Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales / Cortes Currents - Cortes Island's updated Community Wildfire Protection Plan will be completed mid-April.

 

The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) will also be holding two virtual sessions with wildfire expert Bruce Blackwell on Tuesday April 13 and Wednesday April 14 from 7-8pm (both sessions will be the same). These sessions will be devoted to the Community Wildfire Protection Plan, the island's wildfire risk, and on ways that you can incorporate FireSmart principles on your properties and neighbourhoods. There will also be a question and answer period.  

So I asked SRD Protective Services Coordinator Shaun Koopman, Is there anything new?

“Ahhh, I wouldn’t say so - but I spend every sing day in this area.

If a Cortes Islander reviewed the ten year old plan and hasn’t engaged in any wildfire planning, things might look a little different, but I am going to wait for the engagement session because I don’t want to take away from the consultant,” he responded.

One of the key elements will be looking at the old wildfire map:

- What changes have there been?

- What are the most hazardous areas on both private and public land?

- What are the areas most in need of treatment?

What does treatment consist of?

The first step in a treatment consists of drawing up a ‘prescription.’ This identifies specific trees that must be taken out and potential fuel areas for a wildfire. It is also the document that will be presented to the SRD Board, when applying for funding.

Several areas on Cortes Island have already been identified for treatment:

- 11 hectares of Crown land in Carrington Bay

- 10 hectares in Squirrel Cove

- 4 hectares adjacent to the Cortes Island Recycling Centre

= a 10 hectare FireSmart education area in the Regional Park at Hank’s Beach

The SRD also wants to reduce the risk of wildfire to community buildings.

- Replacing some of the siding with non-flammable material,

- making sure there is a six centimetre non flammable buffer between the ground and the start oif the building.

- replacing some of the gutters

- replacing wooden stairs with metal stairs

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Museum‘s virtual archives went online on March 30th.

Managing Director Jane Newman explained. “It is quite a big feat for the Museum and it has been a long time coming. There have been two very significant grants from Library & Archives Canada. We’ve digitized over 4,000 of our photographs, records from the collection and they are all viewable for free.”

Go to Cortes museum.com, look under Archives in the top menu and use the search engine.

A few quick searches produced:

for “fishing” – 121 photographs which can be enlarged to full size, 9 oral recordings, and the index cards for 22 written records.

for “Squirrel Cove” – 70 photographs, a recording, and 17 index cards for texts

for “Mike Manson” – 35 photographs, 3 recordings and 8 index cards.

Newman added, “The history albums that many people look at when they come into the museum are not part of the archives collection. They are copies of photographs. They are all in that database, so it is pretty exciting for us and people on Cortes Island who may never have been to the museum, and didn’t have time to dig in and spend a few hours here with help from one of the volunteers or staff. You can do it from the comfort of your home; and you can do it from the around the world.”

She pointed out that this also creates value for museum curators, both off island and here on Cortes Island.

“It opens up the door for us to be able to cross reference all kinds of stories that may have small aspects of the bigger picture that we might be trying to express in one of our exhibits or a talk that we might give,” said Newman.

She added that over the past few years, Jill Milton, Donna McLaren and Valerie Wernet have worked very hard on all of this. Maeve Le Duc did the recent scanning.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Museum‘s virtual archives went online on March 30th.

Managing Director Jane Newman explained. “It is quite a big feat for the Museum and it has been a long time coming. There have been two very significant grants from Library & Archives Canada. We’ve digitized over 4,000 of our photographs, records from the collection and they are all viewable for free.”

Go to Cortes museum.com, look under Archives in the top menu and use the search engine.

A few quick searches produced:

for “fishing” – 121 photographs which can be enlarged to full size, 9 oral recordings, and the index cards for 22 written records.

for “Squirrel Cove” – 70 photographs, a recording, and 17 index cards for texts

for “Mike Manson” – 35 photographs, 3 recordings and 8 index cards.

Newman added, “The history albums that many people look at when they come into the museum are not part of the archives collection. They are copies of photographs. They are all in that database, so it is pretty exciting for us and people on Cortes Island who may never have been to the museum, and didn’t have time to dig in and spend a few hours here with help from one of the volunteers or staff. You can do it from the comfort of your home; and you can do it from the around the world.”

She pointed out that this also creates value for museum curators, both off island and here on Cortes Island.

“It opens up the door for us to be able to cross reference all kinds of stories that may have small aspects of the bigger picture that we might be trying to express in one of our exhibits or a talk that we might give,” said Newman.

She added that over the past few years, Jill Milton, Donna McLaren and Valerie Wernet have worked very hard on all of this. Maeve Le Duc did the recent scanning.

Roy L Hales / Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District was awarded a $65,000 Community Resiliency Investment grant for Cortes Island, so I asked SRD Protective services Coordinator Shaun Koopman what does Cortes Island get out of it?

Part of the money will be will be used to pay for a report on “the current structural capacity for wildfire response on Cortes Island.”

There is also funding for “fire entrapment avoidance and incident command system training” for the Cortes Island Fire Department.

The Regional District will provide a free wood chipping service to Cortes Islanders who wish to take advantage of it. When this service was offered before, 13 tons of wood debris were hauled off Cortes Island and 30 tons off Quadra Island.

“Once those projects have been taken care of and I know how much we have left over to spend, we’ll be allowing neighbourhoods to put together more specific plans with the help of a certified FireSmart consultant,” said Koopman.

Roy L Hales / Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District was awarded a $65,000 Community Resiliency Investment grant for Cortes Island, so I asked SRD Protective services Coordinator Shaun Koopman what does Cortes Island get out of it?

Part of the money will be will be used to pay for a report on “the current structural capacity for wildfire response on Cortes Island.”

There is also funding for “fire entrapment avoidance and incident command system training” for the Cortes Island Fire Department.

The Regional District will provide a free wood chipping service to Cortes Islanders who wish to take advantage of it. When this service was offered before, 13 tons of wood debris were hauled off Cortes Island and 30 tons off Quadra Island.

“Once those projects have been taken care of and I know how much we have left over to spend, we’ll be allowing neighbourhoods to put together more specific plans with the help of a certified FireSmart consultant,” said Koopman.

Roy L Hales / Cortes Current - The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) is building up Cortes Island’s emergency preparedness systems and this requires money. They have already received a $65,000 Community Resiliency grant this year, for things like wood chipping, more intense training training for the Cortes Island Fire Department and hiring a consultant to help neighbourhoods prepare wildfire threat assessment reports.There is more coming. SRD Protective services Coordinator Shaun Koopman explained they have applied for another $265,000 of funding.

Received to date for 2021: $65,000

Community Resiliency Investment grant received to

-Develop wildfire fuel prescriptions

-Provide free driveway woodchipping

-Assess structural protection and wildfire capacity response capacity (report on Cortes Island)

-Provide Incident Command System and Fire Entrapment and Avoidance training for the Cortes Island Fire Department

-Hire a professional FireSmart consultant to work with neighbourhoods and develop Neighbourhood Wildfire Threat Assessment Reports with them

Further Applications: $265,066

 

Emergency Support Services – (results known end of April) - $5,000 for post-earthquake supplies for Cortes Island.

Sea Level Rise Mapping – (results known end of May) - on both Cortes and Quadra. Koopman says it is ‘hard to ballpark how much money would go to each island, but you could put $75,000 for Cortes.’ The We Wai Kai and Klahoose First Nations provided letters of support for this grant application.

FireSmart Economic Recovery - $185,066 for Cortes Island (critical infrastructure wildfire risk reduction and fuel treatment by Recycling Centre)

Roy L Hales / Cortes Current - The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) is building up Cortes Island’s emergency preparedness systems and this requires money. They have already received a $65,000 Community Resiliency grant this year, for things like wood chipping, more intense training training for the Cortes Island Fire Department and hiring a consultant to help neighbourhoods prepare wildfire threat assessment reports.There is more coming. SRD Protective services Coordinator Shaun Koopman explained they have applied for another $265,000 of funding.

Received to date for 2021: $65,000

Community Resiliency Investment grant received to

-Develop wildfire fuel prescriptions

-Provide free driveway woodchipping

-Assess structural protection and wildfire capacity response capacity (report on Cortes Island)

-Provide Incident Command System and Fire Entrapment and Avoidance training for the Cortes Island Fire Department

-Hire a professional FireSmart consultant to work with neighbourhoods and develop Neighbourhood Wildfire Threat Assessment Reports with them

Further Applications: $265,066

 

Emergency Support Services – (results known end of April) - $5,000 for post-earthquake supplies for Cortes Island.

Sea Level Rise Mapping – (results known end of May) - on both Cortes and Quadra. Koopman says it is ‘hard to ballpark how much money would go to each island, but you could put $75,000 for Cortes.’ The We Wai Kai and Klahoose First Nations provided letters of support for this grant application.

FireSmart Economic Recovery - $185,066 for Cortes Island (critical infrastructure wildfire risk reduction and fuel treatment by Recycling Centre)

David P Ball/ Vancouver Coop Radio - The provincial government's partial reversal of cuts to disability assistance top-ups didn't dampen the turnout at a rally this week demanding an end to rates they said keep people with disabilities far below the poverty line.

Dozens of people took over the intersection of Howe and Dunsmuir streets, near a provincial government office, on Thursday afternoon, unfurling a giant "No Funds" novelty groceries receipt to show how difficult it is to make ends meet on assistance even after the government's $175 permanent raise to rates announced just a day before.

The event was billed as an anti-poverty "parade" and featured a three-piece band with standup bass, saxophone and electric guitar, as well as signs calling for a significant increase to disability assistance as well as calling attention to unaffordable rents, high medical and prescription costs, and inaccessible service barriers accessing support.

Provincial poverty reduction minister Nicholas Simons touted the $175 monthly top-up as the largest single raise to rates in B.C. history, and said the pandemic's $300 supplement was never meant to be permanent but to help people through a very difficult year, but that the permanent raise would help lift people out of poverty combined with other provincial measures, part of the B.C. poverty reduction strategy.

But advocates decried the ongoing low rates, saying it was "unacceptable" and a pattern of "neglect" of people who need help through no fault of their own, and whose health conditions often worsen because of the lack of help and difficult financial choices of living in poverty.

Photo credit: DTES alley Vancouver by Jason Thibault @ massivekontent.com/

David P Ball/ Vancouver Coop Radio - The provincial government's partial reversal of cuts to disability assistance top-ups didn't dampen the turnout at a rally this week demanding an end to rates they said keep people with disabilities far below the poverty line.

Dozens of people took over the intersection of Howe and Dunsmuir streets, near a provincial government office, on Thursday afternoon, unfurling a giant "No Funds" novelty groceries receipt to show how difficult it is to make ends meet on assistance even after the government's $175 permanent raise to rates announced just a day before.

The event was billed as an anti-poverty "parade" and featured a three-piece band with standup bass, saxophone and electric guitar, as well as signs calling for a significant increase to disability assistance as well as calling attention to unaffordable rents, high medical and prescription costs, and inaccessible service barriers accessing support.

Provincial poverty reduction minister Nicholas Simons touted the $175 monthly top-up as the largest single raise to rates in B.C. history, and said the pandemic's $300 supplement was never meant to be permanent but to help people through a very difficult year, but that the permanent raise would help lift people out of poverty combined with other provincial measures, part of the B.C. poverty reduction strategy.

But advocates decried the ongoing low rates, saying it was "unacceptable" and a pattern of "neglect" of people who need help through no fault of their own, and whose health conditions often worsen because of the lack of help and difficult financial choices of living in poverty.

Photo credit: DTES alley Vancouver by Jason Thibault @ massivekontent.com/

Darren Davidson/ Kootenay Co-op Radio - CJLY, 93.5fm Nelson BC - The Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce has been in the middle of the region’s COVID storm for over 12 months.

There’ve been some critical efforts by chambers throughout BC and Canada — helping business stay afloat, pay their staff, lobby governments to eliminate costs to business, and more than a few times, offer a shoulder to have a good cry on.

Chamber of Commerce boss Tom Thomson stopped by Kootenay Co-op Radio's current affairs program on March 31 to chat a bit about what the latest lockdown looks like for local business.

He told KCR that according to a recent BC business survey 73% of respondents are using some form of government subsidy.

Photo credit: Canadian Money by Carissa Rogers via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)