-Morgan on July 29th, the day after a crew of volunteers removed Himalayan Blackberries, thistles and holly from the site.

“It went really well. We’ve had multiple invasive species removals now, and yesterday there were four of us … We started late because of the heat wave. We might do another work bee, going forward, into the evening because it is a lot cooler,” she said. “Invasive species feel much more manageable when there is a team removing them.”

Barrett-Morgan said that a very large percentage of the world’s wetlands have been drained for farming and human development.

“Wetlands are the Earth’s kidneys. So we’re removing [draining] our filtering system, our kidneys, and that has been a very large contributor to global climate disruption,” she said. “Being able to restore even a little bit of that here is [hopefully] going to be really impactful and it can also be a really cool precedent setting project on Cortes Island. Measuring and monitoring its success, will hopefully lead to restoring even larger areas of wetlands on the island and along the coast.”

Photo credit: The field at Dillon Creek - Photo by Roy L Hales

Anastasia Avvakumovah/CKTZ News - As the RCMP continue arrests of peaceful forest defenders at the Fairy Creek blockades, legal and political questions abound following the BC Court’s decision to take over the persecution of arrestees at the request from logging corporation Teal Jones.

“I find it reprehensible that the government is going to be using taxpayers’ dollars and jailing its own citizens, because of its own failure to implement its own policy. I think history will look back on this moment in time in British Columbia's history and all of these people -- these teachers, these scientists, these nurses, these Olympic swimmers, amazing people that I met, who are blockading at Fairy Creek -- they are not criminals. They are heroes. And I think that's how they're going to be seen.”

Long-time activist Tzeporah Berman, founder of Stand.earth, was deeply involved in the Clayoquot Sound old-growth-logging protests in the early 90’s, the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, with more than 900 arrests of forest defenders. As of Wednesday, July 28, the Fairy Creek Blockade’s official media channel reports 496 arrests to date and counting, since police enforcement of the court injunction granted to Teal Jones Group began in late May of this year.

Berman spoke about her arrest and objectionable treatment she received while in police custody on Saturday, May 22, as well as her recent hearing on Thursday, July 8, when she successfully challenged her bail conditions. The latter had prevented her from going back to the entire Fairy Creek area. Although the judge’s ruling applied to her only, she encourages others arrested at the blockades to use her legal arguments, which are now on public record, to contest their own bail conditions and win the right to return to the protests.

Berman is still charged with civil contempt of court and will have another hearing in the fall. Since her arrest, BC Attorney-General David Eby approved Teal Jones’ appeal for the responsibility of prosecution to be handled by the Supreme Court of BC, meaning it will now be funded at taxpayers’ expense. Teal Jones also lobbied for civil disobedience charges to be escalated to criminal conduct.

Meanwhile, a coalition of independent media outlets won the right in a BC Supreme court ruling to be present and document the arrests at Fairy Creek without undue obstruction by the RCMP. Until the ruling last week and even in the days following, media access was at the whim of RCMP officers on the scene.

The protesters at Fairy Creek, who prefer to be known as forest defenders, employ non-violent direct action, such as physically blockading loggers from road building and tree falling. Arrests have at times turned violent at the hands of the RCMP, notably so when dealing with indigenous youth blockaders.

Berman remains hopeful that BC’s remaining old growth, key to the planet’s life-support systems, will be protected, and offers smart solutions for alternative economic development.

Credit: Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash