Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Campbell River residents will be holding a ‘Rally for Our Community’ outside of the city hall at 5 PM on Thursday, September 24, 2026. The future of some of the city’s greenways may be at stake. In this morning’s interview Gloria Heistermann, who is organizing the rally, and Barb Round, of Save Sims Creek, explain some of the issues involved.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Weather permitting, Earth Chat takes place in the courtyard beside the Cortes Natural Food Co-op, in Mansons Landing, every Friday from noon to 2 p.m. This is the third year Maureen Williams has been there, from spring through fall.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Fire Department successfully passed the tests needed for Superior Tanker Shuttle Service accreditation. Some Cortes Island residents in Whaletown and the south of the island will probably see their home insurance bills reduced by hundreds of dollars. Where and how much is up to the individual insurance companies, and it will be months before we see the final numbers. Some parts of the island like Squirrel Cove, Mary Point and the Olmstead Road area that will not see any change, at least not yet. While monetary savings is an important topic, achieving Superior Tanker Shuttle Service (STSS) accreditation is also a significant milestone in the Cortes Island Fire Department's development. Fire Chief Eli McKenty was on the ferry when Cortes Currents caught up to him for further details.

Roy L Hales /Cortes Currents - Filipe Figueira felt the urge to paint for decades before bursting onto the local art scene with a solo exhibition at the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery. That was two years and many paintings ago. Since then, Filipe has exhibited in Sooke, and was one of the contributors to a show organized by the Federation of Canadian Artists on Granville Island. In March, he had a residency in Portugal and his exhibition 'In Positive Space' is currently on display at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Rainbow Ridge Affordable Housing Project will soon be connected to the electrical grid. Traffic on Beasley Road was reduced to a single lane last week while underground electrical service was installed beneath the road. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was also held recently, so Cortes Currents spoke with Sadhu Johnston, executive director of the Cortes Housing Society, for an update.

Sadhu Johnston: "We’re sitting here at Rainbow Ridge in the community building, which is now complete. That really feels like a great accomplishment for this community."

"We held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the building just a couple of weeks ago. It was a really fun event, with about 150 or 200 people attending. One of the children who will be living in that building over there cut the ribbon, along with our founder, Sandra Wood, Chief Kevin Peacey from the Klahoose Nation and Mark Vonesch, our Regional Director."

"It was a really nice opportunity to stop and say, “Wow, we’ve got a community building here. We now have laundry facilities, offices, water and a guest bedroom. That feels like a real step forward."

"We also have three residential buildings that are now out of the ground. One has been occupied since July 1, with two families living in it. It’s really great to have people living on the property after so many years of the community talking about using this land for housing."

"Our second duplex is nearing completion, and the residents will be moving in on October 1. It will be our second occupied building and will also house two families. Each of these families has children, so in about three weeks, we’ll have five kids living on the property."

"We’re across the street from the school, and the skate park, new multi-use courts and trail are all right here. It’s a great location for families and children."

"The next building will open on January 1, 2027. There is a two-bedroom unit where a mother and her child will be living. We also have a one-bedroom unit that we are currently in the process of leasing."

"There has been a lot of progress in getting these buildings up and occupied. For the most part, we’ve been operating on solar power and batteries because we haven’t had a BC Hydro connection."

"We’re very enthusiastic about getting BC Hydro connected to the property before winter because the solar panels produce less power when it’s rainy and cloudy. We really want to go into the winter with BC Hydro connections to each of the homes."

"As you can see from all the trenches around here, we’re very much in the middle of getting everything ready. We’ve just cut through Beasley Road and installed all the connections beneath it."

"In the next few days, all the metering and connections should be completed. We’ll then be ready for BC Hydro to run the wires through the conduits and connect us to the grid."

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - UBC partnered with Hornby Island to run Seaweed School, a program that allowed high-school-aged students to remain in their community for an additional year instead of attending high school in Courtenay. Through fieldwork with UBC instructors and biology undergraduates, students learned to identify, study and monitor local seaweed species.

This is more than an academic excersize.

According to Dr. Bridgette Clarkston, “Seaweeds are the forests of our oceans—the primary producers of ecosystems, providing oxygen, food, carbon sequestration, and more.” Yet these vital underwater forests are under threat: “Most of the big canopy-forming kelps have perished over the last few decades, likely due to rising temperatures.” The research conducted by Seaweed school is adding to our knowledge of local seaweeds.

In today’s program, we speak with Dr. Clarkston, a co-creator of Seaweed School and an associate professor of teaching in UBC’s Department of Botany, and Seaweed School alumna Ava Zielinski.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents: It has been a year since Rob Everson and his daughter Keisha mailed political leaders in North Island copies of their booklet 'Cultural Erasure: The Impact of Colonization - Past, Present and Future. Everson is the Hereditary Chief of the Gigalgam Walas Kwagut around Port Hardy and the Pentlatch people from the Cowichan area. On Wednesday, August 26, Chief Everson gave the SRD Board a brief explanation of the political and legal challenges facing Indigenous peoples in British Columbia today. This is a highly edited and abridged version of that talk.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Local family folk band, the Awakeneers, joined host Manda Aufochs Gillespie on Friday, September 4, 2026 to listen to their new album, Live at the Duncan Showroom, which was released in summer 2026. Tune into 89.5fm CKTZ to hear the album, song by song, and listen to the band give background and tell stories about each tune!

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. @ CKTZ 89.5FM or livestreamed at cortesradio.ca. Find repeats anytime at www.folku.ca/podcasts.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At its August 26 meeting, the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board approved the wording of four measures to be put before voters during the October 17, 2026, local election.

The most controversial, originating from Campbell River and its allies, was for residents of Campbell River, Electoral Area D, and Quadra Island to say whether they thought Quadra Island residents should help pay for Campbell River’s Strathcona Gardens recreation complex.

The other questions pertaining to wood-chipping services on Cortes Island and in Electoral Area C, as well as services supporting seniors and youth on Cortes Island. The wording of all four measures was approved.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The new Canada’s Changing Climate Report, from Environment and Climate Change Canada, states the global average temperature rise since the pre-industrial era is currently on course for  2.7°C. Even if the world were to adopt net zero policies it will not be possible to limit the rise to less than 1.8°C.  

The situation is worse in Northern latutudes. "Since Since 1970, Canada has warmed nearly twice as fast as the global average, and the Canadian Arctic has warmed three times as fast as the global average."

Canada's average temperature has warmed by 2.0°C and is on course to reach 5.0°C. The situation will be worse in northern Canada, where the rise could reach 10.0°C. Even if Canada were to stop expanding oil and LNG production, stop building pipelines, and reduce its emissions to net zero, it no longer appears possible to limit the increase in the country’s average temperature to less than 3.5°C.