Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The ‘Creative Spaces Garden & Studio Tour’ returns on Saturday, July 8. 


“This is a self-guided tour, and once you get your ticket, you can choose what gardens or artist studios you want to visit, in what order, and you can stay as long as you want at each place,” explained Nancy Kendel, a museum board member whose garden will be among those exhibited.


“We have 17 venues this year, 21 participating artists and gardeners,” added Managing Director/Curator Melanie Boyle.


Nancy: “When you drive around Cortes Island, what you see is driveways that go up into the forest. You don't really get an opportunity to see what other people are doing. Going on the garden tour allowed me to see what other people were doing and the beauty of other people's spaces because each garden is different and each garden is grown for different reasons, food production or maybe someone's just into roses.”

a list of the participants this year: 

Curious Art Studio (Fillipe Figuera)

Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery (Monica Nawrocki, Ester Strijbos, Janny Thompson)

Brian Hayden; Gabriel Dinim

Heritage Garden, the Cortes Island Museum

Sarah's Organic 'Rainbow' Garden

Gerri Davis and George Lerchs; Kristen Schofield-Sweet

Fairhaven Gardens (Laura Ellingsen)

Nancy and Ray Kendel's garden

Juniper Bluffs, (Elizabeth Anderson's garden)

Tennant Farm, (Loretta and Don Tennant),  

Sea Field Gardens (Martha Abelson),

Marion Cragg, weaving studio

Twilight Studio/Thistle Ranch (Jane Newman and Brian Scott).

Brilliant by the Bay (Connie Brill), 

 Bruce Ellington's Garden,

Nora Johnson and Jerry Preston's Garden

Hollyhock

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At Wild Cortes: The Cortes Island Water Cycle

Wild Cortes came into being as a result of a series of interactions between Laurel Bohart and Lynne Jordan, former President of the Cortes Island Museum. They started in 2005, shortly after Bohart moved to Cortes Island.  

"I met Lynn Jordan on on the ferry. She had this parrot, an African Grey, and it was dead and frozen. She wanted to find a taxidermist, so I mounted her bird. That was the beginning of Wild Cortes, because we did 'Ravens Relations,' and put it up in the museum for a few years. People were absolutely enthralled. They wanted to know if we would have more animals, so we dreamed up the original Wild Cortes, the story of water," she explained.

"The story being that waterfalls on high places trickle down to lower places and eventually flow to the sea or swamps or lakes. That was so popular we had it up for three or four years and then of course the Board decided to do something else."

"So we took that down and there was a lot of upset because people were really attached to it. Lynne and I thought maybe we should recreate it. So we got a good size grant and recreated it here, and it's been growing ever since."

CC: When did ‘Wild Cortes’ open in the Linnaea Farm Education Centre?  

LB: It was 2017 when we opened.

CC: Take us on a tour of this display, from the bluffs right down to the ocean.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Laurel Bohart has volunteered her time to mount or prepare the study skins of 100 birds, fish and mammals for the Cortes Island Museum. She is a member of the Board and one of the co-curators of Wild Cortes in the Linnaea Farm Education Centre. Bohart is also a professional taxidermist, whose interest can be traced back to her parent’s missionary years in Nigeria during the mid 1960s.


The first words she used to describe taxidermy were, “It's fun.”


To which she added, “It's a form of sculpture when you mount a bird or a mammal. It's better than a photograph, which is two dimensional. These are three dimensional.”   


“The first bird I did was a hawk which is like a Cooper's Hawk, only smaller.   I didn't know you had to skin the legs, the head, the tail, and the wings. So of course it became smelly and got thrown out. That was my first attempt. Later on I learned to skin them and pin them out and let them dry.”


“We came back to Canada in 1967, and my grandfather showed me how to skin birds and sent me back with eyes and material and wire and a lot of the things I needed plus a book to learn from. So I learned from the same book he did from the early 1900s when he was a boy.”

“My father was killed in 1970, and in 1971 our family came back to Canada permanently.  That's when I was able to learn more from my grandfather and mounted my first deer head. I think I helped him do a rug or something like that. I learned on the job and bought books that he recommended. I  talked to other taxidermists, did a lot of study and practical application on my own.”

“When I got better at it, I was able to start a business, ‘L and M Taxidermy Service’ in Duncan in 1984. I had  graduated from university by then. I had my master's in Museum Science and Ornithology, which is bird studies, but couldn't find a job in the local area. I was tired of traveling. I wasn't going to go back east  and I had just come back from Kentucky because I had finished my Master's Degree down there. I didn't want to go anywhere. I wanted to do what my grandfather did.” 

In the podcast Laurel Bohart talks about taxidermy, her life, coming to Cortes and a few of the species she has mounted at Wild Cortes.

Louis Belcourt/ CKTZ News - Sunflower Foods, a local food company, launched a Pay It Forward program this winter as a way to donate healthy pre-made meals to the food bank.

"We wanted to find a way to provide food for people who couldn't afford it, who were on disability, who did need some sort of subsidy. At first we were just marking down the price for them and it was coming out of our pockets. It started to get a little more difficult for us and we didn't wanna start losing money on this. And so we came up with the idea of having the community donate," said Carrie Taylor, founder of Sunflower Foods.

The Pay It Forward program started on Feb. 21. If someone wants to donate the cost of a pre-made Sunflower Foods meal at the local food bank, Sunflower Foods will match that donation.

"So for the first month we didn't have anything but the second month when we started the program, after we started the meal delivery service, we had something like 70 meals go in. So we had 35 donations. We matched it with 35 meals, and we had given away all those meals for free to people who needed them."

The company also launched a new meal delivery service on Cortes Island Feb. 1; this is currently the only delivery service available on Cortes since Meals on Wheels stopped during the pandemic.

"There were a lot of people reaching out that wanted to make sure their elderly family members were eating well. Some of the people who used to rely on them Meals on Wheels program that stopped for a period of time. They were reaching out, asking if we could do something like that and so we decided to put something together that would suit a few different people's needs," said Taylor.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - After COVID arrived in the Spring of 2020, someone gave the Quadra ICAN 'Squash The Curve Project' the use of 2 acres of land for a year. Local residents were provided with squash starts, or seedlings, and supportive tips from more experienced gardeners. The food they did not use was freely distributed to the community.

This year ICAN was offered use of the property again, to be used by its Garden Share Program.

“It's two acres located at the very south of the island in quite a beautiful, idyllic setting. That land was not utilized for a couple of years, but the caretaker came back to us again this year and said, 'would you like to do something with it this year?' We got the approval from the property owner. It's part of a strata title, so we had to get approval from all of the neighbouring properties that it would be okay to have increased traffic on the road, et cetera. Once all of that was in place, then we were able to initiate a first meeting with the people that were interested,” explained Ramona Boyle, Coordinator of Quadra ICAN.

She continued, “This past week about 10 people that came out to the property, walked it, decided what we needed to do to get it in shape for planting, what we were going to plant and how we were going to do it.”

“This property is flat. It is fertile. It used to be a market garden. It's completely fenced, which is a huge benefit and there are already some perennial plants on the property. There is water and hydro as well.”

“There are three parts of the property that are ready to plant right away. We had two volunteers, one who offered to repair the irrigation system. And a second who offered to repair a rotor tiller that somebody had donated so that we could loosen up the soil where a chicken tractor had been previously. So it's well fertilized, but a little compacted.”

“A good part of the property is going to have to wait until the fall to be prepared for next year's crops, but we're very excited about being able to grow potatoes, salad greens, corn, squash, tomatoes and beans right away. We've got a very keen group that are ready to get their rakes and the shovels in the ground.”

“ICAN's plan is to use it as an educational experience so that farmers or gardeners that don't have as much experience can learn from more experienced gardeners in a community setting.”

“The plan is to have four workday slash workshops throughout the season. The first time they would plant together, and see different ways of planting. The second session might be about pest control - how do we manage pests and weeds? The third might be How do you prune for better production? Then the last one would be how do you harvest? And what can you do with the harvest?”

“Each one of those events will be a kind of community picnic and a work team where the community get together to see how their food is grown and to learn different ways.”

“This will be a little bit of an experimental garden, so side by side methods of potato planting, for example, to see which one works best in these conditions. Is it putting the potatoes in the ground, or is it Ruth Stout with the potatoes on top and hay mounded over top.”

CC: Is there anything else you wanted to say?

“We're just very excited about being able to get started very quickly, because all of this happened really late in the season that the land was offered. We want to make sure that we can get certain crops that can go in a little bit later, so that they can produce this year.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - TELUS started construction Monday, May 29, exactly two weeks after they notified Cortes Currents that Tla’amin First Nation had given them the go ahead to build a cell tower on their land.

It has been two and half years since the communication giant informed the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) that they planned to construct three cell towers on Cortes Island and two more on Quadra.

The SRD refused to give their approval unless TELUS held public meetings. So TELUS approached First Nations, who are not under SRD authority. They built a cell tower on We Wai Kai land in Drew Harbour, Quadra Island, in February 2022. TELUS also approached the Tla’amin First Nation, about building on the parcel of land they own in Mansons Landing.

Cortes Currents visited the site on Thursday June 1. A security guard escourted me up the newly constructed dirt road to the edge of the property, where a sign warned that “Trespassers will be prosecuted under Tla’amin Law.” An excavator was working up ahead and the whine of a chainsaw announced they were still cutting trees. Dozens of logs were piled beside the road.

Samantha Statton later supplied some images of fairly substantial second growth trees that had been felled, but did not wish to comment.

The security guard did not wish to comment either. However when I pointed out the white truck with the logo ‘Belconn Construction’ on the side he admitted there was no point denying the obvious. They were the subcontractors.

Cortes Currents approached half a dozen people in Mansons Landing for comment. No one expressed support for the project. A couple of people vented their frustration off the record. Only one agreed to a short interview.

 “My name is Tammy and I live on Sutil Point Road, pretty close to where the new cell tower is going up,” she said.

CC: “Do you have any thoughts about it?”

Tammy: “I feel that there should have been more real community consultation about the tower and its location. I am all for more connectivity. I think that's a good thing for emergency services, but I'm disappointed that the location chosen is so close to a residential area.”

CC: “It is on First Nation land, meaning different government.”

“It is,” she acknowledged.

Roy L Hales/ COrtes Currents - The Thursday Afternoon Art Collective will be coming to the walls of the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery at 6 PM on Friday June 9. The artwork of LIsa Gibbons, Madhurima Braaten, Dayna Davis, Caz Ratcliffe, Denise Drury, Jane Newman, Karen McDairmid and Darshan Stevens will remain on display until Sunday June 18.

Lisa Gibbons explained, “I've been doing art classes in the studio for the last maybe 10 years. Mixed media art classes for different members of the community, children, adults, and a core group of really dedicated people just kept coming and emerged as this vital core group that we have right now.”

“We were meeting just before the pandemic, but it was still in the form of a class. Then we had to take this break and, for me personally, I also had to take a break for health reasons. The studio was dormant. We were all in our own creative spaces at home. Gratefully, I was able to come back to the studio late last fall, maybe November, and this core group of women that really wanted to continue came back as well. We just naturally morphed into a collaborative group because everybody's got so much experience now. So we left behind that old model that we were doing before, it's just really beautiful how it's blossomed, and we're doing things together.”

Darshan Stevens added, “I've always done different kinds of art, like writing and music, playing and photography. This is my career for quite a long time. I never really had an idea that I was going to become a visual artist, but 10 years ago when I moved here, I started coming to Lisa's classes. I just got really into it and now I really feel like doing this kind of mixed media art is a really big part of my practice creatively. I'm really grateful that I got to learn this through Lisa because Lisa's also a really close friend.

“Now I feel like this group of women that's together in this Thursday afternoon collective, that we have really started forming pretty tight bonds. There were already some really tight bonds with some of the people in the group. Three of them are already really good old friends.”

Jane and Denise and Karen all come from Banff and they're all really close friends and have long histories as artists themselves. There's something about the container of it being the same seven women every week that I find I like even better than when we started the group. So when we started the group, it was more drop in and different people came different weeks, and that was fine as well. But this, it feels very cohesive and it feels like a really great container for art making and collaboration and deeper friendship and connection now.”

Jane Newman said, “When we wrote the proposal to the Schoolhouse Gallery, we had to articulate what between Heaven and Earth was going to be about and also really in some ways articulate what our purpose in working together is, and what it does for us as a group. We talked about it before it became a statement, but that statement will be part of the ‘Between Heaven and Earth’ exhibit. just who we are collectively, what we believe or what we come to know collectively and it will continue to change and morph.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - In the two months that ICAN’s food recovery program has been in operation, close to 1,300 people have have felt the benefits.

“Since the beginning of March we've distributed 1040 8.4 kilos of food, and that has been distributed to 338 individuals who were feeding 671 people. In addition to that, we have been supplying various agencies like Quadra Circle, the Read Island Aging In Place program, the Reed Island Community Kitchen. These agencies have been feeding an additional 600 people. In total, we estimate that that food has provided meals for 1,271 people,” said Ramona Boyle, Coordinator of Quadra ICANN.

CC: These are separate people, not just meals?

RB: “We've kept track of individuals.”

“The distributions have been gradually increasing in not only the amount of food that we have to distribute, but also the number and diversity of people who are coming to access the program. So we're very, very pleased about it. We do need to access more sources of food, so that we can make sure that we are able to provide for everybody that turns up at our distributions.”

“We are still collecting from both Tru Value stores and Amped on Nutrition. Talking to the owner of Amped was really, really interesting because she said that she had wanted to have a business that had a circular economy, but was unable to get rid of food because the food bank, for example, has rules about not being able to accept food from them. So she was very happy to be able to send food that was, in many cases, really high quality, organic, gluten-free, vegetarian fare for distribution.”

“Those three businesses have really been fantastic, but we're also pursuing a couple of other options for regular donations. Increasingly individuals are coming to us and saying ‘I have excess kale,’ or ‘I have lettuce that needs to be cut before I go on my holiday. Can ICAN use it?’ And we are able to pick it up and distribute fresh food.

“We're really very happy with the program.”

“We did have some concerns in the early stages from people who had been dumpster diving, worried that they would no longer have access to food 24 hours a day. To deal with those concerns, we have established one of two community fridges that is located right now in the Cove and it's stocked 24/7. We're looking for a location for the second fridge in Heriot Bay, so that we can do the same at this end of the island.”

CC: have you heard any response from the dumpster divers?

RB: “I know that more of them are showing up for distribution. More importantly, the food is being taken from the community fridge and it's being taken in small increments. It's not like somebody is coming in and swooping it all up. It disappears a little bit at a time and then we restock, and that tells us that it is serving a need.”

“They're also telling us that food continues to end up in the dumpsters at the grocery store. So they're not completely cut off from their previous supply.”

CC: Do you happen to know if any of Quadra Islands at risk population are among the recipients?

RB: “Definitely. I participate in the distributions that on both Monday and Thursday. Talking to people I know that we have people who are living in the bush. We have people that are living on boats. We have people that are unemployed and dealing with all kinds of health issues. We also have people who you would not think are in need, but the invisible stresses are being placed on the entire population. We are just overwhelmed with the positive response of those that are coming to get food.”

Image credit‘I have lettuce that needs to be cut before I go on my holiday. Can ICAN you use it? Photo by Toshiyuki IMAI via FLickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)

Greg Osoba/ CKTZ News - Cortes Island Death Caring Collective is looking to expand its services and hire a staff member as the local island's population ages.

Collective Co-founder Margaret Verschuur says that more community members are needing help to navigate the myriad of health care options available for addressing physical or mental health needs, or both. She adds that those needs can be due to physical limitations, loss of a loved one, or ageing in place.

To that end, the collective is expanding its services and hiring a Compassionate Communities Coordinator to help with death care on the island. Verschurr says the position is funded through a grant from the BC Centre for Palliative Care and administered through the Cortes Community Health Association.

The Compassionate Communities model, from which the collective is taking a lead, is based on recent British research indicating that community members fare better when they have help accessing services and are able to continue participating within their community.

The Cortes Island Death Caring Collective was formed in 2018 and works to support "death as part of life" in the community, according to its website. Direct support is available to people nearing the end of life and their loved ones. As well, Verschuur says its email list and online community continues to grow and currently has 105 members. It posts weekly articles on a local website regarding death and dying and also hosts workshops.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Quadra Island’s 3-month-long beach clean-up finished over the weekend

“Once a week, usually on Wednesdays, we would go on a remote beach hike,  to different areas on Quadra that were hard to access.  We had to go hiking for maybe an hour or so to some of these places and then collect and leave debris, and then we'd have to return by boat another day,” explained Nevil Hand, who organized the campaign.

“Near the beginning, it was just Heather and I. We'd put out an announcement on Facebook then maybe I'd make a few phone calls, but come the time when everyone was supposed to be there, it was often just her and I.”

“As the weather got better, more people started coming out.  I think that some people realize that  it's not just picking up garbage.  You tie it in with a hike and you're enjoying the beaches and we're seeing wildlife. Probably a core of less than15 people were keen and it's hard to keep them motivated.”

“That's why we came up with the prizes. In previous years everyone got coffee, cookies and cake and that seemed to be enough. Now we have to do it twice a year, maybe more. It’s hard to motivate someone to pick up other people's garbage.” 


CC: How big of a problem is debris on Quadra Island? 


Nevil Hand: “It’s a pretty big problem,  just how the weather patterns and the tide and how Quadra is situated at the north end of Georgia straight. We seem to receive a lot of debris directly from the south of us, from all the big townships and cities even as far away as Bellingham. We've had signage and floats from all the way up from North Vancouver, Vancouver, you name it.” 


“Before 2019, the Sierra Club used to do a one day beach cleanup event, which was tied in with Earth Day. Then they just decided they weren't doing it anymore,  maybe partly due to COVID.” 




“In 2020  my wife Heather and I  decided that we still wanted to get exercise and go out on the beaches.  Once a week we'd go out for three or four hours and fill a few sacks full of garbage.” 

“After about a year,  I came up with the idea of starting a Facebook page because we had no funding and Facebook is free. We were able to attract a few other interested people.” 


“Then there was the COVID relief money from the provincial government and  maybe a bit of the federal government's money. Spirit of the West kayaks got a contract to do a fall cleanup in 2021. 245 We assisted with some of our Facebook group members on that cleanup.  They had a commercial contract, paid staff,  boats and all the equipment that we didn't have, and they were able to do a big thorough cleanup.” 

“Then six months later, it's all back again and there was no more covid relief money.  We're back to doing it ourselves.” 

CC: People have been talking to me about what you've been doing the last three months. How did you come up with the idea of having a contest?  

NH: “We came up with the idea of the contest in late November last year. We knew  it  takes a long time to motivate people and the best chances to remove the debris in my mind. Is after the winter storms,  when the weather starts to get better and before  people get busy with family and visitors and want to do other things in the summer. We timed the contest to start at the beginning of March and end just yesterday, at the end of May.