Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -While there is some disagreement as to whether we have passed the 1.5°C threshhold set at COP 21 in Paris, scientists agree that we are on the brink and 2024 was the hottest year on record.

At COP 29 last November, Jim Skea, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explained, “Children born today will not know a world without climate change. The IPCC has shown that we, and furthermore they, will live in a world marked by more intense storms, exceptional heatwaves, devastating floods and droughts, a world where food chains are disrupted, and where diseases reach new countries.”

On Friday, January 10,  Samantha Burgess, Strategic lead for climate, European Centre for  Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, reported,  “We are now living in a very different climate from that, which our parents and our grandparents experienced.”

“Giving some more details for 2024, the year was 1.6°C above the pre-industrial level. 2024 was the warmest year on record, and the last 10 years have been the 10 warmest years on record. The primary reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and this accumulation has occurred primarily due to fossil fuels as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Temperatures continue to increase including in the ocean. Sea levels continue to rise and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt. According to the latest IPCC six assessment report published in 2021, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are the highest that they have been for the last, at least 800,000 years for methane and for over 2 million years for carbon dioxide.”

The most positive reports of last year’s average global temperature rise come from NASA and NOAA, in the United States, who claim it was slightly below 1.5°C.

However the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that 2024 was warmest year on record and stated the average global temperature was 1.55°C.

This is the second year in a row that Berkeley Earth reported that the global temperature rise exceeding 1.5°C. They were 1.54°C in 2023 and 1.62°C in 2024. As a result of our entering a weak La Niña phase, Berkeley Earth suggests 2025 could be cooler than 2024, but still ‘roughly the 3rd warmest year in the instrumental record.’

Jim Skea warned, “Today, our chances of limiting warming to 1.5 °C are hanging on a very slender thread. The recent UNEP Gap Report concluded that global emissions would need to fall by 7.5% per year through to 2035 to return us to a 1.5 °C pathway. If we delay more ambitious action to 2030, this becomes an unprecedented 15%. Even limiting warming to 2°C is at risk.”

“This does not have to be the case. As the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report demonstrated, we have the know-how, tools and financial resources to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. A world where transport is no longer polluting, our cities are green, and we have transitioned away from fossil fuels. We have shown that carbon pricing, regulations and other interventions have already resulted in gigatonnes of avoided emissions. More can be achieved if policies and measures are scaled up and deployed more widely.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - French filmmaker Jérémy Mathieu’s award winning documentary ‘Salmon Secrets,’ will be coming to Gorge Hall at 1 PM on Sunday, January 12.

This 40 minute film was produced by Clayoquot Action, whose co-founders Bonny Glamback and Dan Lewis will be speaking at the screening.

Mike Moore, President of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI), stated,  

“The film is hosted by FOCI and our streamkeepers who have just done an incredible job working with the highways department to put in new culverts so that the fish can go up beyond Whaletown Road and the Squirrel Cove Road. They've done a lot of work on salmon enhancement projects, but without ocean survival all of those efforts are in vain.”

“One thing that we can do to improve ocean survival of the salmon is to remove the salmon farms that are in their way. We can't affect ocean nutrient levels and upwelling currents and plankton, which all feed the salmon when they're out in the North Pacific, but we can keep the salmon farms from transmitting diseases and lice to the wild salmon.”

The trailer starts with Joe Martin, of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, speaking a Nuu-chah-nulth word I cannot pronounce or spell.

He said, “ It means that everything is connected. The mountains to the ocean and they're actually connected by salmon. All the Nuu-chah-nulth have survived with that. You don't see that anymore.”

As the aerial view of a fish farm came into view, Dan Lewis explained, “The companies are Norwegian. They imported the eggs from the Atlantic Ocean from Europe and those eggs brought with them Piscine Orthoreovirus and the fish here had no defence against it.”

Independent biologist Alexandra Morton is depicted staring into a microscope, “I have been looking closely at hundreds of juvenile pink and chum salmon every single year. By the time the juvenile salmon made it to the open ocean they passed four or five salmon farms and they were just dying, hundreds of thousands of them.”

John K Forde, from the Marine Mammal Research Unit, added, “Right now the gray whales are having a catastrophic die off. In the spring, we're getting gray whales washing up on shore that are starving to death. If they don't have their food because it's been poisoned by Cermaq, then we won't have any whales through the summer months in this area. This is going to be devastating.”

Morton added, “Orcas have culture, and to maintain their culture, they need to gather. For resident orca to gather, there have to be a lot of salmon. That's how they maintain not only their health, but their culture. In recent years, it's been really sad to see them come in. Sometimes they pace up and down, one little family, and then they leave.”

You’ve just been reading a transcript from the trailer for ‘Salmon Secrets.’

Dan Lewis was skiing at Mount Washington when Cortes Currents contacted him.

He stated, “With this whole fish farm transition, we knew that there would be a compromise. When we looked at the war in the woods, and we were saying, stop clear cutting old growth. What they said was, well, why don't we try variable retention in old growth? We knew there would be some kind of half assed compromise like that being proposed.”

“When Cermaq brought a semi closed containment system to Clayoquot Sound in 2020, we knew right away that's what they're going to be pushing for.”

“So we've been focusing a lot of effort on that. Our goal is to make sure that there's nothing in the water at the end of this transition. Fish farms in the water, it doesn't matter what kind, they're not going to work.”

 “We have an amazing videographer on our team, Jérémy Mathieu. He comes on our Clayoquot Action missions where we monitor the fish farms, and he's collected quite a bit of footage.”

Max Thaysen/Climate Action Network - When filmmaker Jon Cooksey talks about kicking ass in his frog-boiling film, he's referring to the application of pressure, embarrassing, shedding light on the people and institutions that are doing bad things. He points to the fact that we have massive access to video and publishing resources, so we can be ass-kicking youtube stars (or tiktok if that's your jam). 

The theory is, if businesses or politicians get bad press coverage, they will change their ways because they have strong self-preservation instincts.  And the opposite may be true: if no one is paying attention, then many of these people will do whatever they can get away with. 

The enemies of fairness, safety and progress would have us believe that this is basically 'clicktivism': the act of doing activism online. This term is used in a derogatory way, as in, "It's online, it's not 'real' so it can't have an impact, right?" 

Well... wrong. And I can prove it.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Starting on Saturday, January 11th,  Dance Temple Cortes will be held every two weeks in Manson's hole.  

"Everyone has an excuse not to dance. In Gabriel Roth's book, Sweat Your Prayers, there's  a two page list or maybe a three page list of all the reasons. That's great, if that's your choice, but there's something to be said for  getting over the resistance because there's no wrong way to dance. There's no wrong way to move. It's incredibly freeing to be in a space where you can  dance in all your goofiness, offbeat, rolling around, whatever works for you and just engage with your body in a healthy way," explained Connie Quail. 

"Sometimes it's just stretching that shoulder. You can do Dance Temple sitting in a chair. You can do Dance Temple lying on the floor. It's just about moving however feels freeing to each person.  That's the essence of Dance Temple. For some it's a spiritual practice. For some it's just a connective practice. For some It's healing, hence somatic healing, and for me, in my recovery from a dissociative disorder, embracing mindfulness practices has been key to what's brought me into being able to be functional and well again.  So good for mind, body, heart, and spirit."  

"The support of a room full of people doing that has a collective energy that helps us stay engaged with the energy in our bodies in a way that can be transformative."

Cortes Currents: How did you come to Cortes? 

Connie Quail: "I moved here first in 2003, and left Cortes for some years to spend some time in Victoria, where my kids were in high school."

"I found this weekly Dance Temple in Victoria and  I just started going every week."

"Dance Temple first began something like 15 years ago on Salt Spring Island and in Victoria. It's a model,  a container,  a way of doing dance."

"People picked it up all through the pandemic. Like Mary Lloyd, who facilitated dance on Cortes. She had these outdoor silent DJ headsets. We just kept dancing on the beach all through the pandemic and then back indoors when that was allowed." 

"It was slow to get the ball rolling on Cortes. I think it was just once a year for the first couple of years.  Naomi Jason, one of my mentors and one of the founders of Dance Temple, came to Cortes a couple of times."

"That just became  such an important source of community, of wellness for me,  a big part of my own healing journey. So I took facilitator training, I took DJ training just to be able to keep carrying  this forward and offering it where I live on Cortes so I still always have access to it. It's a little bit selfish that way, because I just want to keep dancing." 

"Andrew Lee and I picked it up with a lot of support from Dancing Wolf two years ago.  We said we want this in our lives and we want the DJ experience."

"I'm DJing Dance Temple in Campbell River at the end of the month.  I'm DJing in Mid Island - in Cedar Dance Temple, Salt Spring Dance Temple - in the coming year. Then in Victoria again.  It's a consistent container in every place it's offered, or as consistent as we can make it." 

"We start with very slow, gentle music, then slowly build, build, build, build, build in tempo and intensity of music until we reach a peak.  The peak is the chaos stage of five rhythms and then we go down through what would be lyrical and into silence. So, into a quiet relaxed ending, sometimes the sound is healing, sometimes it's just a little bit of breathing meditation."  

"So it's a whole journey that we go on, and there's something for everyone. Some people don't like the peak. For years, I didn't. I'd leave the dance temple in Victoria, go outside for a bit, just wait for the intensity to ease off, and then I'd go back in and rejoin the dance. Some people don't like the slowness at the ending, so they duck out early, after they've had their journey. There's so many ways to approach Dance Temple and it's so much fun."

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Audobin Society has been holding Christmas Bird Counts across North America for the past 125 years. On Cortes Island it is co-sponsored by the Cortes Island Museum and Birds Canada. Thirty-nine walkers, cyclists, boaters, and people in cars participated in Cortes Islands 2024 Christmas Bird Count.

This was the third time that more than 4,000 birds have been counted since the islands first Christmas Bird Count in 2001. A new record was set: 4,545 Birds were listed.

Donna Collins explained, "We had more birders out, more areas covered and lots of birds counted."

 The most numerous species were 1,057 Surf Scoters.

There were also three unusual sightings. This is the first time Ring-billed gulls have been listed in a Christmas count. Laurel Bohart counted 32. Turkey vultures are not usually seen this time of year. One was seen during the week in 2014, but it did not make it into the official count. Sierra Sullivan saw a Turkey vulture this year.  Michael Sullivan saw three American coots.  

 

Laurel Bohart and Donna Collins agreed to describe their experience of the day.  

Laurel Bohart: "Donna showed up at my place in Squirrel Cove. I had already looked at the birds on my feeder, which were maybe 12 Juncos. We went directly to the dump  to check on birds there  and spotted 6 Ravens. Of course, they're always there when the dump is open because of food. Along with them, there were some wrens."  

Donna Collins: "We were having a hard time because we could hear them, but couldn't see them."

Laurel Bohart: "It's hard to see them because they were lurking in the bush. We spent some time just on the driveway, in and out of the Recycling Centre.  Unfortunately my binoculars aren't very good and her eyes are better than mine and sharper. So she was just describing what they might be. We had the bird book with us and were frantically looking through the pages."  

"We saw a whole cloud of Pine Siskins."  

Cortes Currents: Can either of you recognize the birds by their sounds?  

Laurel Bohart: "A Wren's like ‘chik chik, chik chik, chik chik, chiche, chik, chik, chiche, chik,  chik.’ That's the alarm call."  

"The other calls were more a mingled sound,  kind of a high pitched ‘we wi wi wi  wi  wi.’”  

Cortes Currents: What was that?

Laurel Bohart: "That would be birds higher up in the trees and no, I couldn't really tell which ones they were. I could hear them, although my hearing aid is not perfect."

"The  adventure came  first of all, when we went down to the waterfront by the Squirrel Cove store." 

"I have never seen so many gulls in my life. The gulls were Glaucus-winged Gulls mostly.  There was one Mew gull, one Bonaparte's and a bunch of Ring billed gulls,  all splashing very happily right around, right in the creek's mouth and making a great deal of noise."

"What was happening was the gush of water out of the Basil Creek estuary was fanning farther out into the ocean. Behind that fan, where all the birds were in front, there were sea lions or seals. We had a line of a couple dozen Bufflehead ducks cleaning their feathers in the fresh water. There were Goldeneye ducks, I think there was four. There was a whole line of Surf Scoters, at least a dozen."  

"What caught our attention was the crows between there and the Klahoose First Nation."

Cortes Currents: In the final tally it says you saw 89 crows. Do you have any explanation for that number?

De Clarke/Cortes Currents - There has been a flurry of media stories about the dangers of eating raw oysters lately, but Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) confirmed that there have been no problems with Cortes Island grown oysters. (And there have been no problems anywhere with cooked oysters.) Only one of the 8 emergency closures DF0 listed, in response to Cortes Currents request, is in the Discovery Islands. A DFO notice from December 23 states, “The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has received reports of illness linked to BC Aquaculture Tenure Landfile #1402974” in the Bold Island-Crescent Channel area between Quadra and Read Islands. The other 7 oyster closures pertained to 42 ‘Landfiles’ in the Baynes Sound area across from Denman Island.

Mo Qutob, Communications Advisor with Fisheries & Oceans Canada, emailed that all of the closures he listed were in force as of December 31, 2024.

“The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has received illness reports linked to aquaculture tenures in British Columbia and has recommended emergency closures for certain aquaculture tenures within Pacific Fisheries Management Areas 13 and 14.”

The Crescent Channel tenure mentioned above is in Management Area 13 (Subarea 13-12), and the Baynes Sound closures were in Management Area 14 (Subareas 14-8 and 14-15).

Two of the Landfiles mentioned In DF0’s December 19, 2024, closure notice (#1402293, #1413888), were also in US reports about people being infected with Norovirus after eating ‘raw oysters from British Columbia.’ The associated DFO notice mentions ‘multiple reports of illness’ and lists closures to 13 Landfiles in the Baynes Sound area.

A second closure notice, issued the same day, lists closures to another 18 Landfiles in the Baynes Sound area.

An extensive list of these and subsequent closure notices is at the bottom of this page.

Qutob: “The Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program (CSSP) is a federal food safety program jointly administered by the CFIA, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and DFO. The goal of the program is to minimize the health risks associated with the consumption of contaminated bivalve molluscan shellfish such as mussels, oysters and clams.”

“As partners in the CSSP, CFIA conducts testing for biotoxins and ECCC conducts water quality sampling. DFO’s role as partner in the CSSP is to enact fishery openings and closures based on recommendations from CFIA and ECCC. Please reach out to those agencies for specific information concerning biotoxins and water quality sampling.”

“DFO’s mandate under the CSSP is to manage shellfish harvest (e.g., to close and open areas, patrol closures) and provide support to illness investigations.”

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/Folk U - On Friday December 27th Manda Aufochs Gillespie from Folk U and Jane Newman from the Cortes Island Museum teamed up to present stories of snow on Cortes. A festive radio story telling event where neighbours tell their favourite stories of fun, festivities and mishaps. All things snowy on Cortes.

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 - Modern geneticists have shown us that the past is much closer than most of us realize. We carry the genetic coding from previous generations in our DNA and it can be traced back 200,000 to 300,000 years. Adam Rutherford went further, proclaiming everyone with European roots descends from Charlemagne (as well as his most humble followers). His point being that the number of your direct ancestors doubles every generation you count backward. By the time you count back 33 generations—about 800 to 1,000 years ago—you have more than 8 billion ancestors. By way of contrast, the population of England is believed to have only been about 2 million in 1,000 AD. At that point you had 4,000 ‘ancestors’ for every living person. This means your genealogy is populated by the same people counted over and over again through different lines of descent. If you are of English ancestry, something of even greater antiquity like the Stonehenge artefacts currently being exhibited at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria is definitely about your heritage.

Greg Osoba/Folk U - On December 20, 2024, host Greg Osoba was joined by guitarist Michael Keith to chat about all things guitar: theory, terminology, sounds, effects, and practice. This is a fun, demonstrative interview for both total beginners and advanced players looking for some new inspiration.

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 - At their December 11 meeting, the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board passed a bylaw to regulate bulk water processing, bottling and sales on Maurelle, Sonora, Stuart, and the Rendezvous islands.

Three Campbell River Directors voted against receiving the staff report for this bylaw.

Director Susan Sinnott explained,  “I just want to hear from staff, the reasons necessary. Is there a pending application for people to bulk water in the distillation sound area? Is there an imminent issue?”

Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch replied,  “The impetus of this. Bylaws came from the directors. So I think it's probably more appropriate for the director to speak to it.”

Cortes Island Director Mark Vonesch pointed out,  “This is the same bylaw we already passed for Area D, Cortes and Quadra Islands.”

Director Sinnott:  “Well, thank you, my recollection was there was concerns about water usage and aquifer protection. I just wanted to know if this was similar. I don't know if there's an issue in the Desolation Sound area that's similar.”

Robyn Mawhinney is the Regional Director for Area C, which includes Quadra, Maurelle, Sonora, Stuart, and the Rendezvous islands:

 “Although it says the Desolation Sound Rural Land Use Bylaw it's funnily enough, not in Desolation Sound. It's Read, Maurelle, Sonora, Stuart, and the Rendezvous Islands. If you look at the bylaws, it's really about providing an opportunity for community to have a public hearing If there is an application for a commercial water extraction enterprise.”

 Director Sinnot: So raising my question again, are we regulating something that's not ever going to happen? I can't imagine there's ever going to be a person that wants to bulk water bottling or any type of extraction of a very remote area without ferry service. So one, I don't like the idea of regulating things if we don't have to, but second of all, we're intruding into an area outside our jurisdiction if it's about water preservation.”

Director Mawhinney: “I would suggest that providing an opportunity for the community to have input on a commercial enterprise, which could drastically affect their drinking water is reasonable. I think when you look at what happened in Merville, if you wait until an application is coming forward it's too late.”

The concern about bulk water extraction can be traced back to a Merville property owner’s idea to bottle and sell the water beneath his property.

On March 8, 2023, two weeks before CVRD approved MacKenzie’s application, Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney asked the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) to report on the possibilities for limiting groundwater extraction within Area C. The District had just gone through the severest drought in Campbell River’s records and it was about to go through the drought of 2023.

On September 25, 2024, the SRD passed bylaws prohibiting ‘bulk water sales, bulk water processing and bulk water bottling’ on any upland or foreshore area of Cortes or Quadra except where expressly permitted within a zone.

That was when Director Mawhinney then introduced what has erroneously been called the Desolation Sound Bulk Water Regulation.

Director Mawhinney: “ We've had a public hearing and the community was in support of it, as they have been for Area D, Area B (Cortes Island) and the Quadra island portion of Area C.”