Cortes Currents

De Clark/ Roy Hales/ Cortes Currents -One of Cortes Island’s longstanding traditions is the Christmas Bird Count; for almost 25 years, local residents have volunteered in a coordinated week-long audit of the island’s bird life. For many years this effort has been coordinated in the field by longtime islander George Sirk, host of the 'Nature Boy' Radio Show on CKTZ.

Roy Hales interviewed George about this year's bird count.

De Clarke/Cortes Currents - In the second part of an interview with Emilia Belliveau from Environmental Defence Canada, she describes specific tactics Playbook, Environmental Defence has condensed the industry’s PR and political efforts into ten major categories, and provided a description and deconstruction of each one.

 "We're laying out these 10 tactics that the fossil fuel industry is using, we're showing how they work in a coordinated way, and we're connecting the dots between some of the tactics that are more publicly well known -- like fossil fuel industry lobbying — with some of the things that are not as well known to the public, like the revolving door. That is, the workforce that is moving between fossil fuel industry executive positions and regulatory positions, or the public service. We're drawing attention to these things — things we think are really problematic, and explain why Canada is having such a hard time transitioning off of fossil fuels and addressing the climate crisis."

De Clarke/Cortes Currents -Exposed. The report is playfully illustrated, but quite serious in concept; its purpose is clearly laid out on the first page:

The goal of this report is to paint a clear picture of how oil and gas companies operate, how they generate support for the industry and leverage it against effective climate solutions. Some of their tactics, like greenwashing and lobbying, have been well-publicized. Yet others have been largely hidden from the public, like funding astroturf groups, supporting anti-renewable energy campaigns, and infiltrating educational institutions.

The report documents ten established tactics used by the fossil industry in its battle against climate activism and decarbonisation policy.  Currents interviewed one of its lead authors, Emilia Belliveau from Environmental Defence Canada, about this project.  The broadcast version of this story is in two episodes. In the first part, Emilia explains the ten standard tactics. In the second part we dig a bit deeper into the details: how these tactics work, and their effects on communities and political life.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - As of the end of 2025, Campbell River, RCMP reported a significant decline in crime within their jurisdiction. Roy Hales interviewed Inspector Jeff Preston of the RCMP and Campbell River’s Director of Community Safety, Jeff Fort, to find out what they think about these statistics, whether there really is a decrease in crime and what may have caused this.

 A few weeks ago, I did a report to the city council here to give them an overview of how crime stats have been going within the city. And we were comparing year over year, from January to the end of November from 2024 to 2025.

And the numbers that we were able to report were: our calls for service within the city of Campbell River were down 11%. The violent crime numbers were down about 20%, and the property crime for the entire city was down nearly 28%. More specifically in the downtown core of the city.

The overall call for service, were down 21%. The violent crime in the downtown core was down 29%, and the property crime in the downtown core was down 38% or nearly 38%. They were very encouraging numbers to be able to report.

— RCMP Inspector Jeff Preston

Roy L Halesd/Cortes Currents - It has been nine months since Katia Sol took over the helm as Hollyhock’s CEO. She has also had more than two decades of experience working with nonprofits, starting as a volunteer in a Bolivian Indigenous community and going on to co-direct the Ecology of Leadership at the Regenerative Design Institute, founding her own coaching and leadership development business, and teaching at Stanford University. In today’s interview she talks about this past year at Hollyhock and what lies ahead in 2026.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - The second party of an interview with Regional Director Mark Vonesch about whether Cortes Island should incorporate. As Mark says, “The worst that can happen really, if we bring this to the Province and it’s approved and we start this process, the worst that can happen is that we’d learn a lot about local governance. We’d have opportunities to have conversations and speak to each other and explore the options. And in the end maybe we would vote it down… but this is a petition just simply saying, Hey, let’s see if there’s a better way. Let’s explore it and let’s decide for ourselves what makes sense.”

Since the Province would fund the consultation and research process, Mark feels there is no risk to Cortes residents in pursuing it.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - Cortes residents may have noticed a petition available in paper form at our post offices and grocery stores, or received an email update from our Regional Director inviting them to consider signing the online version. The petition mentions governance and incorporation: what’s it all about? I interviewed Regional Director Mark Vonesch to get a better understanding of the issues and why he’s chosen this moment to launch a petition regarding our governance model.

As Mark is quick to point out, signing this petition doesn’t indicate that the signer wants Cortes to become some kind of municipality rather than a Rural Area. The petition is intended to find out if there’s sufficient local support to initiate a process of research and discovery (with Provincial support and funding) to figure out whether incorporation is — or isn’t — a practical or desirable alternative to our current system of government.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - With 2025 coming to a close, it seems like a good time to get an update from the Cortes Island Fire Department. Currently, there are about 38 people working out of the island’s two fire halls, with another 20 enrolled in the wildfire brigade.

Chief Eli McKenty noted, "I haven’t totalled this year’s call volume yet, but last year we had 105 calls. This year, we’re likely slightly higher at around 110.”

“We had one significant structure fire, which was fortunately not a total loss. Two factors likely contributed to that. It was a reasonably modern building that was tightly closed.  If you have a tightly sealed building and the doors, windows are closed and you have multi pane windows that don't break from the heat, you can actually have a fire that fully starves of oxygen and goes out. A landscaper working next door noticed the smoke and got a garden hose on it. We were able to mop up the rest.”

“We had one minor fire onboard a boat and a few hydro lines sparked minor brush fires, but nothing significant on that front this year."

In response to a question about the nature of the call-outs, McKenty explained, "They make up the bulk of our call volume. Of our 105 calls last year, 64 were medical first responders, which is similar to what most first responder departments in the province. We had a reasonably high number of motor vehicle incidents this year.”

"We received numerous burning complaints and duty investigations in the summer. It's fairly common for someone to smell smoke for one reason or another, leading to calls for investigation. We even received a call for a suspected lightning strike."

When asked about the extensive training and upgrades the Fire Department has been undergoing, McKenty shared that near the beginning of Mac Diver's term as chief, the province recognized that the existing fire service training model was very challenging for small rural departments to achieve. They established a system with three declared service levels. “Most small rural departments provide exterior operations fire service. We’re not currently allowed to enter a burning building like they would in larger cities such as Vancouver.”

“The next level is interior certification, which is what Quadra Island currently has. It’s half way to full service. They’re allowed to enter simple structures and commercial buildings with a pre-plan in place, but not into high rises.”

Then there is full service. Campbell River is fully staffed with members present at all times, and an additional volunteer crew that steps in as needed.

The Cortes Island Fire Department has traditionally been an exterior operations department. However, in the last two years they have been discussing moving toward interior certification.

“There's not a huge advantage to us going interior on Cortes because response times are longer than they are in the city since we're only two halls and we have a lot of drive time. So there are not too many situations where an interior attack would make the difference in saving a structure, although there have been cases where it would. What really keeps me up at night is we are not currently allowed to go into a building to rescue somebody if the building's on fire. That would be a really nice piece to be certified for.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A new study found that Northern Resident Killer Whales and Pacific white-sided dolphins have formed a cooperative hunting relationship to catch Chinook salmon in the Johnson Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. The dolphins utilize echolocation to locate fish at depth, but their small teeth are designed primarily to grip prey, and they cannot swallow large species like Chinook salmon whole. Instead, dolphins locate the fish, and then wait for the killer whales move in to tear them apart, scattering bits of tissue and flesh into the water.

Dr. Andrew Trites, a professor and director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, explained, “The dolphins are getting leftovers, but that seems to be reward enough, so there's no competition for what is ultimately killed. Everybody comes out a winner.”

This was the first time Customized Animal Tracking Solutions Tags (CATS) were used on whales and allowed the researchers to collect 3D kinematic data with video and acoustics, continuously recording high-resolution dive data, along with vocalizations and feeding-related sounds.

“ This tag has got a video recorder. It's got a hydrophone. It's listening for all the calls that are being made by the killer whales, but it's also recording dolphin calls as we discover. It has a depth sensor so we know what depth the whale is at. It's got three-dimensional accelerometers. So we can reconstruct all the swimming movements of the whale, whether it turns or heads down or heads up. It does water temperature as well. So it's a very sophisticated fitbit that was designed to be put onto marine life, such as Killer Whales.”

“All of my life I've seen whales from a boat, with a camera in hand or binoculars. Here we're getting a bird's-eye view with a drone, which others have used before, but for the first time, we got the orca eye view of what's really going on, and that changes everything, to see the world as the killer whales experience it.”

Trites suspects but does not know if killer whales and dolphins cooperate in the same manner around Cortes, Read, and Quadra Islands.

“ I don't know how frequently you see white-sided dolphins around Cortes. There is a resident population of white-sided dolphins living in the Salish Sea. I don't know much about their distribution and whether or not those dolphins behave the same as the ones that are up in Johnson Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. Certainly, the northern residents that are going to your area know how to work with dolphins. The question is whether or not the dolphins in your area know how to hang out and work cooperatively with northern residents.”

Initially, the research team believed these dolphins were harassing Southern Resident Killer Whales, but this perception changed after Keith Holmes, a drone pilot with the Hakai Institute, observed their interactions. He noted, “From above, you could see this incredible amount of activity. It was clear that there was some sort of communication happening, and they were actively foraging together,” as stated in the UBC press release.

Dr. Sarah Fortune, the lead author and Canadian Wildlife Federation Chair in Large Whale Conservation, emphasized the significance of these observations by saying, “We’ve long known that resident killer whales interact with Pacific white-sided dolphins, but seeing them dive and hunt in sync with dolphins completely changes our understanding of what those encounters mean.”

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Tune in on December 12, 2025, for a pre-recorded episode of FolkU with author Ruth Ozeki, who sits down with the Cortes Island Academy for a deep, generous conversation about her book A Tale for the Time Being. Ruth shares how the novel emerged from Zen teachings, natural disasters, and we chat about the mysterious voices that spark creative work.

 

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