Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Food Bank has met the rapidly expanding need for its services, but says it is time the local, provincial and federal governments stepped up to the plate. Only 110 food hampers were given out in 2022, but since August they have seen at least a threefold increase of demand every month. There were 86 clients in January and 70 in February. Prior to this, the highs for both months was 12. 

“We really knew that the numbers that we were seeing in previous years were not reflecting the level of poverty that exists here.  So we were doing some strategic things to try to increase people's awareness of the food bank. That was a major reason  why our numbers went up so significantly.  People felt that they could come to us.  They knew it was a safe place to come for support. I think our clients are already dealing with so many challenges in their lives. I encourage anybody listening, if you  could use some help,  just come to us and we'll get you some food,” explained Beatrix Baxter, one of the Foodbank’s Directors.  

Food Bank Coordinator and Director Filipe Figueira, added, “These are all people in our community who historically could get by and these days they just can’t."

“We'll keep applying for grants and  we feel a bit reluctant asking people for more money on the island because there's a lot of people who are also struggling, also donating. If people  have  the ability to give more money it's always welcome, but we do face this national issue and it is something that I think the SRD,  provincial government, federal government needs to look into funding more directly.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -  Linnaea Farm's Homegrown Series kicks off at 10:00 AM this Saturday. This is a monthly series, which will be offered on March 23rd, April 20th, May 11th and June 8th, 2024.

“I want to teach. I've had a lot of seasons under my belt now. 1995 was my first growing season, I was in Pemberton. Then I did a garden program at Linnaea Farm in 1998. I just really like sharing  what I have spent a lifetime doing. I can share all these secrets. I've run a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden. I've done pure market gardening. I've done contract growing. I've grown food for sale in all the ways one can do it. So I can share this with anyone,” explained to Adam Schick, a resident steward at Linnaea farm on Cortes Island.

“I feel like a really rare bird. Since I was a young man, I have managed to have a career as an organic grower and farmer.  I've managed to do it, making my living mostly growing food. It's been a real struggle, but a real joy.  Part of an evolution of myself is I've become more and more of  a plant breeder and seed saver. That is where my true passion now lies. If you give a man a carrot, you feed him for one day. If you teach a person to grow a carrot and how to save those carrot seeds, then you're ensuring that people are fed forever.”

“I'm sure there's new people out there who want this information. I would just love to share what I know. There's classes and I'll have a PowerPoint, but people can come with their own ideas. What do you want to learn?  I have a formula, but I don't have to stick to it.  I'd rather share what I know  and answer  questions. This will be two hours per session at the maximum. Spend a little bit of time in the classroom here in our beautiful Education Centre at Linnea farm then, if it's really nice, we might go wander around and look at some of the gardens. If it's a really  brutal day, I'll probably bring a few things inside. In an ideal world we’ll spend some time talking, and some time observing.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A new subpopulation of Orcas has been identified in the open ocean off the coasts of Oregon and California. UBC researchers have identified 49 individual killer whales in photographs taken between 1997 and 2021. 

According to Josh McInnes, a masters student in the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and lead author of a new paper in Aquatic Animals, they may also be off the coast of British Columbia.


“I would not be surprised. Transient killer whales can have distributions that are quite large, over 2000 kilometres.  For instance, the transient type of killer whales that we do know about, that eats marine mammals in British Columbia,  can be seen anywhere between Glacier Bay (in southeast Alaska), all the way down to San Diego, California. They have large distributions and they move widely,” he explained.

“Killer whales in the Antarctic have been seen moving straight up into the South Atlantic, into the South Pacific, and even up to Australia.” 

Cortes Currents: Why are scientists only just beginning to realize that there is a new subpopulation?

Josh McInnes: "A lot of the issue that we're facing, with understanding killer whale movements in the open ocean, is the effort that is involved. Surveys are super expensive, the weather out there is complete garbage half the time, and it's very difficult to get out there." 

"The reason why we believe we're seeing killer whales more off California than British Columbia is the continental shelf.  This is the big stretch of underwater landmass that extends out from our continent towards what we call the continental shelf break. The break is where we separate the continental shelf from the open ocean.  It's actually quite thick.  It's quite wide off of Vancouver Island. It can go, on average, about 40 kilometers off the coast of Vancouver Island, which is a long way to get to the open ocean. Whereas in California, it's quite narrow. The open ocean comes really close to the coast.  It's sometimes within 12 kilometers.  So getting out to the open ocean is a lot easier off California and Oregon than it is off of British Columbia."

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - Scientists at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden recently concluded that some farmed salmon die from depression. This may not be too surprising, given the conditions in which they are kept. In other recent research, a team of US and Canadian scientists has charted an ominous trend: mass die-offs of farmed salmon are increasing in both frequency and scale. Some observers question whether the industry, after decades of growth, may be past its peak and about to decline.

Meanwhile, DFO suggests that salmon farming licenses should be renewed this summer for six years rather than the current standard term of two years — only five years after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a campaign promise to shut down net-pen salmon farming in BC altogether by 2025.

The Swedish team made the most extensive study to date of what the industry calls “drop out” fish — salmon which fail to thrive and then die early. Their research found high levels of cortisol and other serotonergic symptoms in the dead fish, markers typical of high anxiety and stress.

Humans facing poverty and other socioeconomic hardships are more likely to be diagnosed with depression and mental illness. It appears unnatural and stressful environments can have a similar influence on farm-raised fish.

Farm-raised salmon and other fish live in crowded tanks where they must tolerate the presence of aggressive fish and battle for food. They must also endure sporadic changes in lighting, water depth, currents and more.

“Farmed fish live in a very stressful environment, since the conditions in aquaculture farms are extremely different from what they have evolved to cope with in the wild,” Vindas said.

—- Farm-raised salmon suffer from depression, UPI — May 2016

CAFO conditions are stressful for any organism; salmon, though they are fish rather than poultry, pigs, or cattle, apparently suffer comparable levels of misery and disease from their unnatural confinement.

What is CAFO? The acronym stands for “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation,” or what is commonly called a “feedlot” in the beef industry. It’s any animal husbandry operation at factory scale, in which animals are kept in densely concentrated confinement and fed a tailored diet with a view to (a) maximising meat production per facility square foot and (b) minimising time to market. What the industry calls “salmon farms” far more resemble “salmon feedlots.” While “farm” suggests bucolic imagery of happy cattle in green fields, a feedlot is quite another matter — or in our case, quite another kettle of unhappy fish.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - Early in the week of March 11th, during the annual herring run, a combination of weather and tides swept an unusual quantity of herring roe ashore at Smelt Bay.

On Tuesday the 12th of March, the roe in some places was piled 6-8 inches deep on the beach. From a distance it resembled lighter coloured sand piled on top of the familiar gray sand and shingle of Smelt Bay.

CIA on Folk U Radio - What really matters most in the world? How will we help inspire the next generation of truth-seekers and truth-tellers? At the Cortes Island Academy we believe in the passion and skills of the people and wild places of this place and are proud of our youth who learned along side our community and shared their growing skills through journalistic podcasts, Elder Documentaries, Field Guides and unsung hero posters.

This week on Folk U Radio CKTZ 89.5 FM (1 p.m. Fridays, repeats on folku.ca/cortescurents.ca/cortesradio.ca) youth journalists interview neighbours and regional experts on the issues of the day in our communities in their Audio Series called Desolation Sounds. 

Friday March 15 will feature:

Niamh – Set To Play

Sophie – The Masked World

Jonas – Technology Teen

We hope you will tune in!

You can listen to the CIA youth podcast series, Desolation Sounds, anytime at https://cortesislandacademy.ca/podcasts/

Watch the breathtaking and moving CIA/ReelYouth Elder Films at https://cortesislandacademy.ca/films/

Get your own pocket Biodiversity Field Guide for Cortes (e.g. edible berries, local fungi, marine species, seaweeds, mosses, and more!) at https://cortesislandacademy.ca/biodiversity-project/

Louis Belcourt/ CKTZ News - The Cortes Food Bank has released their annual report for 2023 over the weekend, which shows that it was a very successful year for the Cortes Island Food Bank, but also a highly challenging one.

Over the final months of 2023, the Cortes Food Bank served an average of 80 clients per month, which is almost as many clients as in the whole of 2022: a 616 per cent increase year over year, according to the report.

“We really ramped up promoting the food bank, and immediately we got a response of so many more people. And it was quite scary because we weren’t expecting that big of a rise,” says Filipe Figueira, coordinator and treasurer of the Cortes Food Bank.

“The number of new clients needing help is increasing every single week – from every demographic,”Figueira added.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Housing Society’s Virtual Forum kicks off this Saturday with a program on home sharing. This is a monthly event, co-sponsored by Folk-U. At 10 AM this Saturday host Sadhu Johnston will be joined by Noelle Marcus, from the US homeshare program Nesterly, and Janey Rowland, from the SGI (Southern Gulf Island) Housing Now Project.


“We all  know that there are a lot of homes that are underutilized or empty, and there are also a lot of homes that are just under-occupied. Maybe the kids have moved away, or for whatever reason there is an extra bedroom.  We know there are a good number of people on Cortes who are single and would be happy with a bedroom in a house,” explained Sadhu Johnston, executive director of the Cortes Housing Society. 

“The idea of home sharing really came out pretty vividly for me during the housing forum last December. When we were having conversations in the breakout sessions,  I just heard a number of times that people have space in their house but would need some support to rent out a room.  That's where the home sharing idea really came up as a possible solution. Home sharing providers really help to vet potential tenants, take a look at the house, make sure it's good and help to make those connections work.”

Quadra Island considering opting-in to Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act by Cortes Currents (https://cortescurrents.ca/)

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The first community-based medical detox north of Nanaimo will be opening in Campbell River this fall. Island Health secured a location at 731 Nicholas Road near the North Island Hospital – Campbell River campus. 

“This is a really exciting addition to Campbell River.  When people living with addiction reach out and make that brave choice of getting the services that they need, we'd need to be able to meet them where they are and with the services that they need right away. This is a new six bed medical detox that the community has been asking  for quite a while,” explained  Michele Babchuk, MLA for North Island and a resident of Campbell River. 


“This is part of the Road to Recovery initiative that is a made in BC initiative through our government,  that we're looking to come to full implementation in March of 2025.” 

The province allocated $23.7 million to the Road to Recovery program in the 2023 budget and provided treatment for 4,167 people.  

 

This news comes in the midst of British Columbia’s toxic drug crisis. According to a 5 year study from the BC Coroners Service, unregulated drug toxicity is the #1 cause of unnatural death among youth in the province. It is worse than suicide or automotive accidents. However the highest rate of deaths is among adults between the ages of 30 and 59. 

 

There were 198 suspected drug related deaths in January, which works out to just under 61/2 a day. Vancouver, Surrey and Nanaimo were the most affected cities in the province, but North Vancouver Island has one of the worst death rates in the province, when measured proportionately. One of the five most afflicted Local Health Areas was Greater Campbell River. This is the part of eastern Vancouver Island between the Oyster River and Sayward, and also includes islands like Quadra and Cortes.