Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - A sense of momentum is building—quite literally—in Manson’s Landing, where work is underway on a new pavilion designed to bring community members together for music, events, and gatherings. This is the latest in a series of structures erected in the Village Commons. The pavilion’s frame was raised on Friday, April 11, 2025

“ We hope to have all the details done by the end of May. It’ll be in service this summer,” explained Richard Andrews, Project Manager of the Village Commons.

He and his three crew members had just finished erected the rear frame, or bent, and were breaking for lunch. There was one more bent to go.

“ You see these two forward footings. They will be taking yet another set of another pair of posts and braces and one more large beam. That's the big, long black package lying right there. It's about 39 feet long. They are are big glulam beams and the frame was made by Island Timber Frame out of Cumberland.”

“T here will be a stage built about 12 feet deep and 16 to 18 feet wide. Not a very high stage, but 8 inches up.  Behind it will be a wall so that we don't disturb the neighbors with noise.”  

“On the sides there'll be a pony wall, and above the pony wall on both sides. It'll be clear polycarbonate probably. That'll provide a wind barrier, so people who are using the stage won't have to deal with wind on their mics.”

 “There'll also be a big clear panel on barn tracks, that'll go forward to stop windblown rain”

Cortes Currents:  What are they going to do with the audience area?

Richard Andrews: “I’m not too sure yet. We'll probably spread out the soil and throw some grass seed down on it. There's no plan to do any kind of surface under the covered area. We don't have the budget, just getting this up is going to eat up the rest of our funding.”

Cortes Currents: Did you want to mention anything else that’s happening around here?

Richard Andrews:   “We have the Nook, which is the shared office space and shared meeting space. The Cortes Housing Society is making good use of it today, and they're the main people who've been using it so far.”

A block to the west of us, preparations for construction were taking place on the Cortes Housing Society’s premiere project. A four acre block had been carved out of the forest for the Rainbow Ridge Affordable Housing Project. Construction on the first building will soon commence. As we spoke, two carpenters were erecting a wooden fence on the project’s border with the Cortes Island Senior’s Village.

There was undoubtedly some mention of this in the meeting that was underway in the Nook.

Cortes Currents: What’s happening to the Village Common’s old shared meeting place, the Pod?

Richard Andrews: “T he little trailer, that's going to be repossessed by CCEDA and used as an information booth somewhere. I'm not sure what their plan is with it. What the Pod has been offering, the Nook will be offering more of the same, just bigger space.”

He pointed to some long containers, close to the stage.

“We have four C cans here and the two to the north of the site, closer to Manson's Hall are going to be used by the food bank. Their intention is to use them for food storage in Mansons because their facility attached to the radio station is too small for the amount of food that they're distributing. We don't have a plan for the middle one, yet. The other one that's furthest to the south will be used as the storage can for anything related to the pavilion. So for the lights, sound system, chairs, audio and what have you.”

Cortes Currents left before the final bent was put up for the pavilion, but they sent pictures later that day.

The new stage this summer will undoubtedly be well used this summer.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Blue Hat Memorial Project opens at 10 AM this morning, Tuesday, April 14, 2025. Campbell River artist and city councillor Ron Kerr has installed 50,000 flags at Tyee Spit (ʔUxstalis), representing the number of people who have lost their lives through Canada’s ongoing opioid crisis. 

 “What I really want to do is to stimulate conversation about the gaps in men and boy’s healthcare. These deaths are generally fentanyl drug deaths. If you look at the other results of addiction, alcohol addiction, and other kinds of addiction, the numbers are far higher. I don't think the men's health system is doing an adequate job of addressing that,” he explained.”

“ We're trying to do a ‘one size fits all’ and I understand that from a financial economic point of view, but I think we need a lot more recovery facilities, better access, and second stage housing. We need ‘dry’ housing where they can get their lives together without the daily influence of addictive substances. Unfortunately, supportive housing right now is completely full of people still in their addiction. So if not onto the street, they're right back into that same kind of environment they left. That is a really important part of the picture.”  

“I think we need male specific facilities, so they're not going to go back into a situation where they're not being supported. We've only got one dedicated men's center in the province, where men can actually go and find services, find support, and find programs. It's just not supported.” 

“There's a reluctance to have something that is specifically male orientated, but I think we need men's health clinics where men and boys know that they're going to find people that understand them. Peer supportive groups are probably a lot less expensive, and I think it's more powerful for supportive recovery than all the psychiatrists in the world.” 

Cortes Currents: How did this become the Blue Hat project? 

Ron Kerr: “The problem for me, as an artist, was how to actually convey that number into something that people could feel.  Initially I had the concept  of having  a huge number  of blue hard hats,  because the number of men in trades and throughout a blue collar workforce  have been right from the start overrepresented in the numbers.”

“I thought of using the blue hard hat itself as a symbol, but the problem was that any kind of an installation, or art project, using blue hard hats was very expensive and just logistically hard to do. So it was a challenge and  I had been thinking about that for a year or two.”

“Last summer when I was sitting in my garden recovering from knee surgery, I looked at a project that I'd started in the yard before my operation. I had a number of sprinkler flags marking spots around the garden. I was sitting there watching them blow in the wind, and it just came to me that that was a way of  really signifying the immensity of death.”

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On April 11, 2025, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by Yasmina Cartland and Emma Tius to discuss their work with the DeathCare Collective and recent learnings from visiting guest presenter Emily Bootle. This conversation re-imagines end-of-life care through community-driven death education, advocacy, and support.

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.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - There are some Cortes Island elements to the story of a boat stolen from Campbell River on Tuesday, April 8, 2025.

Someone living in the Potlatch Road area of southern Cortes Island observed ‘big military type planes’ and some helicopters flying around the ocean that morning and thought it might be a Sea-Air Rescue excerise. He did not think about it again until reading about the incident on CHEK News.

At 8 AM the Powell River RCMP received a request from the Quadra detachment to help intercept the stolen boat. GPS tracked it to the vincinty of Mitlenatch Island. An RCMP vessel from Powell River responded and was en route to Mitlenatch when it was notified that the Quadra detachment had already located the stolen vessel.

The stolen boat was escourting it to the Mansons Landing dock, on Cortes Island, where it was secured and two ‘suspects’ were arrested for Possession of Property Obtained by Crime over $5,000. They were transported back to Campbell River and turned over to the Campbell River RCMP.

Mansons Landing dock is maintained by Harbour Authority Cortes Island (HACI), but as it was a straighforward matter police did not think it necessary to inform them. Consequently HACI did not learn of the incident for another five days.

The Quadra Island detachment used to issue weekly reports of their activities on Quadra, Cortes and other Discovery Islands, but have discontinued that service. The RCMP press release for this incident comes from the Powell River detachment.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - More than 400 Cortes Island residents responded to the recent survey about limiting the size of new houses. They were given a number of possible limitations, ranging from 2,500 to 4,300 square feet. While the vote was close, 52% of the respondents said ‘no’ and so there will be no size limits in Cortes Island’s draft Zoning Bylaw. 

Regional Director Mark Vonesch explained, “ I just want to start by thanking everybody for participating in the survey. We had 415 people respond and it was very divided.  For that reason, I'm not moving forward with the maximum house size.  There's clearly no consensus and that's okay. The reason  we do these surveys  is to be able to talk about an issue and express ourselves around what we want our island to look like. So I really appreciate everybody who filled it out  and lots of passion on both sides of the issue.”

Unedited recording of Liberal candidate Jennifer Lash's Wednesday April 9 meeting in the Pioneer room at Mansons Hall. The event was co-sponsored by the Cortes Island Seniors Society and Cortes Island Climate Action Committee.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - More island residents turned out to hear Liberal candidate Jennifer Lash than could fit into the Pioneer Room at Mansons Hall. Half a dozen were looking on from the hallway. The Wednesday April 9 event was co-sponsored by the Cortes Island Seniors Society and Cortes Island Climate Action Committee.

Karen Mahon, the MC, began, “I met Jen 25 years ago.” 

To which Lash responded, “I don't remember life before Karen.” 

Karen Mahon: Yeah, it was a long, long time ago. I was working at Greenpeace on forests and Jen wanted to really take on marine conservation in Canada in a big way. So she started an organization called Living Ocean Society, which became Canada's leading marine conservation organization.She led that and really spearheaded the notion of marine conservation in Canada. So we worked alongside each other. I was the forest and she was the fish, for some decades.”

Lash was living in the little island community of Sointula throughout that period and still does. She raised her two children there. 

More recently she became a Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. It says something about her effectiveness in that role that four other government staffers have become the backbone currently of her campaign staff in North Island Powell River. One of them, Deputy Campaign Manager Holly Johnson, recently told Cortes Currents that 150 people had come forward as volunteers. A critic suggested some of these were probably just people who set up lawn signs,’ which is probably equally true of the ‘well over 50, maybe more’ volunteers that the NDP campaign manager recently said were helping them.

Jennifer Lash: “I have voted NDP for my entire life, but in 2021 I voted NDP and I really struggled with it. The reason for me was that they had no climate plan. I feel like if we don't deal with that issue, all the marine protection areas in the world are in vain.  This was a really important issue.”

“The NDP had no plan and the Liberal government did. They had a plan that was mapped out and it was backed by economists and scientists. I'm not gonna stand here and tell you that the Liberal plan fund is perfect, that is a conversation that I'm sure can go on forever. But it was something, and it was designed to reach a specific target.”

“So I started to kick the tires of the Liberal party, see what it was and I liked what I saw. Again, I am not going to defend everything. Yes, you can bring up electoral reform, I'm just as disappointed as probably everybody in this room that that was dropped. I'm happy to also criticize 'em for the things that didn't work. What I liked about them was that they understood that advancing on things like climate change, like social programs, like biodiversity conservation also requires building an economy and shifting an economy towards one of the future. That doesn't happen overnight and that it's hard to do and they really try to put together thoughtful policies that would drive that change.”

“About a year ago, I started thinking about running. It was a really big decision for me to do this. It's kind of like being in a popularity contest in high school, but the results are printed all across national news in the whole country. I'm feeling very vulnerable right now, but I just really felt like it was important to have a conversation in this riding because this writing has been an NDP/Conservative split forever. To me, this riding has so much more to offer than just getting caught up in that tension.”

She submitted her application to become a Liberal candidate last October:

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Michael Keith and his wife Iris Gildea are leaving Cortes Island. 

 “This was a decision we made a while ago.  My wife teaches at the University of Toronto. When we moved to Cortes, we thought she was going to be leaving there, but in the last couple years some things changed and she's decided to stay. It's quite the commute between semesters and we started investigating the possibility of moving somewhere a bit closer to her work.  We found the ideal situation in the Maritimes. The commute is about a fraction of the time and we can get the place that really suited us. So we made that decision. It was tough, but  it's time for the next part of the journey,”  he explained. 

Cortes Currents: I heard you found a place in the Annapolis Valley 

Michael Keith: “That is correct. We have a friend down there help us arrange  to check it out and it's kind of like our dream place. Where we have been here on Cortes has been wonderful and very dreamy. This is a lot more suited to our needs, about six acres of land and right on the ocean. We're so excited,  but it's bittersweet.” 

“I will firstly miss just the beauty of this island, which I feel so blessed to have experienced for the last almost eight years. I'm sitting here right now looking over Hague Lake. I've recorded so much music, played and created so much right from here. I'll miss that greatly.”

“I also felt like I made some really lifelong connections with some people but  I really plan on maintaining a relationship with the island. It's important to me and of course  I felt very supported by just random people  who would come out and see me play and always have kind things to say.”

“I've done some awesome gigs with my friend Zach Sukuweh  who's just a great percussionist and fun guy.  Him and I have such a lovely rapport. We just played about a week and a half ago at the Gorge Hall  with Rick Bockner and Jerome. We each did a set and it was really, really fun.” 

Scotty Martin added, “Michael Keith and his wife Iris were a huge part of this community. It's going to be a giant loss that they are gone. People around here don't always realize how lucky we are to have such talented people. Michael and I have both been professional players. I could just call out a song, tell 'em what key and off we would play. My wife Shelly enjoyed playing with Michael.” 

“We had a great get together at Rex Weyler's. He's got a nice little jam space there, and it was a going away party for Michael Keith, one of the legendary guitarist entertainers of Cortes Island.” 

Rex Weyler explained “I got a call from Scotty, about a month ago and he said, ‘would you host a party for Michael and Iris who are going to leave the island?’ First of all, Michael and Iris leaving the island is a very sad thing 'cause they've been such a wonderful addition to the island and they're just two beautiful people. Michael is funny, talented. He's really brought the music quality up on the island a notch. His guitar playing and his creativity are wonderful and we will miss him. So anyway, I said to Scotty, ‘yes, we'll have a party here for Michael’ and we did.  

“Lots of Michael's friends showed up. We just had an afternoon in the studio here. We played music, we had a little jam, and sang some songs. We had some food, wine and beer.  It was a really nice day and it was people out on the lawn and people in the studio. Some people stayed over for dinner and so it was a really nice day.”

“We're going to really miss Michael. he can't come to LoveFest this year, but I'm going to invite him to LoveFest for 2026.” 

Michael Keith: “I love the idea. I would love  to do that. I know I'd have no problem finding a place to stay.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Harbour Authority Cortes Island started taking applications for summer moorage spots at 9 AM on April 1st.

Harbour Master Jenny Hartwick explained, “This is our way of helping to manage the number of boats using. What's happened over the last few years on Cortes especially after Covid, is we've seen a steady increase in summer visitors and local residents getting out on the water. That's put additional pressure on the available mortgage that we have at the docks.”

“The one point that I want to make really clear is we have ample space available for anyone who is looking for mortgage at the docks. What we do not necessarily have is available mortgage at your first choice dock. We have some areas of higher population density and the docks that are in those areas tend to be the most popular. For safety reasons, we cannot accommodate every single boat that puts in a request for mortgage at those docks. If we tried, there would be too many security issues, be it vessels getting damaged, the, the possibility of people getting hurt and literally the facilities themselves wouldn't be able to support the weight of all of the boats that we have asking to stay there.”

“Again, just making it clear for the community, absolutely we have the space and we will accommodate you. We just need your understanding in working with us to make sure that our docks are both accessible and safe to everybody.”

Cortes Currents: Do you have any docks that are already fully booked for the summer?

Jenny Hartwick: “I'm still working my way through numbers and applications. people give us the dates that they'd like to be there and we really try our best to fit everybody in. We say, okay, this person only wants three weeks, we can partner them with this person.”

“Typically the Cortes Bay and the Whaletown docks are full. That's been the pattern for the last number of years. Those two tend to be the most popular, again, simply because of their geographical location.”

“I have mockups of every single dock down to the exact footage. We plot out whose boat and then who we can raft together. We try to get everybody their first choice, but I would suspect this year, like last year and the previous years that Cortes Bay and Whale Town will be full.”

Cortes Currents: My next question was going to be about waiting times, but you mean there's just no chance of getting to those two?

Jenny Hartwick: “Most likely but, again, that's not always true.”

“We encourage everybody to reach out and communicate with us because stuff happens. Your boat breaks down. You go on an extended three week sailing trip. If people communicate that and they let us know, we're down on the docks every single day. We monitor and we watch.”

“If we notice that something's going on, we keep a wait list. If we can move somebody into their first choice doc, we'll do that.”

“One of the important things to remember in this, our Small Craft Harbours docks give priority to commercial and CFB mortgage. That is the mandate that we're given from the federal government, we are to support those users first.”

“The Gorge Dock for example, is primarily commercial users only. We actually don't solicit recreational mortgage at that dock because we really don't have room just with the number of commercial users that we have.”

“So there's multiple factors in play, but it's an ongoing process for us and we keep wait lists. We'll get you in if we can.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - This broadcast opened with the Klahoose Singers chanting a blessing to the forest and the land in general,  at the Forest Trust For The Children of Cortes Island Society AGM on Saturday, April 5, 2025.   

As many of you are aware, the Society was set up to try and obtain 624 acres of forest adjacent to Carrington Bay Regional Park on Cortes Island, that are currently managed by Mosaic. Around 40 people were present when Chair Chris Dragseth announced they were making progress in the negotiations for 261 acres. 

 “The society's been in place for 15 years and we've been in serious discussions with Mosaic since 2019, about the operational issues around negotiating a fair market value for the properties. We've done some work jointly with Mosaic over this period of time. We've hired timber valuation companies and land valuation companies to come to a point where we've had what we feel is a fair market value for the property. The big step is coming up. We are probably going to be in a position in the very near future to actually make an offer. This will really be the key point for 2025,” he began.

“Once that agreement is reached, the clock will start ticking because it will have a built in provision to allow us to do serious and significant fundraising over the coming months.”

“We can't and are unable at this point to give the value yet because we haven't finalized the price with Mosaic, but it's my expectation and my hope that in the very near future we're going to be able to give you some very positive news. Then we'll start moving forward.” 

The Society intends to purchase another 363 acres that are not included in this initial purchase.   

Chris Dragseth: “There's still three properties that are not in the package right now. Those three parcels were put into the carbon capture by Mosaic, through the Big Coast Program, and  they have another 20 years to unfold before those properties will come up for discussion. Those parcels will eventually become part of  a longer term discussion.  Once we take possession, probably in a year's time is what we're hoping for, then a longer term vision will be required.” 

Christine Robinson gave a slideshow of the property, what had taken place during the year, and an outline of the society's history. 

She asked, “I'm just curious, if you've been anywhere in the Children's Forest, just raise your hand.” 

 It seemed like the whole room responded.

Christine Robinson: “Lovely. We have a very familiar audience right now, all of you pretty much long term on Cortes, but it is  a gem in the heart of Cortes.”

As the audio quality was poor, here is a quick summary of her talk as written in the slideshow: 

The Children's Forest Trust was created in 2010 and would not have been possible without the expressed support of the Klahoose First Nation. 

These lands are ecologically significant and support 14 species at risk and the rare occurrences of 11 ecological communities.

Cortes Island is part of the Discovery Islands Archipelago that forms a ‘bridge’ between Mainland British Columbia and Vancouver Island and may provide important information on genetic diversity in species.

The geographic location of the 50th parallel north marks the transition between the Coastal Douglas-fir and Coastal Western Hemlock bio geoclimatic zones.

Important wildlife corridors are provided by landscape level ecological networks through the Children’s Forest.

In the last 12 years the Forest Trust For The Children of Cortes Island Society has delivered a strong youth nature based program that has become an important part of the youth culture on Cortes Island.