Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Over the past few years there have been increasing reports of wolves preying on black bears. There have been no reports of this on Cortes Island, and a lot of residents first heard about it at the 2024 Wildlife Coexistence Gathering, at Linnaea Farm.

 

Todd Windle of Wild About Wolves explained that the evidences of wolves preying upon bears in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve go back to the reappearance of wolf population in the area. 

“We were finding  bear claws in scat. So that was like, ‘well, maybe they're just scavenging in them, or maybe they're finding a bear that got hit by a car,’” he explained.

“Then we started accumulating observations of wolves hunting bears. Bob Hansen actually captured a whole scene of two wolves killing a bear, ripping it apart and eating it. Dennis Hetu has documented multiple bear kills by wolves. So we did the analysis and sat down over MS Teams with a professor from UC Davis, our monitoring ecologist.”

“He went through all the results, and we had a list of questions beforehand.” 

The professor did not report any evidence of bear meat in their diet.

“We said, ‘This doesn't make sense. We were expecting to find bear remains.  We're actually hoping to finally quantify how much bear meat is in their diet, but there's no bears here. Why do you think that might be?’” 

“And he said, ‘Oh, I just thought that was an error. I thought it was cross contamination that the wolves and the bears were preying on the same carcasses or something on the beach. So I took all the bear and I threw it out. (Woman laughs)  Let me rerun the data and I'll get back to you.’”  

“So he reran the data, and bears are actually the number four item in the wolf diet, at least currently. So, there's four species that make up 60%, 64% or 65% of a wolf's diet. Raccoon is still number one, then black tailed deer, river otters, and black bears.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - In January, the Cortes Community Economic Development Association, or CCEDA, hired a Business Mentorship Coordinator. In the four months since then Tamlyn Collingwood has worked with a number of Cortes Island’s small businesses, developed procedures to help them and is about to unveil a series of new market opportunities in conjunction with Hollyhock.

“I was contracted to support small businesses in any areas needed. There’s so many different aspects to business and, for many folks, they might be good at a few things and they might have a few challenges in some of those areas,” she explained.

“My job is to help them in the areas I can, either providing one on one direct support or helping connect folks with resources that can help them or with other mentors in the community who can help them.”

“So far I've been working with over a dozen businesses, mostly artists and product based businesses. A lot of times folks just need someone to bounce ideas off of or help connect them with resources. I've done a lot of sort of one on one creating labels, creating logos, strategizing and business planning.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Seafest will be returning to Squirrel Cove this Saturday, May 18, with delicious platefuls of locally grown and prepared seafood. with live music.  

“ I think the first one was back in 1990 or 92. It was down in Smelt Bay with Redonda Sea Farms  and the rest of the community and it was a huge event. I think they had walk-on overloads on the ferry. That was really when the Seafood Association was formed.  Its primary mandate being water quality and it was formed in response to new technology that could assess dioxin pollution from the pulp mills,” explained Dave Nikleva.

Julia Rendall added, “I think in the  late eighties, it was to fight the pulp mills. ‘Water quality’ was our mandate. Then there was a time when some people were a little bit reluctant about  us oyster farmers. They thought maybe we were getting in the way of their pristine scenery. We decided to  show them that we did have a good product for everybody to enjoy and that it is a viable industry on the island and it is necessary.”

Dave Nikleva: “It’s continued in subsequent variations over the years in various places from Squirrel Cove to the Gorge and Manson's parking lot on a windy day.  I think we've had a great show of support from the industry, and also from the community.”


They have both been involved since the beginning of Seafest. Julia is a former President of the Bee Islets Growers Corporation, which has their rafts close to the entrance of Gorge Harbour. Dave and his wife are independents. 

Dave Nikleva: “Since 1987,  when I moved to the island, I moved to grow shellfish.  We've got a few farms in the Gorge Harbour. We've got some beach leases and deep water leases.” 

Cortes Currents: What’s your target audience for Seafest? Who do you want to come?  

Dave Nikleva:  “It has changed over the years  and there have been changes in the location. Last year was the first time we’ve been back in Squirrel Cove for a decade or more. A different crowd of perhaps younger people and younger families were there.  That was good to see, some different people showing up for it.” 


Cortes Currents: Was last year a success? How do you define success?

Dave Nikleva: “I’d say it was maybe half the size  of what it had been previously at the Gorge Harbour Marina, before COVID, but  it was a nice size. A good feeling there.”   


“We're looking at hopefully about the same number of people,  maybe about 300 plates.  It's always interesting to see who comes out, but we do have some new things happening. We do have scallops on the menu for the first time and a little change in the lineup  of cooks. So if you've been there before, this will be something new for you to come again.” 


“Clams and oysters umpteen different ways,  prawns, salads, and bread. There's also going to be a cookout with First Nations doing some salmon, that'd be a separate tent for them.” 

Cortes Currents: Tell me about the music this year. 

Julia Rendall: “The music is going to be in the same place on the deck in front of the restaurant, which worked really well last year. Scotty's putting on the music,  and so far we're still actually looking for more musicians. If there's anyone out there who'd like to  sing or play or dance, they could phone me or Dave or Scotty. Scotty's actually arranging the whole music. venue.  You can send an email  to [email protected] and I can forward their Information to Scotty.”   


Dave Nikleva: “The thing always seems to come together at the last minute. Glad to have them and they're right beside the food tent lineup, so people are entertained as they wait for the next course to come along.” 


Julia Rendall: “The vendor lineup is really strong this year, and we're going to have them lined along the road towards the store, so it'll be  a little market there. We've got the radio station, we've got Turkish towels, body lotions, candles and  t-shirts. So there'll be good shopping  in between the eating.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Manda Aufochs Gillespie announced two new grant offerings, the new shared workplace in the Village Commons and much more, in a Cortes Island Community Foundation update yesterday.

“It has been a really busy year,  and I am so excited about where we are,  and this community that we get to serve. I'd love to tell you about some of the things that maybe you've been hearing about that are happening right now and some of the things that you and everyone can look forward to hearing more about this summer and as the year progresses,” she began.  

“We are very excited to again have some funds that we're getting to grant into the community.”

“As a community foundation, we are still finding our way as to what that means and how we are most relevant to this community. The longer we're doing this, the more that we realize that we're a pretty different community foundation than most of those community foundations that are out there.”

“For instance, the Vancouver Foundation has I'm not sure how much money, but I think in the matter of billions in their endowment. They're able to use that endowment to support the good works of many, many different community organizations, particularly those based in and around Vancouver, but also throughout the province.” 

“The Cortes Island Community Foundation does not have an endowment of any size. We don't have money that is sitting in a bank, or that is invested, that earns a bit of principle that then we grant from.  From the beginning we decided we can wait or follow a model of a community foundation that is about earning money,  saving it up, investing it well, and then spending it out. When we look around us,  it's clear that the organizations in our community need resources now. They need human resources, financial resources and social resources today.” 

“Since our founding just a few years ago, we have managed to leverage over three and a half million dollars directly into the community without needing to have an endowment. This has been in no small part because of luck.  I would like to say it's because of the genius of all those involved, which I'm sure has something to do with it, but mostly it's been luck. We've come into existence at a time when the government of Canada has made available, pretty much for the first time ever,  a series of funds aimed at helping smaller community foundations immediately have impact in their communities.”

Sadhu Johnston/ Cortes Community Housing - Tune in on May 10th for the second collaborative monthly housing forum hosted by the Cortes Housing Society and Folk University. Themed “Water Quality and Quantity”, this forum featured guest panelists Darren Bond, Nick Sargent, and David Bethune and a following community discussion. This is a recording of the second monthly housing forum in April, hosted over Zoom, with 24 people in attendance. Hear us chat about water, it’s relation to housing, and about how these ideas could be applicable to 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 - Cortes Community Housing purchased a property with two houses at 671 Sutil Point Road. This will be the first property to go into the island's new land trust, formed in response to Cortes Island's housing forum last December. 


The housing society has been active on Cortes for 6 or 7 years and made a lot of progress in buying Rainbow Ridge. Having that acreage for housing and community needs is a really great opportunity and sets us apart in many ways from some of our other island neighbors like Quadra, for instance, where they're working to acquire land, explained Sadhu Johnston, Executive Director of Cortes Community Housing. 

We've been struggling to get BC Housing funding to build on that land and  we recently heard we weren't successful. That's the 3rd time we had applied. We did get $100,000 from BC Housing to continue to get the project shovel ready. So they're not abandoning us, they're just not ready to fund it. 

They're really prioritizing cities. I think 80% to 90% of the funding from the last round of BC Housing funding that was designated for the Vancouver Island region went to Victoria. 

We cannot rely on provincial support to solve this problem here. We need it, but it's been years of trying to get it. We really are needing to diversify our approach, both on Rainbow Ridge land, but also across the community. 

We are continuing to progress the 24 townhome development on Rainbow Ridge and we just received funding from the SRD to build the road into the development site.

We're looking at creative ways that we can still bring housing to the Rainbow Ridge land even if it's not subsidized housing, if it's more of a rental housing option.

We are purchasing our first home, thanks to the generous donation of 1 of our Cortes neighbors.  That property is about 3 acres and it has 2 houses on it. It has a well, it has septic, it has power backup systems. It has beautiful gardens, and a big shop.


I'm personally really excited by this opportunity because we get to provide rental housing immediately, but there's also the opportunity for other community uses with the shop and the agricultural land. It's a very centrally located. It's a walkable site. People can walk straight into Manson's, to the school, or to Smelt Bay and Manson's Lagoon.


We have over 200 people on our wait list. So we're going to put a call out and then,  if we don't get interest from that, we'll go more broadly to the community 

Having secure rental housing Is really important for people that often have to move over and over and over again. 


That's the basic objective. We get to provide housing for people that need it. We get to maintain community ownership in the land.  This land will be owned by all of us as a community and over time, we could even add additional cabins to the land to provide more housing.  That would be something that we'll be looking to do. 


The objective is also to ensure that as houses come up for sale,  they aren't just sold to off-Islanders for summer housing, that we maintain existing homes for community use and for housing people on the Island,  not just bringing new people to the Island or converting those family homes to summer houses for off Islanders.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A new passenger transportation solutions project was launched for Cortes, Quadra and some of the Outer Islands. Kate Maddigan, of the Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA), obtained a grant to fund the project and will oversee developments on Cortes. Quadra Island facilitator Jennifer Banks-Doll will be overseeing the project on Quadra and the Outer Islands. Their first step is fact gathering but unlike past initiatives, they intend to implement some of these ideas. A survey being launched this Monday, May 13, and an online forum on May 21.

De Clarke/ COrtes Currents - BC Ferries intends to upgrade their Heriot Bay and Whaletown terminals to accommodate new, higher-capacity “Island Class” ferries with the potential for all-electric operation. The construction project, scheduled for 2026, will necessitate closure of these docks and ramps — a serious logistical problem for BCF and for island residents.

On April 27th, 2024, BC Ferries hosted a two-hour open house at Mansons Hall from 12:30 to 2:30 pm, asking for community feedback and suggestions on their early draft plan for this disruptive project. The event was attended by more than 50 Cortes residents over the two-hour period; for those who were unable to attend, the online comment period remains open until May 6th.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - It has now been four and a half years since the 2019 referendum in which a solid majority of Cortes Islanders voted in favour of bylaw 341. This bylaw established a property tax service that would provide basic operational support for the islands two community halls.

What’s Happening Now? — what events and programmes are being offered as of 2024, and how much community engagement is there?

Sadhu Johnston/ Folk U - Tune in on April 19th for the first collaborative monthly housing forum hosted by the Cortes Housing Society and Folk University. Themed “Homesharing”, this forum featured guest panelists Janey Rowland (HousingNOW) and Noelle Marcus (Nesterly), and a following community discussion. This is a recording of the first monthly housing forum in March, hosted over Zoom, with 19 people in attendance. Hear us chat about creative housing ideas related to homesharing and about how they could be applicable to 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.