Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales. Cortes Currents - Moorage for recreational boats is even more limited on Cortes Island this year and vessels intending to stay more than 3 nights must make prior arrangements with the Harbour Authority Cortes Island. In addition, Small Craft Harbours regulations for using winches have changed. The manual winches at Mansons Landing and Whaletown have been decommissioned. The winch at the Squirrel Cove dock is available for commercial users who make prior arrangements through the Harbour Authority. The general public is no longer allowed access except through certified staff provided by the Harbour Authority.    

“Over the last few years, we have seen a drastic increase in the number of requests for moorage spaces.  We are Small Craft Harbors owned facilities and so we are mandated to provide priority mortgage to commercial fishing vessels, aquaculture and then other commercial vessels. If there is space available after those priority needs have been met, we offer it to the community,” explained Harbourmaster Jenny Hartwick.

“There's more and more applicants for the limited  number of spaces that we have available for recreational moorage at every one of the docs. And so we just want to remind users that if you are looking for  anything over 3 nights mortgage at 1 of our docs, you must apply in advance and you must have a signed and approved moorage agreement in place.”

“Several of the docks on Cortez are now full for the summer season. We are no longer taking mortgage requests for the Whaletown Dock or the Cortes Bay Dock. We do have some long term recreational spots available still at Mansons and at Squirrel Cove, but again, as the season progresses, those spaces do fill up. So please reach out to the Harbour Authority and ensure the documentation is in place prior to bringing your vessel to the dock.” 

“Small Craft Harbours recently changed their requirements for winch usage.”

“We have removed the manual derricks at the Mansons and Whaletown docks. At this point in time, those winches have been decommissioned. They are owned by Small Craft Harbours. We're waiting to hear what their plan is for those pieces of infrastructure.”

“In order to access the winches or the derricks on the Squirrel Cove dock, you now need to be a commercial user and provide proof of WCB coverage  as well as sign a winch user agreement with the Harbour Authority. The winch is no longer available for drop-in public use without first contacting the Harbor Authority. We can still arrange that we do have certified trained staff who will come down and have to be on site if the winch is being operated by a non-commercial user. Please reach out to the Harbour Authority. We can facilitate that.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - So far, there have only been minor fires on Cortes, Quadra and Read Islands, but the BC government warns that the province will see more large fires in the future. “Longer, hotter summers lead to more droughts and a longer wildfire season. Dry conditions make it easier for lightning storms and strong winds to start fires. These fires can spread, combine and burn for longer.”

This is not a local phonemenon. A new study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution found that there has been more than a two fold increase in the number of wildfires, around the globe, during the past two decades.

There was a 7-fold increase in Alaska, Canada and Russia.

Lead author Calum Cunningham, from the University of Tsamania in Australia, told APF that, "The effects of climate change are no longer just something of the future. We are now witnessing the manifestation of a drying and heating atmosphere.” 

Cunningham and his colleagues used satellite data to study the energy intensity of nearly 31 million daily fire events between 2003 and 2023. Their focus was about 2,900 extreme events.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Harbour Authority Cortes Island is asking the public to not use its upper Gorge Harbour parking lot or park at the Whaletown Commercial Dockhead until further notice. There is work underway at both locations.  

"A few years ago the Harbour Authority entered into a lease agreement with MOTI, the Ministry of Transportation, and we actually hold the road allowance leases for the lower part of Robertson Road. We  did some clearing,  graveled and then developed a parking lot," explained Harbourmaster Jenny Hartwick.

"There is a second area that is leased by the Harbor Authority,  immediately adjacent to  the BC Hydro's yard.  Recognizing that there is very serious congestion and a real lack of parking for the commercial users that use the Gorge Dock, the Harbor Authority is moving ahead with some plans to clear and develop the parking area adjacent to  the hydro yard. We hope to make several more parking spaces available that we'll be able to offer to our mortgage agreement holders and commercial users."

Cortes Currents: Is the dock closed? 

Jenny Hartwick: "The Gorge commercial dock is open.  It's commercial use only at that particular dock.  We don't take recreational users there. The dock is full to the brim with our regular commercial users." 

Cortes Currents: When does the work in the upper parking lot begin and how long will it last?

Jenny Harwick: "It sounds like the contractors will be in at the beginning of next week to clear the upper lots. So at this point in time, the request is simply that individuals who have left vehicles, boats, boat trailers, anything that's being stored in the current parking areas at the Gorge Commercial Dock find alternate areas to leave their vehicles while this project is happening. Contractors need access to the space. There will be heavy machinery operating in that area."

"We don't expect it to take a significant amount of time, but we do have material and there are some things which need to be shuffled from the new lot, which is being cleared, into the lower lot for a temporary time while these upgrades happen."

"Once the upgrades are complete, we'll be reaching out to the community with phase two of the parking plan and that will start to address the allocation of spots for the commercial users." 

Cortes Currents: What’s happening at the Whaletown dock?

Jenny Hartwick: "The Whaletown Commercial dock wharfhead is, until further notice, closed to all vehicle traffic. There are some substructure issues which we need to address.  None of which are debilitating, but they do need to be addressed before in good conscience we can allow vehicle traffic on to that facility again. The dock does remain open. There's no absolutely 0 concerns in terms of accessing that facility by foot."

"We will be building a barricade.  We are trying to source a dolly or a wheelbarrow for those individuals who do need to be transporting larger amounts of material. So the dock and the wharf head do remain open to foot traffic. You can bicycle, you can do everything you want on the dock. We just ask that you do not bring a vehicle onto the wharf head at this time." 

"The community may or may not know that   the whale town commercial dock is not one of the small craft harbors owned facilities on the island.  It was an old transport Canada dock, which was divested to the harbor authority in the late 2000s."

"When the dock was divested to the harbor authority, it was brought up to good standards and has been maintained at that level for a number of years. However 20 plus years have gone by and there are some structural elements, which need to be addressed."

"We just had a phenomenal structural survey done. The structure of the dock does look good, but there are a few maintenance concerns."

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - On Sunday, June 2nd, a 50 foot vessel sank near the Squirrel Cove dock on Cortes island.

"There was quite a lengthy,  involved, process with the Coast Guard and Transport Canada. I am very happy to say  that the vessel has now been removed and environmental remediation has taken place, but that was quite an exciting event for the Harbour Authority," explained Jenny Hartwick, Harbourmaster for the Harbour Authority Cortes Island (HACI).

"I always want to stress this to the community., the 1st thing you do when you see a vessel that you have concerns about either because of an environmental spill or because it looks like it's about to go down or has gone down, is to call the Coast Guard ROC (Regional Operating Centre of the Coast Guard). It is their triage centre, which is based in Victoria. And the number for that is 1 800 889 8852.  They provide 24/ 7 coverage. When you call that number, you will reach a live person.  That person will collect some information from you. They'll ask for pictures to be sent. They may ask for length of vessel and information about the particular situation. They will craft their response around the information that's provided.”

"In this case, when the boat went down the owner happened to be on site and was there immediately."

"We actually have our own summer Coast Guard IRB station, the inshore rescue boat (IRB boat) in Cortes Bay. They access the water through the Seattle Yacht Club.”

“We were able to get an extremely fast response because there was a very local crew that didn't have far to travel to do the initial assessment. Somebody came by relatively quickly, and  the decision was made to boom the vessel.”

 

"The Coast Guard made the decision to act on that vessel immediately because of the size of the vessel and the potential for hydrocarbon pollution and contamination."

Cortes Currents: Have there been occasions when the Coast Guard didn't respond quickly. I'm thinking of the derelict boats at Squirrel Cove a couple of years ago.  

Jenny Hartwick: "A couple of years ago, anyone who's familiar with the Squirrel Cove Dock would have noticed that there were 3 derelict boats which sat on shore for a significant amount of time.”

"Like I said, the very first step in the process is always to call the regional operating center, the Coast Guard ROC will always respond to every call.  It may not be an immediate physical response, but they will always evaluate every phone call that comes in. In the case of the boats sitting on the shore in Squirrel Cove, they physically visited those vessels. They removed any potential hydrocarbons. So they felt that there were no immediate concerns of environmental damage and at that point in time, those vessels were triaged and handed over to Transport Canada.”

"The unfortunate  situation is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of derelict vessels on the BC coast. When a boat gets added to the Transport Canada inventory, It's added to that list, but there's no guarantee that it's going to end up at the top of that list.  It can take significant time for a boat that ends up on that side of the program to work its way to the top where we finally see some action.”

Cortes Currents: What's the Harbor Authorities role in this kind of situation.  

Jenny Hartwick: "One of the really important things to note is that the Harbor Authority’s jurisdiction is extremely small and is limited only to a very small  water area surrounding the docks themselves. The minute a vessel leaves the dock and gets outside of that lease area, we, as a Harbour Authority, lose our ability to act on it. Those boats were sitting outside of our water lot and we no longer had the ability to use our legal and environmental programs to act on them."

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The summer market season begins on Wednesday June 26th, from 12:30-3:00 PM.

“We're having our first artisans market at Hollyhock,  just outside the garden and the lodge in the grassy area above the hot tubs. This is our first in a series of  five or six markets that are happening  every second Wednesday afternoon over the summer.  We have a variety of artists, fiber artists, ceramicists, lotions, potion makers, clothing makers, painters and live music,” explained Tamlyn Collingwoood, Business Mentorship Coordinator for the Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA).

“Come and check it out, everyone's welcome.”

“This whole plan came out of a meeting that I had with Hollyhock, in the early winter, where they shared  their  wonderful ‘Things To Do’ program. This is where they look for activities in the community for their guests to engage in, on their afternoons off.  My thought was to create some activities that also involve engaging with the community, engaging with local businesses and artists - making it  a win-win-win situation.”

Cortes Currents: Where are you getting your artists and artisans? And can anyone get involved if they want to? 

Tamlyn Collingwoood: “There’s limited space, so it’s pretty much full now, but hopefully we'll be able to spread out once the grass is fully grown. It was just recently seeded. The market is curated to support local artisans and local small businesses.”

Cortes Currents: Are they all from the Friday Market?  

Tamlyn Collingwoood: “No, there are a couple of vendors who come from the Friday market, but also some that don't. We do have one vendor from off island, Hillary from “Elsewhere Clothing,’ a very popular handmade clothing line  from Vancouver Island. She comes once in a while to the Friday Market.”

Some of the other artisans were listed in a press release:Moon Cat Magicals, Wild Spirit Glass, Twigroot Botanicals, Soft Rock Ceramics, Tenant Farms Handicrafts, Stephanie Whitman, Art Spirit Drum and Brigid Weiler Art.

Tamlyn Collingwoood: “Once I started getting the word out there, about this market, a couple of the old timers told me that  there used to be an artisans market down by the beach at Hollyhock and that it was really fun. Some of those folks were just really excited to see that this was happening again, and I was really happy to hear  that this was something that people enjoyed and that we were bringing it back to life.”

“I will be advertising the market in my usual bombarding way  on all of the social media pages, the Tideline and sending it out to my email list.” 

“It's not just for Hollyhock guests. It's also to attract Cortes residents, or folks that might be here in the summer, to have a wander through the Hollyhock Garden, maybe visit the store or have a little bit of lunch before the market.  Come and enjoy the setting and check out  some really nice locally made art.”

Cortes Currents: Do you have to pre book for the restaurant? 

Tamlyn Collingwoood: “Yes,  there is a reservation system  for booking lunches at Hollyhock.  Anyone wanting to do that should phone Hollyhock and book ahead.  Lunch goes from 12:30 to 1:30. We'll be setting up the market right at the beginning of lunch, so people can get a little refreshment from the restaurant as well and come out and enjoy the market.” 

Cortes Currents: What about the music? 

Tamlyn Collingwoood: “Michael Keith is playing music for this market, which is fabulous. It's always a great time to have Michael playing music and just creating a nice vibe. Hopefully he'll be able to play for us again at one of our other markets.  All the vendors fees goes towards paying the musician, so if we have enough vendors, then we can hopefully afford to bring over a band that I really enjoyed  listening to at the Quadra Market.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - ‘Painting With Eyes Closed,’ an exhibition by Filipe Figueira opens at the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery on Friday June 21st, 6-9pm. 

“You always have to come up with the title for shows. Usually they're sort of pretentious and arty, but there's a reason for this one. It alludes to the process. I'm inspired by scenes on Cortes. I'll go somewhere, sketch and I'll get inspired, but a lot of my ideas come just when I'm at the point of falling asleep. The painting will come into my head. Sometimes really detailed thoughts, like the paints to use, the techniques, the layout and even very specific paints and paint mixes pop into my head. Often I have to get up and sketch. Sometimes it wakes me up in the middle of the night. I'll be thinking about the painting and that becomes the basis of the paintings. They are scenes from Cortes, but they're mediated through this process,” he explained.

“Most of these paintings have been done in the last three months.”

“This show is actually in fond memory of Lisa Gibbons. As well as being a lovely woman,  she was a huge encouragement and very positive about my painting. It's actually bittersweet that as I paint them, I think of her and I'm still a bit stunned that she won't be here to see it.”

Cortes Currents: Was she your teacher? 

Filipe Figueira: “No, no, she didn't teach me specifics. we had very different techniques, but she was just very encouraging in terms of continuing.” 

Cortes Currents: Why is painting important to you?  

Filipe Figueira: “It's something I've wanted to do for decades, probably since I was a kid, and somehow I waited till  the COVID lockdown happened.  I'd actually brought some paints from England when I emigrated to Canada about 25 years ago. I found them and then started painting. It's just a huge, meditative, therapeutic, helpful thing to do.  I just love the process.” 

Cortes Currents: I notice some of your paintings look like familiar places - like the mouth of the Gorge, or looking through the trees at Hanks Beach - but at the same time they are not exact representations. Do you want to talk about that? 

Filipe Figueira: “I'm not particularly interested in painting an absolutely accurate picture of a scene. What I'm trying to capture is more the feeling that I have,  the sense of the place, and trying to capture different angles of the same scenes, different  things that are happening in the scene. Sometimes it's the texture on the rocks or the movement of the light. So trying to capture the whole thing.”

“There's one I've done of Plunger Pass in a winter storm. It's a very monochrome one because that's the winter light. There's not much light but  the background is a wave and the foreground is more of the  islands and stuff.  It  plays with both scenes. The waves  were pretty dominant in the scene, but were just painted in a different mishmash of senses.” 

“There's another one that I really like, which is also Plunger Pass. Again it  breaks down the scene, uses different textures and different techniques. I've started  mixing media a little bit. I've been painting in oils, but for this show, it's predominantly in acrylic paint and I've been experimenting with Indian inks and acrylic inks  as well. enjoying the texture that those can create.  I really enjoy paint. Sounds a bit weird, but I like the way that it dribbles, it runs, it mixes, accidents happen with it that you can use.  The other Plunger Pass painting is a really good example of that.” 

“I've got some of Hank's Beach where it's focusing on the shapes of the rocks and almost like the historical movement of the rocks and trying to capture that.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Government of Canada issued five year licenses to the fish farms still operating in British Columbia, and announced it will ban open net-pen salmon aquaculture in British Columbia coastal waters by June 30, 2029.

“After July 1, 2024, only marine or land-based closed containment systems will be considered for salmon aquaculture licences. The Government of Canada recognizes that such systems are likely to come with increased investment costs. Incentivizing the transition to such systems is desirable given the need to promote wild fish health, reconciliation with coastal First Nations, economic development in rural and coastal communities, food security, and other important public outcomes. As such, the Minister intends to issue nine-year licences to successful applicants applying for closed-containment production.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Screening of ‘the Test’ On Cortes Island Thursday

Male voice: “I’ll vividly remember there was a very large wall of flame methodically marching towards Logan Lake and a huge column of smoke coming off of that and looking down at these cul de sacs and thinking, ‘wow, they look so small.’ And in my mind, all I could think was that this is either going to be a great day for Logan Lake, or a horrible day.”

Female voice: “What inspired the first activities in Logan Lake was fear.”

Second female voice: “We’re a small community on top of this beautiful hill surrounded by forest.” - excerpt from ‘the Test.’

There will be a screening of ‘The Test’ in the Mansons Fire Hall at 7 PM, on Thursday, June 20.  

“This is a documentary about the Logan Lake wildfire and their success in preparing for it using the FireSmart methods.  I believe they had been preparing for 18 years before they had a major wildfire come through the community, “explained, Interim Fire Chief Eli MccKenty.

“We're going to be holding it at the Fire Hall, so we don't have a huge seating capacity there. If we're packed in, we probably could seat about 30.  We looked at booking Manson's Hall in case we got a big turnout and it wasn't available. If we're overwhelmed, we might be able to move down to the truck bays and pull the trucks out.  If we get strong interest, we will do a second showing.  We even thought about doing a drive-in showing later in the summer when it's dark earlier and projecting it on the side of the fire hall.”

Cortes Currents: Why is that important for Cortes Island?  

Eli McKenty: “It’s important for Cortes Island because FireSmarting is important for Cortes Island. This is a demonstration of how successful it can be and how important it is for a community to engage with.”

Cortes Currents: I’m going to play another clip:

Female voice: “Until the day we got evacuated, it's almost like you feel invincible - that it's not going to happen to you.

Male voice: “Everything was going well and all of a sudden the power went out. We were down towards the acreage and we could see it rolling in on us, the gray dirty black smoke coming and then it got close enough we could see the flames and we knew it was definitely coming in.”

Second male voice: “These people came to save our community. Holy jeez we're going to war!”

Female voice: “I had one person come up to me and ask me at what point we should leave. I didn't know at what point you leave during an event like that.”

Cortes Currents: Isn’t this film a bit alarmist?

Eli McKenty: “It could be seen that way, but this particular documentary is also a success story for  how we can mitigate the effects of climate change and how we can prepare for a worst case scenario.  We may never see a worst case scenario on Cortes, but it's still relevant to prepare for it because we don't really know what's coming.” 

Cortes Currents: Do you think there's any chance we could have a major wildfire on Cortes?  

Eli McKenty: “Certainly, I think that It's a question of when, not if. In the larger scale of things, especially with climate change and increasing fuel loads in the forests and the transition of species as climate changes, we have a lot of dead cedar on the island . So I think it's definitely a risk and something that we should be preparing for actively.”

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On June 7, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by Jenny Hartwick from the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island to chat challenges, changes, and upcoming happenings on our island’s public docks.

Folk U Radio is taking old school viral every Friday at 1 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.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/Folk U - On June 7, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by Jenny Hartwick from the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island to chat challenges, changes, and upcoming happenings on our island’s public docks.