Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A Cortes Island based solar company has been installing more systems that tie into the grid.

There is a lot of potential for solar energy production in British Columbia. It has been largely untouched because of the province’s reliance on hydro-power and natural gas. As of October 2023, BC Hydro had 8,500 net metering customers with a combined solar capacity of 71 MW. This was only a fraction of the 4,609.5 MW of solar capacity tied to Canada’s grid that year. 

These statistics do not include off-grid installations.  

“The majority of my customers are off-grid. Anytime you're using fuel, switching to solar is a 'no brainer.' The payback is extremely quick. You don't have the noise of the generator and it generator is not very efficient either,” explained Ian King of Cortes Island based King Solar Contracting.

He cited a recent $60,000 installation on Twin Islands. Prior to this, his customer had been burning through $40,000 worth of diesel every year. The system should pay for itself, through reduced energy costs, in a year and a half. 

King: “The bulk of my customers are on Hernando Island. I've put in about 95 of the systems out there. There's quite a few installers on Savary Island, but I've done a few out that way. I had quite a few up in Granite Bay before BC Hydro reached the north end of Quadra. Refuge is another little cove of no power. There's the two fingers around the Gorge, and that's generally where there's no hydro.” 

He proceeded to list some small islands around Cortes: Channel Rock. Whale Rock, Heather Islet and Coulter Island.

King has put in more than 200 systems during the past 20 years. While the majority appear to be in our vicinity, he has worked on some of the remote islands around Port McNeill, and as far south as Mill Bay, or across the waters to the Lund - Powell River area.


Cortes Currents was especially interested in some of the grid tied systems King Solar recently installed on Cortes Island. The ‘pay back’ is slower, often about 20 years, but this really depends on the complexity of the system required.

Sadhu Johnston and Manda Aufochs Gillespie had two solar systems installed on their property a couple of years ago. They have a complex system with battery storage for their house, and a more simple system for their shop and a rental unit on their property.

Johnston: “Our system up the hill doesn't have the separate inverter and battery system, so that system was a lot less expensive to install. We don't get the benefit of power during an outage and whatnot, but we still get the benefit of reducing our consumption because we're generating power and putting it into the grid. So that system up the hill will have a much faster payback - because it's really just the solar panels.” 

King: “I like to sit down with each individual customer and keep an eye on their bills, to better educate myself on exactly what the real time numbers areper each system.” 

Johnston: “It's really great to have somebody in our community that knows my panel system and can come and give me technical advice and help me out versus hiring someone from afar that comes in and does your installation, disappears and it's really hard to reach them.”

“I call him once every few months with a question. Wondering what this light means, or can you come over and look at something or there's a noise or whatever. It makes a really big difference to be able to know that  if I need him within an hour, he's over taking a look at something and he's not sending me a bill every time. He's a neighbour and he feels pride in his work. He wants to make sure that I understand things and can maintain it properly ourselves.”

King: “It's a big selling feature for me, even on Hernando per se, that I am local. Word of mouth is an enormous part of how my business expands and I get new jobs.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At their May 22 Board meeting, the Strathcona Regional Distrct (SRD) passed 3 important monetary decisions for Cortes Island.

Firstly, the SRD will be increasing the annual fee for waste collection by $10 a year. This will be paid through our property taxes.

Regional Director Mark Vonesch explained, “we're basically being forced to do this because Recycling BC changed their support for the solid waste collection fees so that we're having to make up that loss through increasing our fees, which we're going to be doing over the next couple of years.”

Secondly, the Cortes Island Firefighters Association’s contract with the SRD expired more than a year ago. Since that time, the fire departent has been hired on a monthly basis. Now the SRD is once again offering a 5 year contract.

SRD Chief Administrative Officer (CAO David Leitch) stated, “I just want to acknowledge the Cortes Island Firefighting Association and Sadhu Johnston for their participation and great patience. I think it's been a nice team-building exercise throughout but, as I understand it from Sadhu, the board has endorsed this contract, which is really great. This is a great step forward for both of us.”

Mark Vonesch: “If I could add to that. It has been a year and a half and I'm just really grateful to staff, the Cortes Island Firefighters Association and this board for getting us here. This is a big win for Cortes. It's a big win for the SRD. It's a big win for Cortes Fire Department. I'm just really excited to get this five year deal passed. Now we can all move forward.”

Lastly, the SRD is entering into an agreement with the Cortes Community Housing Society to provide up to $140,000 of the funding available through the Provincial Gas Tax on a road leading into Rainbow Ridge. We’ve actually been hearing about this project since November, but it was approved Wednesday.

The Board passed all of these measures with no opposing votes.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Cortes Island author Carrie Saxifrage made a climate mitigation presentation at the May 22 SRD Board meeting. This is an abridged version of that talk. 

She began with a simple admission, “This is my first time. Thank you so much for having me. If I were to do it again, I'd do it a little differently, but here we are. We're going to whisk through some slides, and I'm going to emphasize what I think is most important.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -There were questions about what can be accomplished, but the SRD will be asking Transport Canada about the safety requirements, noise levels and frequency of planes using the Cortes Island Airstrip.

At their May 22 meeting, Cortes Island Director Mark Vonesch told the SRD Board:


“There is an airstrip on Cortes Island that's been there for a long time. A new buyer bought the land and has  been upgrading the runway significantly.  I've heard numbers: allegedly a thousand gravel trucks. They're paving it and  there's a big concern from the community regarding: safety issues, what kind of planes can now land, frequency of planes that can now land,  whether they need permission from the owner to be able to land. And also further gentrification of Cortes Island as it becomes more accessible.”


“There's a lot of questions that are coming to me from the community around this. I don't have the answers and would really love staff support to engage with Transport Canada and  inform the board  on  what the rules are around safety, frequency and plane size. I have a motion as well.”  


Campbell River Director Doug Chapman questioned whether this would be a waste of staff’s time: 


“If it's a private runway, then the safety requirements are going to be based on the length of the runway. The length of the runway is going to dictate the size of the aircraft - and it's not landing, it's takeoff.” 


“To make it simple, if you had a two engine aircraft  to take off, you have to reach a rotation for one engine, then take off. That's why the length of the runway is important for takeoffs, not landing.  If it's a private runway, as long as they meet Transport Canada requirements for the aircraft operation  and the operator of the aircraft has insurance I don't think we have a lot of input into it.  The Aeronautics Act and the regulations related to it dictate what happens.”

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On Friday, May 17, Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by the Simon Fraser University field school that visited Cortes in the week of May 13-17 to chat about how ecosystem approaches to health can help us understand the implications and impact of climate change through the perspective of rural and remote island communities.

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.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A new exhibition in the Cortes Island Museum looks at the island’s housing from pre-colonial times up until the present. ‘From the Ground Up: Cortes Island Dwellings And Their Histories’ combines photographs and artifacts from the museum’s collections, stories and images from the community and a display from the Cortes Housing Society. Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the Museum, took Cortes Currents on a tour of the exhibit. 

“Welcome to the Cortes Museum and Archives. We are standing just inside the museum store, but as you know, the museum once was the Cortes Lodge store, down at Manson's Lagoon. We have a new exhibition which just opened on May 5th and runs throughout the year. I curated the show with Monica Hoffman,” she began. 


“This exhibition looks at dwellings and communities from a historic perspective, not only just the dwellings, but the process behind a lot of them. On Cortes we face a lot of challenges, whether economic, terrain, or just accessing material. Our idea was to look at dwellings from that perspective: how people overcome the challenges; elusive solutions they find, and the connections they make to the land, to one another and the way they build community.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - More than 25 people turned out for the ‘Polycrisis Townhall-Party’ in the Klahoose Multi-purpose building on Friday, May 17. Chief Darren Blaney of the Homalco FIrst Nation, his wife, MP Rachel Blaney, and Cortes Island Regional Director Mark Vonesch were among them. The event was put together by Cortes Island’s  Alternate Director, Max Thaysen. Norm Harry, of the Klahoose FIrst Nation, welcomed everyone to the building. The most newsworthy portion was Chief Blaney’s declaration that First Nations need to take back stewardship of their traditional territories. 


An abridged version of his talk follows.


Chief Blaney began by speaking in ayʔaǰuθɛm, which you can hear in the podcast. 


Then, in English, he acknowledged the close relationship of the Klahoose and Homalco First Nations, “It’s good to be in the home of our relatives. I’m happy to be here.”    


“When you were speaking, you made me think about listening to an elder, and the elder talked about a sacred alliance with us and all of Mother Earth, all the animals. We look after them, and they look after us.” 


“I think when First Nations were connected to the land, it was the same. We were part of that cycle and I think it's important that we follow those teachings.”


He spoke of ceremonies from his grandmother’s day. 


“Go to the first salmon ceremony, they were giving thanks and respect to that salmon, making sure it's there for future generations. The first berries and stuff, you give a prayer for that.  You give thanks, respect, and appreciation.”    


“For us, in this time when we have all kinds of climate change issues, with the fires going on up north, I think that our Aboriginal rights are the best protection for the environment.”

He referred to the struggle with fish farms.


“That fight is about saving wild salmon and Homalco has spent about $700,000. I keep telling the fisheries minister, we've spent $700,000 defending your decision to remove the farms because we're protecting our salmon. And it's not just our salmon, it's all our clam gardens, all the rock cod, all the ring cod, snappers, herring. All these things that are part of our ecosystem.”


“I remember early in 2000 we were talking about the coming pandemic. And we were thinking, ‘what are we going to do when everybody's dying?’ And we thought, ‘We'll go back up to Bute Inlet,  but  the way DFO has managed our fisheries: our herring stocks have disappeared, our cod stocks have disappeared, lingcod  disappeared so we don't have any cod eggs anymore. The salmon have just about disappeared because of the fish farms and climate change.” 


“So our voice becomes even more important today as First Nations. What we're doing is we're working to rebuild the stocks, but at some point I'm looking to remove DFO from my territory because they're no help to the wild stocks.They're no help to the salmon.” 


“They're pretty much pro-fish farmers in my mind because every time we talk to them, I feel like I'm talking to a fish farmer. For us to rebuild our salmon stocks, we have to get DFO out of the way, and that's been a big struggle for us.”


“Because of that, we have to build up our revenues. We have to get to the place where our people will be able to defend our rights in court and one of the biggest obstacles of going to court is what's called legal mischief.  Where these corporate bodies keep throwing all kinds of motions at you. Mostly, when they do that to First Nations, they're trying to empty out our bank accounts so we can't fight in court anymore.” 


“So we're working on building up a legal trust fund, so we'll be able to look after our land. The stewardship trust fund, so we'll be able to look after our land. The language, our trust fund for our culture, so that we'll be still connected to that land. All these things are important for us and it does go in a circle.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The official count isn’t in yet, but more than 300 people turned out for this year’s Seafest. This is the annual celebration and fund raiser of the Cortes Island Seafood Association, which was held in Squirrel Cove again this year.

“We come back every year. This is our 10th time. We love it every year. It's awesome. There's amazing food and amazing people and weather's gorgeous,” exclaimed Jason Thompson. “One thing that stuck out for us was there was only a lineup on one side this year. In the past, it's been both sides, and there was always a little bit of confusion, and, 'oh, I didn't get that'. So people would come in and get their food, and you'd look at them going, 'get out of my way,' but no, it's beautiful. It's run really nice, and the music's perfect.”

Thaddeus Conrad from Med Man Brand believes markets like this are ‘extremely important for the community. It's an opportunity for me to meet people from around the world, and show everyone from around the world the island love.’”

As the line-up extended almost back to the Squirrel Cove Store parking lot, it seemed like a good idea to start out by circulating among the vendors.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Fire Department is preparing for what could be the driest summer on record. They have purchased more equipment, a new pumper truck, and are about to start recruiting for a much larger wildfire brigade. After a year and a half as the interim Fire Chief, Eli McKenty may be staying on. This was not the story Cortes Currents expected to cover. An open fire prohibition came into effect at noon on Friday, May 17.

They were flushing water through one of the trucks in the front yard, when I arrived. Chief McKenty took me up to the office where it was quieter. There are two other desks there. BC Emergency Health Services Unit Chief Kim Robertson was away, but Office Manager Tammy Allwork was working on her computer. Their work spaces were meticulously laid out, with everything in its place. A few books and papers were sprawled across McKenty’s desk.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Bronwyn Claire Asha is bringing her one woman theatre, Celtic folk music and storytelling show to Cortes and Quadra Islands this weekend. She’ll be playing in Mansons Hall at 7 PM on Friday, and 7:30 in the Quadra Community Centre on Saturday.


“I am very excited to come to Cortes. I feel like Cortes and Quadra are both small communities that have a real heart to them and a real community connection,” she explained.

Cortes Currents: You’ve also brought some songs for us today.  Tell us about the first one.


Bronwyn Claire Asha: “So the first one is ‘Bridget O’Malley,' which is  a song of lamentation from the 16 hundreds. It's a Scottish folk song. It's originally sung in Scots' Gallic. I talk a lot about longing in the show: longing for connection; longing for belonging; longing for love; longing for adventure. And it's a really beautiful song that I think encapsulates that even just through the melody, but it's also a lot about  imagery and nature that connects you with the beauty of the world. It's a very sad love song as well.” 


(Bridget O’Malley inserted 1:28-4:53 in the podcast)

Bronwyn Claire Asha: “My music and my performance is about connecting people, community building. And it's not that the audience is not involved. They are very much a participant in the experience. I call upon them to do things. I call upon them to sing with me, to interact with each other so that by the end, we're not separate and we are not individuals sitting in that audience.”


“We're actually a community that have co created this experience together. So I really believe that what has been missing and What we yearn for in this modern age where we're disconnected from each other where we're experiencing The energy of each other through a screen as opposed to in real life when we capitalize on being in the same space together beautiful things can happen and that can happen through listening to really ancient Music and listening to stories that we would have listened to sitting around the campfire thousands of years ago that can help us return to that place where we worked as a community together.”


“We existed very much together, and  we helped each other to survive through joining our voices together in song through sharing stories together and my mission With this performance, with the work that I do, with this character, the bardess, who's the narrator and the guide along the way.”


“It's all about helping us remember what was important and experiencing it again in our own bodies, embodying that feeling to remember that part of us is still there and we're still yearning for connection with each other. And if there's A place we can do that, that's safe, that's a container for us to be together, to go on a journey.”


“We don't know what the destination is, but we know that we're safe and we know that we have each other.  The possibilities are endless and really beautiful. And so far, with this show, I'm experiencing that with my audiences every time. It's like we're, by the end, it's just like I want to give back. Give everyone a big hug  and we're all in it together. It feels very heartwarming at the very end, we sing this final song together that I wrote, but everyone picks up on it so quickly.” 

“It's really beautiful to have these experiences where we remember that we're actually all the same, wherever we came from, our ancestors are the same far enough back.  We yearn for the connection with each other and also with the earth. The earth is a big character in this performance as well.”  


Cortes Currents: What’s your second song?