Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - There has been a colourful addition to the Tyee Mall. The four brightly coloured boxcar-like units are a remembrance of Campbell River’s old logging railroads. They are also part of an innovative project designed to have cottage industries make the transition to brick and mortar stores. The Rail Yard Market has been open for about 3 months.

"The project is fantastic. I think it gives little entrepreneurs like myself and the rest of  my pod mates here a fantastic opportunity. We're allowed to be here for up to three years at a time  and the city also provides business initiatives like marketing and online resources. They're putting us  into a course right now. We've done  two days in October and we'll probably do another two days in November. It gives us a lot of help to survive today's economy and a leg up on what to expect when we get to a real brick and mortar. I think we can be a success and I'm hoping that they'll open more," said Tina from Maggie's treats. "I think the Mayor had a real winner with this one."

Cortes Currents: Whose idea was this?

Tina: "It was the Mayor Kermit Dahl's idea. Mayor Kermit Dahl was actually my first sale as well. He doesn't own a dog, he bought a bag of dog treats for his neighbour."

Rose Klukas, Director of Economic Development for the city of Campbell River explained, "It  came together in maybe a roundabout way. On an annual basis, the provincial government makes available a grant to communities and particularly communities that have a strong connection to a resource sector, in this case forestry, which have been impacted by change.  They make grant funding available through a REDIP (Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program) grant. It's a way for communities to try to diversify their local economy."

"Simultaneously, we had a practically brand new mayor at the time. Kermit Dahl came with an idea that we should be looking for opportunities to grow businesses in Campbell River. He had seen various examples of this, including in Langford,  and asked the Economic Development department to figure out a way to replicate that model here in Campbell River as a way to support the growth."

"One of the challenges that businesses have today is that starting up is expensive. Rents in British Columbia are expensive and so this is a way to allow businesses to get their roots grown and hopefully move on from these units into more traditional bricks and mortar down the road."

Cortes Currents: Tell me how you went from an idea to opening the doors to those four businesses?

Rose Klukas: "Very quickly, which is the case from almost anything you do in Economic Development. We had two or three weeks to flesh out the concept and get the application in by the deadline. All this was happening over Christmas and then we had to wait for approval of the grant,  which we weren't guaranteed for sure. During that waiting period, we gave some more thought to what this program could look like. We’re not inventing the wheel. We connected with other communities, to learn from them. What are some best practices? What could they have done differently? Or what should they have done differently?

“I think it was probably in March or April that we were approved for the grant."

The Rail Yard Market officially opened on September 13th, but as you will soon hear,  some of the stories have been there since the end of July.  Maggie's Treats, the Tin Can Pottery Shop, the Mossy Coast and Sinfully Delicious each rent an 8 by 20 foot module.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/Folk U - On Friday, October 25, host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by musician Ruby Singh and musician and principal of the Cortes School Michael Datura, to chat about biosonification, technology, and their collaborative projects kraKIN and Polyphonic Garden. Tune in for music, philosophy, and lively discussion.

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.

De Clarke/Cortes Currents - The conclusion of an interview with Gabriel Dinim about his experiences building and driving an

De Clarke/Cortes Currents - In 2019 and 2020, Cortes Currents ran a series of articles about e-bikes on the island, interviewing owners about the pros and cons of their electric-assisted rides. One of the featured bikes was quite unusual: an electric sidecar cargo trike, designed and built by local resident Gabriel Dinim.

It's now four years later, and Currents checked in with Gabriel about his DIY personal EV. It has been his primary transportation for the last four years, and he's quite satisfied. We asked him whether he's ever found the trike inadequate and needed to borrow a car:

The only time I've borrowed a car, was when I had to go to the clinic for early blood work and they had to measure the cortisol -- and I didn't want to arrive there all stressed out from riding. And it was cold -- so I borrowed a car to do that. Aside from that, No...

I mean, I did borrow a car sometimes to move firewood around -- which I could do with the bike, but it takes so many trips, you know. I can put 80, 90 pounds of firewood in the bike. But it's so much easier to borrow a van and put a thousand pounds of firewood in it and just transport it.

Otherwise, yes, it's met all of my needs. In the winter, too, I've ridden in two, three below zero. Just long johns, wool pants -- just lots of gear.

De Clarke/Cortes Currents -In 2019 and 2020, Cortes Currents ran a series of articles about e-bikes on the island, interviewing owners about the pros and cons of their electric-assisted rides. One of the featured bikes was quite unusual: an electric sidecar cargo trike, designed and built by local resident Gabriel Dinim.

It’s now four years later, and Currents checked in with Gabriel about his DIY personal EV. It has been his primary transportation for the last four years, and he’s quite satisfied. We asked him whether he’s ever found the trike inadequate and needed to borrow a car:

The only time I’ve borrowed a car, was when I had to go to the clinic for early blood work and they had to measure the cortisol — and I didn’t want to arrive there all stressed out from riding. And it was cold — so I borrowed a car to do that. Aside from that, No…

I mean, I did borrow a car sometimes to move firewood around — which I could do with the bike, but it takes so many trips, you know. I can put 80, 90 pounds of firewood in the bike. But it’s so much easier to borrow a van and put a thousand pounds of firewood in it and just transport it.

Otherwise, yes, it’s met all of my needs. In the winter, too, I’ve ridden in two, three below zero. Just long johns, wool pants — just lots of gear.

De Clarke/Cortes Currents - Part two of an interview with Gabriel Dinim about his DIY e Trike

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Chum started returning to Basil Creek a week ago. To an inexperienced eye, the water levels seemed too low on the 16th, but dozens of large salmon were progressing upstream beyond the culvert. Christine Robinson said that she and her husband Cec had seen them the previous day. That was when we agreed to do this interview. 

“We know it's the big year in their four year cycle. Chum primarily have a four year cycle, a few of them three, and a few of them five, but the majority have a four year cycle.  In 2020, four years ago, approximately 1100 fish came back to Basil Creek. Four years prior to that, in 2016, there were about 1100. We're not alone in this. All the creeks are in a similar cycle. Basil Creek, of course, is the main stream on Cortes for salmon return. So we're optimistic that it should be a big year this time,” explained Cec Robinson, one of the principal Streamkeepers on Cortes Island.

“Just a few weeks ago, Fisheries was anticipating a very poor return, based on their test fishery.  They couldn't find them and they thought that they weren't there, but the Chum pulled a lovely surprise. They were somewhere, and here they come. Lots of Chum have been spotted.” 

“They are so full of energy when they first come in, they're all excited. They're above average size this year, too. Beautiful, strong, big fish, nicest we've ever seen. That's also encouraging because the larger fish have more eggs and, also, larger fish eggs. It bodes well for the survivability  of their offspring.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Community Foundation just published Cortes Island’s Vital Signs report.  

“ When I started with the Community Foundation a few years ago, I  was already in the community, trying to make things happen. In particular, I tried to make things happen in the most grassroots  small nonprofit ways possible, but often in the area where I saw that there was a lot of need. Very quickly, I was in the process of writing grants and trying to figure out how to bring in those resources that I knew were out there somewhere,” explained Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Executive Director of the Cortes Foundation. 

“We're all being taxed the same as someone who lives in the city more or less, but when you look around, we don't have transit and fancy bike lanes and we don't have subsidized housing like the cities have. So I said, I know that there's money out there. There must be a way to bring some of that money here to Cortes. One of the things I realized very quickly is that we did not have data related to Cortes. Volunteers on the island would be like, ' we clearly have a housing crisis' but how do we try to express that because no one believes that rural communities at the time had a housing crisis.  By and large, the data that was available to us had us lumped in with the entire Strathcona Regional District, including Campbell River.”

“If you look at child vulnerability rates in Campbell River, they're looking at available childcare spots: What kind of resources are going into after school programming for the youngest? What kind of early literacy programs there are? What kind of food bank supports are available for families with young kids?” 

“When we tried to see how our young kids were doing, there was basically nothing.  I would be talking to Desta Beattie, at the family services on Cortes, and she would say, 'I cannot get them to give us funding for a head start program, because I cannot show them that we have any particular need.'”  

“When I started working with the Community Foundation, a few years ago, I learned about  Vital Signs and Vital Signs are usually done by community foundations with a lot more resources. Community foundations told the stories of needs and opportunities specific to their communities because  a community foundation's job is to help bring the resources that a community needs to thrive and bring the knowledge of how best to leverage those resources into the hands of the community.”

“I was like, 'we need to start with understanding what the opportunities are,  what the needs are and what an amazing thing that this Vital Signs tool exists.'  The Vital Signs tool is largely just a framework for looking at the health of the whole community.”

“It has taken us a number of years to be able to come up with enough capacity and financial wherewithal to do it. I was told recently by one of the people who helped us with this project that we are, as far as she knows, the smallest community foundation to ever do a Vital Signs of this size.”

“We specifically tied our Vital Signs into the release of the Campbell River Vital Signs. That beautiful community foundation offered to support us in a number of ways. One of the biggest ways was that they gave us a page in their print document because we are many thousands of dollars away from having the resources to do our own print document.”

“We have this page that's going to thousands of people in and around the Campbell River area, including our representatives that sit on the Board for the Regional District and other government officials who make funding decisions for us. They get to see one page about Cortes, amongst the other things, and a link to our whole report, which is on our website.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - A day before the election 338Canada is predicting a slight NDP majority.

338Canada is a campaign website that uses available polling data, each riding’s history, and population data etc. It predicts the outcome of the election for every riding and has been used in 13 elections. They have been right close to 90% of the time. They were wrong, but still within the margin of error 6% and totally wrong in 4% out of 1,657 electoral district races.

This prediction for the election was made Oct 16:

49 seats for the NDP

and 42 for the Conservatives.

As this is based on projections that show the popular vote very close (45% to 43% respectively) and this is within the margin of error (4%), the race could still be very close.

The NDP need 47 seats to form a majority government.

They are especially vulnerable in the 5 ridings where their lead is within the margin of error. This means their number of seats could (but probably won’t) sink to 44.

The Conservative lead is especially vulnerable in 10 ridings, which means their total number of seats could be as low as 32.

Our North Island riding is one of the ones where the Conservatives have a slight lead, but the race is so close 338Canada is calling it a ‘toss up.’

The popular vote for:

Andy Kindy was projected at 44%,

Michele Babchuk at 43%

and Nic Dedeluk 13%.

The margin of error for both Kindy and Babchuk is 7%, which means either of them could win.

The Green Party is expected to take 2 ridings (Saanich North and the Islands and Furstenau’s own Victoria Beacon Hill riding) could take 3 and it is possible they may take 4. They are only 2% behind the Conservatives in West Vancouver Sea to Sky, which means that race is still a ‘toss up’ and they are 6% behind the NDP in Furstenau’s old Cowichan Valley riding.

Overall, 338Canada is stating the Conservatives could still win, but gives them only a 20% chance.

They gave the NDP a 69% chance of victory and a 5% chance this will only be a minority government.

Of course if a large number of NDP supporters stay home, as happened when Christy Clark was elected in 2011, the Conservatives could win.

The recent Angus Reid poll identified two segments of the population who are especially pro-NDP: women and males under the age of 34. Given the closeness of the vote, their votes (or decision to not vote) may decide the election.

The Green Party’s hopes of increasing their number of seats beyond 2 most likely depend on the same segments of the population.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - There has been a lot going on at the Cortes Community Housing Society. They are starting to provide housing for the community, are supporting changes to the island’s bylaws and are acting as a matchmaker for potential renters and landlords. However the first story I want to cover this morning is about the aquifer study that is about to begin.