Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The city of Campbell River intends to remove the Campbell River Art Gallery’s (CRAG) tax exemption, and will not allow the gallery to make a presentation at the October 12 council meeting where the final decision will be made.

At the September 28 meeting, Councillor Ron Kerr moved to have the CRAG’s exemption and that of the Vancouver Island Mental Health Society removed because of their ‘bad behaviour.’

There was no one available to comment when Cortes Currents phoned the Vancouver Island Mental Health Society

In an interview with Cortes Currents, Sara Lopez Assu, Executive Director of the CRAG states the city demanded the gallery tell the homeless people sleeping outside of their doors to leave.

“I have no vested interest in allowing people to sleep in our entrances,” she explained.

Assu does not intend to confront the homeless people. The RCMP advised her that it would be dangerous for gallery’s staff, who are all women, to do so. The gallery’s board of Directors told city council they are tennants of the Centennial Building, whose responsibility ends at the door.

Instead of hostility, the gallery developed relationships with the people sleeping at their door.

This includes telling them, “We need to open at 10 AM, please make sure that you’re packed up. Please don’t leave any messes for us.” 

While the city will not allow the gallery to make a presentgtion, 142 of the hundreds of letters defending it are in the correspondeance section of the October 12 meeting.

The first letter is from a woman expressed her astonishment that council is granting a 50% exemption to a golf course, while ‘stripping all of the exemptions for the two organizations that are actually being proactive in providing services and addressing solutions to help mitigate the ‘downtown issues.’

That is followed by someone writing, “I was very disappointed to read that the Campbell River Art Gallery may have their entire tax exemption removed. To deem such an important part of our community ‘a bad neighbour’ and ‘having an extreme detrimental effect on businesses and visitations downtown’ is outrageous.”

The third correspondent states, “There is a large community of artists and art supporters who are shocked at this decision. The Gallery will suffer and its existence will be jeopardized by the impact of a large tax bill. The CRAG is an incredible asset to the art and culture scene in Campbell River and surrounding area. Its importance cannot be overstated as it encourages and educates local artists, local and surrounding populations, and visitors through art exhibits, art lectures, and special events.”

In a post thanking the community for its support, the gallery alludes to coverage by the CBC, Times Colonist, and CHEK News.

It also states, “For those interested in learning more about the CRAG’s Permissive Tax Exemption loss, in the caption is a link to an interview with our Executive Director.

The link leads to her interview with Cortes Currents. https://cortescurrents.ca/campbell-river-moves-to-remove-tax-exemptions-from-the-art-gallery-and-mental-health/

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At their September 28 Council meeting, the city of Campbell River took the first steps towards removing the tax exemptions from the Campbell River Art Gallery (CRAG) and Vancouver Island Mental Health. Councillor Ron Kerr made the motions, which were approved, with only Councillor Tanille Johnston voting in opposition. City staff informed council this was a change of direction which affected the budget and there would need to be a second meeting before the exemptions can be removed. This has been scheduled for October 12. 


“It looked like it was going to be a pretty standard third reading on September 28th. Maybe an hour and a half into the meeting, my phone exploded with messages from folks that were watching the meeting saying, 'Sara, you need to watch this. They're coming after the CRAG,’”

Sara Lopez Assu, Executive Director of the CRAG, subsequently informed Cortes Currents.

“It completely surprised us. It felt a bit like an ambush because at this point we have no recourse. We submitted a request to present to the City Council at the October 12th meeting, where the final vote will occur. That request has been denied. So there seems to be no interest in engaging in any kind of dialogue with us.”


It was already after 4 PM and there was no one available to comment, when Cortes Currents phoned Vancouver Island Mental Health.


Kerr explained the rationale for his actions against the Art Gallery and Mental Health at the September 28 council meeting:


“Their behaviour has been very poor neighbourly to the surrounding businesses and is having an extreme detrimental effect to our downtown businesses and visitations in our downtown area.”   


“We've got limited ways of letting these organizations know and changing their behaviour, but we certainly don't need to give them tax deferrals if they're not working with us.”


Assu claims, “Council is obviously misguided in both their perceptions of us and of whether or not this is a solution to anything other than punish an organization which they may not align with in terms of personal values.” 

 She has received hundreds of supportive letters and emails since the meeting, “We’ve received them from private businesses down Shoppers Row, the Library, the Tidemark, museums and art galleries across the country and professional artists that we've worked with from across the country. They see the work that we do and see value in the contributions that we bring to this community.”


At the council meeting, Councillor Tanille Johnston said she had not been privy to the city’s ‘in camera’ (i.e. - private) meetings on this issue, but, “There are roles and responsibilities for our bylaw officers and it's not necessarily the role and responsibility of a business owner or a not-for-profit society owner to be doing bylaw role and responsibilities.  I would love to understand better where you're coming from Councillor Kerr, in regards to some of the comments you made.”


“Our gallery has been getting some pretty awesome recognition in some pretty big spaces for the work that they're doing. I think their engagement with certain populations is actually keeping people off of the street and putting them into spaces and places where they can and do meaningful work that is helping them with their journey and trying to get to a better place.”


Councillor Ben Lanyon supported Kerr’s motion, “I'm aware of some bylaw enforcement and correspondence that pertains to this issue.  There was a lot of pushback against our own city staff, after they requested the Art Gallery Executive Director take certain actions on the property downtown next to Spirit Square. I'm aware of a general attitude in favour of allowing camping in the awnings on city owned property, that is provided at zero cost to the art gallery, despite the city's requests to the contrary.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) just released a report about the carbon footprint made by long distance trips to and from Cortes Island. 

Many of their findings are to be expected. Taking a plane off the island creates a great deal more emissions than driving a car, and people who carpool or take a bus are responsible for only a fraction of that vehicle’s pollution.  

One of the biggest contributors to our local footprint is the Cortes-Quadra ferry, which creates approximately 1 kg of carbon emissions for every walk-on and 12 kg for every car.

This is where the effects of carrying more than one person is really evident, because the vehicle emissions are divided between the number of occupants. While a car makes 12 kg of CO2, if there are four people in that vehicle their personal share of these emissions are only 3 kg each. 

Of course, you need to include the emissions from three ferries when calculating the impact of a one way trip to Vancouver.

“If you take up a space on the ferry with a car, then you get a certain share of the ferry's greenhouse gas emissions. It's actually quite a lot.  Roughly half of a car’s emissions if you're driving to Vancouver, which  surprised me a little bit.  It helps to make decisions about how much effort to put into leaving the car on Cortes, finding another way to get across Quadra and catching a ride with somebody else or taking the bus,” explained Max Thaysen, President of FOCI

He added that this is not the typical carbon footprint study, which tends to shift the blame for carbon emissions away from corporations and governments and onto individuals.

MT: “A lot of people get turned away from climate change and climate action because it doesn't feel very good to be the recipient of guilt or shame for just trying to live our lives and do the best we can.”  

“I'm really sensitive to that dynamic. We tried to make it explicit in the report that this is for information purposes. This isn't to make anybody feel bad about what they decide.”

“This is to support people who would like to know what choices they can make to reduce their personal impact.” 

“With that comes a strong message that  the average or certainly lower income Canadian impact on climate change is not the game changer. It is a bit of a distraction at times.”  

“I still want to know about it, and I think other people do too, but we shouldn't let it hold us back from focusing on some more important things, which includes collective action and creating the political will to make systemic changes.”  

“It can be supportive and helpful to reduce our personal carbon emissions because it makes us feel more aligned when we make demands of the government. We can stand in a healthier place when we've picked off the low hanging fruit of our personal contributions to this problem, but we shouldn't let a few hundred kilograms of carbon one way or the other hold us back from joining together to save our planet, save ourselves, save people who are least responsible and most affected.” 

“The flip side of that is the unsurprising revelation from this study that if you're a person who has a lot of financial resources and you're using those resources to do a lot of flying and a lot of traveling in some of the least efficient ways, then you're having an outsized contribution to this problem. This is an opportunity to think about that a little bit.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Her singing career appeared to be a thing of the past, when Kim Paulley came to Cortes Island in 1992. The release of ‘Straight From The Heart’ had been promising, but she turned to Classical music. While there had been ‘fantastic’ moments between 1985-90, there was also the toil of auditions (and sometimes not getting the part). Her career was on hold when a friend  recommended the retreats at Hollyhock, where George Sirk was a naturalist guide.

“He was ever engaging, charming and  I went out on his outings. We became friends. There was an attraction there for sure, too, but I was still married at the time,” Pauley explained.

Then she asked, “George, I want to go swimming at the lake. Can you tell me a good place on the lake to swim where you don't need a swimsuit?”

 

“And he said,' you want to go to the nudie rock? So, great, okay, and he gave me the directions and everything.”

“Next day, I see him on the deck, and I'm all covered with red spots. ‘The lake itch,’ we used to call it. You don't hear about it much anymore, but he looked at me and said, 'Oh no, I sent you to the wrong place and you've got the lake itch. Did you dry off really quickly afterwards? That's what you're supposed to do.’" 

“I said, well, 'I didn't know that part.’" 

“He felt really badly.” 

“I was only there for about four or five days,and only saw him a few more times. We went out on that morning row with a little picnic of muffins and tea, and sat out on Long Tom.”

“The day I was leaving, I just said goodbye to him, and he said, 'Well, I owe you dinner. I gave you the lake itch, so when I'm in Vancouver sometime maybe we could go for dinner. My mom lives there.’"

“I said, 'yeah, but  I am married.’" 

“He said, 'oh, okay, we'll see you around.’" 

“A year later, David, my husband at the time, had gone off to Arizona to be a production manager there with the opera company there. That was  a trial separation. We did try things one more time in Vancouver, but we ended up ultimately splitting up.”

“So by the next summer, I was on my own and I looked George up again.  The call of Cortes was very strong. I absolutely fell in love with the place, as many of us do after we've been here the first time, but I also really liked George, too. So I got in touch with him, and he said, ‘well, this is a perfect time to come visit, it's my birthday.’ It was July 25th, and he said, ‘I'm having a huge party,’ which indeed it was. It was a barbecue. Everybody was all over the ten acres of his property.” 

“That's when our romance got started.  We spent about a week hanging out together. He'd already told me I do have a girlfriend here on Cortes but  she's away and  decided that  we can see other people. So  I fell in between the cracks there during that. So when I was leaving, he said, you know, I've got my girlfriend here. So I was like, Yeah, great,  but  I had gone into it eyes wide open.”

“He stayed in touch and by Christmas, he said, ‘I split up with my girlfriend. It didn't really work out for us, so I'm wondering if you'd like to come for lunch with my mom and I?’”

  

“Okay, we've gone quickly from us not being a couple to me meeting his mother, But I was interested enough that I said, 'Yeah okay, let's go for lunch.’" 

“We really became a couple from there on. We officially say our anniversary is Valentine's Day because that's when we were really committed.” 

“I was still working, we were having a long distance relationship, but by the following summer, so that would have been summer of 94,  I decided to do a trial move to Cortes. Took a leave from my job, and I stayed.” 

“George was very encouraging for me to sing again and it was great, because I don't know if I would have started again otherwise."

“I started singing again with Singing for the Queen. We had our big moment there that ended up on the national news across Canada because Bill Weaver filmed it.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Cortes Currents was mistaken in the original version of this story. The Chum run did not come into Basil Creek early this year – these are Pinks.

According to Cortes Island Streamkeeper Christine Robinson there have not been any Pink runs on Cortes since 2015, but there was a huge surplus this year.  Pinks are known to stray and find creeks other than their natal streams, and this may be an explanation for their presence on Cortes Island. They started to turn up in Squirrel Cove Creek two to three weeks ago, and Basil Creek and Chris’ Lagoon around Sept 28, but there does not appear to be enough water in the creeks for them.

Cortes Currents examined Basil Creek on Oct 2.

A cloud of Turkey Vultures, gulls and crows fled at our approach. Judging from the condition of the dead fish, their feast had only recently begun. Many settled on the nearby ancient wreck to wait until we leave. The crows are voicing their outrage at our intrusion. 

Four, or more, sea lions are feasting in the deeper waters of Squirrel Cove. 

While the rains appear to have started, the water has still not risen much and the trail of dead and stranded Pink salmon does not go far up Basil Creek.

Dozens of fish have attempted to swim upstream, but were not able to penetrate much further than the trees. Robinson said a couple of fish may have beyond this point and it is too early to know if any spawned.

Far more are circling just beyond the mouth of the creek, waiting for an opportunity to swim upstream, but the tide is receding and there is so little water in the creek bed that it is a barrier.

Further down the beach, a solitary Pink salmon is circling in a tidal pool. Baby crabs are feasting on one of his mates who was trapped by the last receding tide. We decided to rescue the salmon. After several attempts to grasp its slimy wriggling body, I gave up on the attempt. My daughter, Amy Forest, was more persistent. The Pink squirmed out of her clutches several times then grounded itself. This provided her with the opportunity to pick it up. From there it is only a few steps to the ocean and freedom. 

The Chum run is expected to arrive around the middle of this month and should continue into November. If there is an abundance of Chum, it could last longer.

The long range weather forecast shows some rain in the next two weeks.

How long will it take for the level of Basil Creek to rise?

Will it be on time for this year’s Chum run?  

Is there anything Cortes residents can do that will enable the salmon population’s survival?

While she is not a hydrologist, Robinson says one thing people could do to help is watch their water consumption and the effect it has on the water table. We are entering into a period of drier summers, when there is less water available.  This will have a direct impact upon the water table, creek levels and the survival of salmon.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - Cortes Island’s Ferry Advisory committee met (via Webex, a Zoom-like conferencing app) on the afternoon of Wednesday September 27th at 12:30pm. The meeting had originally been scheduled as a “town hall” style event at Mansons Hall; however, at the last minute BC Ferries announced that their FAC meetings would be held online, due to threats of violence from the public.

Though such threatening behaviour seemed unlikely on Cortes Island, BCF’s policy apparently applies across the board. The last-minute change of venue caused some confusion, but approximately thirty people joined the videoconference call on Wednesday (including BC Ferries staff and FAC members).

FAC Chair Michael Lynch chaired the meeting, moving briskly through a fairly crowded agenda:

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The audio version of this story opens with a clip of Cortes Island’s own Kim Paulley singing in what may be the first music video release of Bryan Adams' ‘Straight from the Heart.’ That was in 1979. Adams originally thought it should be sung by a woman and did not make the song famous for another 3 years. 

Paulley has been entertaining Cortes Islanders for the past three decades and in 1994 gave a special unscheduled performance for Queen Elizabeth on Twin Islands. In the first broadcast of a two part series, she talks about the beginnings of her career.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At a time of rising lumber costs and diminishing quality, a little Cortes Island business has been demonstrating how the materials from existing houses can be reused in a variety of ways. 


“We call our business Creative Deconstruction. We take apart buildings by hand and sell the building materials that are still in good condition to people who are building. We also try to process whatever can't be reused in ways that are also healthy,” explained Max Thaysen.

On their website there are photos of beams and other lumber, particle board, sheet roofing, a metal railing, and hardware, as well as building a garage, chairs and a table. 

“We make a little bit of firewood from wood that is clean and can't be reused in various ways.  A little bit of stuff still ends up going to the landfill.” 


“Me and Travis Pollack run this business together and we've been operating for five or six years. We've probably taken apart 10 house sized buildings over that time, and some smaller stuff.” 


“We have a little storage yard here and something like three quarters of the stuff that we get doesn't even come back here. It goes straight to somebody's building site, which is really convenient because it reduces the shipping and handling and so reduces costs for us and costs for the customer.”


“It's mostly been going to our friends building houses for themselves. This is also how I've built my house and I think that we've contributed to the construction of probably 10 houses around Cortes.” 


“Its always been a really special part of our business that we’ve provided really great  Really great quality materials to people who are building houses, and they saved a bunch of money by shopping with us. And so we contributed to affordable housing on Cortes Island as one of the sort of goals of our work. it's super gratifying to have a quadruple bottom line.”


“We have a small inventory remaining. And we found that it's a profitable business. We save people money on building materials while paying ourselves a decent wage.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery just celebrated its 26th anniversary. Some of its early posters and reproductions of artwork were put up on the walls for the society’s recent AGM. During conversation with some of the earlier members, Cortes Currents learned the gallery was in operation prior to the beginning of written records in 1997. 

Brigid Wieler explained, “I was here from the beginning, not terribly involved right away, but interested. Evelyn Mielke actually opened the gallery, but that's disappeared out of history, and I can't find Evelyn.”


Meinsje Vlaming agreed, “I think that was in the mid 90s.”

To which Wieler added, “That is correct. It was two years before Noberto, then they worked together for a bit and then she left the island.” 

Mielke’s name appears in a list of the pioneers who displayed their artwork in 1998 and 1999. 

The stream of records starts the year before, which is why this is officially the 26th anniversary of the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery.

CC:What part did Noberto de la Vega play in the gallery? 


Meinsje: "He was our leader. He came from Mexico, he went to art school in Mexico City. His art is very dramatic and very socially oriented. He took on a lot, I just can't even start to imagine how his art would be right now."


"The gallery was filled with works from various artists that would stay for the whole season. It would be open daily, from 11:30 to 4:30."


CC: 5 days a week?


Meinsje: "Through the whole season with one show. We just got a little taste of everything. Of course, there were not too many people. I don't even know if there was an opening then, because later on we came up with the openings."


"I was the host sometimes also, and Noberto and I got talking, ‘wouldn't it be a great idea to have some more shows so we could pull in more people into the gallery and have every artist on Cortes show more of their work. Let's just see what everybody can do and grow the art community.’ So this is what we did."

"We had our meetings, I think in May because we would sit outside with all the chairs. Norberto was there with a big sign, and it was 'OK, who wants to have a show?' People would go, 'yeah me, me, me, I'll have a show the first week in June.' Every week there was another show."

An interview with Lynne Barker, Janet Turpin, Meinsje Vlaming and Brigid Weiler about the origins of the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - After more than a decade of service, the Oyster Bay schoolhouse was barged over to Whaletown in 1950. There it opened its doors to the children of a new community.


Brigid Weiler started attending the Whaletown School in 1959. 


Her earliest memories are in that area.


“My dad Ottie Weiler was the postmaster in Whaletown for many, many years.  My mom, Mary Weiler, was from New Westminster. My dad was from Victoria. They were essentially urban visionaries, if you will.” 


“They met during the war. My mom was a nurse, and  nursed through the London Blitz. My dad was an officer. When the officers would come up to London, they'd hire a hall, and requisition  a busload of nurses to come down and dance with them. That's how my mom and dad met. They were married there. Things happened after that, and then they finally got to come home and be together. They chartered a boat, and  came up the coast looking for a place where they could live a happy, romantic, bohemian life.”


“They didn't know anything about living in the wilderness at all. They saw the house half built on Whaletown Bay and bought it. It's still there. It's a blue house, you see it when you go out on the ferry.  Five acres of waterfront for $1,500. They were so happy. They had just a wonderful romantic, bohemian life and four daughters.” 


Thanks to Mary Weiler, the schoolhouse was a community arts centre more than 50 years before its rebirth as the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery.

BW: “My mother taught art classes here, from the late 40s until she left. There's a photo there of her students squished into the little kid's desk. This is Mr. McDevitt, who was our teacher and his wife Lottie, Bernard Woodward, Edie Huck, with all the easels. She did that for many, many years, so it was always an art teaching place.”

Mary Weiler painted one of the pieces currently hanging in the gallery after she moved here in 1947.

BW: “This is an early piece of hers, after that she was a watercolorist.She was an art teacher and an artist. She also taught first aid classes here.”

“The community club used the building in those days as well. They had the Santa Claus parties here sometimes, and other things. When they opened the road to Mansons around 1960, there was a big party. There was actually quite a bit that went on in the field. It was the place where people would celebrate. We'd had community picnics.”


Brigid was living just a short walk away when she started school. 


BW: “I came here from grade one to grade six.”


“My teacher was Don McDevitt. He and his wife lived on the corner of Cemetery Road and he would catch the school bus over here every morning to go to school.”

CC: Can I get you to name some of the students?


BW: “David Robertson still lives here and he had several siblings who were also in attendance - Alan, Alice and Bernie - and then that family moved away. There was Jeannie, Cheryl, and Rick Matthews. The Matthews family still own property, and come here for holidays. There were the Riddell kids, Marilyn and Noreen and Louise. There were two Waring families and the Bergman kids, Gail, Lynn, and Phillip. I'm still in touch with one of that family, Lynn. They ran the Whaletown store for 30 odd years, so they were a very well known presence here in Cortes.  My best friends were in those families.”


“We had an oil stove for heat at the very back of the building. We also had Vic the dog, who lay by the oil stove and steamed away and made the whole place smell like wet dog in the wintertime. There were gas lights, propane, which were almost never used.  On the very darkest mornings when it was blowing a heavy southeaster, pretty much pitch dark, Mr. McDevitt would climb up a tall step ladder and light the lights. Other than that, we didn't have that, just the windows. By nine o'clock you could see. it was probably pretty dark in here, but I came from a house with no electricity. We were used to it.”