Cortes Currents

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.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Cortes Island will not have a sani-dump this summer.

The matter was brought to Cortes Currents attention by former Cortes Museum President Lynne Jordan, who has been living in Duncan for the past four years.

“The closest RV sani-dump is at the Shell station on the upper highway above Campbell River, two ferries away! There is no public one on Quadra Island either. I had planned to visit Cortes this summer for about three weeks to continue doing some more research for the history of Whaletown I am in the process of writing. With my camper van which has small holding tanks, I will only be staying three or four days at the most,” she wrote.

Jordan had been expecting to use the sani-dump at Klahoose Gorge Harbour campground, until she found out it is closed while the resort undergoes extensive rennovations.

Jason Johnston, General Manager of QXMC (the Klahoose economic development arm), emailed:

“The RV Sani station at the Gorge Harbour Resort Marina was not in service at the time the Klahoose purchased Gorge Harbour (in 2021). It was only recently that I discovered the above ground tank for this purpose and learned that the service was offered.” 

“That said, when our RV park was open during the 2022 season, we had a pump truck service come up and service RVs staying with us. This is a great solution for all RV operators and those opting for extended stays. It worked well for 2022 operations and we simply added it to the service that was already being done on site. I believe it was also $20 user rate, which was very affordable to campers needing service, allowing us to could cover extra costs.” 

During the years she lived on Cortes, Jordan was responsible for having the sani-dump being installed at the Gorge. Prior to that she had approached Smelt Bay Provincial Park, Cortes Natural Food Co-op and the Squirrel Cove General Store. They briefly considered a sani-dump at the museum,

“The problem is the holding tank is between the Museum and Firehall No. 1. Some RVs are rather large, and would create a problem for fire trucks and ambulance if their exit was blocked or compromised during an emergency.”

Jordan described a number of incidents prior to Gorge Harbour installing a sani-dump, when RVs either dumped, or were stopped from dumping, their grey and black matter in some of Cortes Island's more ecologically sensitive areas. 

“Twice, just in time, I stopped RVs from dumping both their grey and black water tanks into Hague Lake Creek from the lake's lower parking lot. It made me wonder how many RVs had done – and would continue doing! -- the same thing when I wasn't happening by? … It made me livid since that creek drains into the ecologically fragile Manson's Lagoon, a most amazing and special lagoon along the BC coast.”

The campground manager at Smelt Bay Provincial Park had informed her he had “to clean up large smelly spills in the campground where visitors had dumped their sani-tanks in the lower overflow parking lot, or at the top of the beach along the road.”

That was prior to the sani-dump at Gorge Harbour, which Johnson wrote was no longer operational in 2021.

He added, “While planning is ongoing both for the Gorge and our new site at Squirrel Cove, we are aware of the need for RV sani service on Cortes as well as marine pump out, also very much needed for Cortes. There are lots of factors to consider such as the chemicals in RV and marine tanks and thier effects on septic systems. Likely the best solution is to again to address holding tanks and having pump trucks service them but again we are still in planning.” 

“For the interim, I suggest RV operators consider looping in trailer pump out service as part of thier amenities as there is always pump trucks coming to the Island.”

Louis Belcourt/CKTZ News - A local band is hosting a free show to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

Six Foot Johnson — a band including Garden Stein on drums and vocals, Danfver Johnson on harmonica, rhythm guitar and vocals, Dave Murray on lead guitar, and Greg Osoba on bass and vocals — has practiced "over 800 times at about 40 practices a year," including numerous live shows, over their 20 year career. The group considers themselves "Cortes Island's house band."

"Well, 20 years ago I rented the Gorge Hall and I set up a bunch of instruments and invited everyone on the island to come and jam for my 35th birthday. And out of those jams, I met the guys that became Six Foot Johnson. And I said, 'wow, we should keep playing, this is good music,'" said Stein. "And the band grew from that night, so I thought it would come full circle to rent the Gorge Hall 20 years later, set up the gear and play music with the same guys again."

The show will be free of charge and have a selection of DJ's playing before and after Six Foot Johnson's two one hour long live sets.

"It's a celebration, but we're doing it as a gift to the community," said Osoba. "It's a 20 year anniversary and we are doing the show for free because it's a give back to the Cortes community after all these years."

The show is on June 3. Doors open at 8 p.m.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Quadra Island Outdoor Club made 6 trips this month, and 3 of them were off-island. They came to Carrington Bay and Grandmother’s Grove on Cortes Island, kayaked on the Sayward canoe circuit and visited the petroglyphs on Maud Island. Closer to home, they’ve walked Hyacinthe Bay at low tide, paddled around Gowlland Harbour to see the wild flowers and took part in a beach clean-up.    

“The Outdoor Club does provide a service to the community,  particularly for people who are new to Quadra, who both aren't familiar with the trail system and at the same time really want to meet other people with shared interests.  Most of them are perfectly capable of walking down those trails by themselves. These are mapped and maintained trails, but we also have in our membership a lot of people whose partners or friends don't share that interest. Particularly women may not be interested in doing the solo trip.  I think that is an important niche for us. It's a very friendly group and the social aspect is very important,” said Debbie Quigg (DQ).


She and her partner Norris Weimer founded the club in 2013.


DQ: “We usually have between 35 and 45 members.  So, it's pretty small. We don't have leaders or guides, nobody's trained. We're a group of peers. Everybody needs to be self-sufficient.  That works out pretty well. and we've never had any incidents or accidents. The group's compatible.”


“We are mostly retired and the trips are mostly on weekdays, but there is a demographic for that here, for the size of what we're after.”


“We've tried occasionally to entice younger and working people by taking trips on weekends, but often they have such busy lives that it's really hard for them to take those leisure moments and have that flexibility to join us even if it's what they would like to do. That's not always possible for them.”


“We try to have one outing per week and that's usually hiking or kayaking. In the winter, we do a bit of snowshoeing.” 


Cortes Currents asked Quigg to take us on a quick peek into their world, starting with their expeditions to Cortes Island.