Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District (SRD)’s centralized fire administration support service may be a lot less controversial than expected.

Regional Director Gerald Whalley, of Area A, was originally opposed to the idea of a centralized fire service. At the April 26 Board meeting he said, “I have come to support this. I think it's a good idea. I think it's gonna save us all money.”

Chair Mark Baker, who is also the Mayor of Sayward, added, “Just to let y'all know, I support this 100%. However, I do have to bring this back to my council. I've discussed it with the CAO just here. But without having this information prior to our council meeting, that was a week ago. I do have to bring it back, but I do fully support it.”

Director Whalley moved and Regional Director Mark Vonesch, of Cortes Island, seconded a motion that the matter be deferred until the May 10, 2023, Board Meeting.

While the feasibility study unveiled at last Wednesday’s Board meeting calls for a Fire Chief in Campbell River, it also states that communities are interested in a ‘shopping list’ approach, where local fire departments can pick the items they wish to subscribe to.

Priority services include:

“Recruitment and retention program development

Training and competency management program development, delivery and tracking,

Implementation of a records management system linked to the central fire dispatch,

and Development of regional significant incident response and mutual aid systems.”

This service may be primarily funded through user fees, paid by the individual fire departments. However the feasibility study also suggests a tax levy of about $0.02 for every thousand dollars of residential property assessment, or about $16 for a typical residential property valued at $800,000.

Approximately 60% of the new service’s resources are expected to be devoted to the needs of the Campbell River Fire Department. The remaining 40% would be shared by the 6 volunteer fire departments contracted through the SRD - Cortes Island, Gold River, Oyster River, Sayward, Tahsis and Zeballos - as well as the Quadra Island Fire Department, which is currently independent.

Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch reaffirmed the idea that rural fire departments would continue to service their communities.

“Every individual service has to have its own service there. We have General Admin that catches a few things in here.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Foundation is seeking a Project Manager to oversee development at the Village Commons, in downtown Mansons Landing. This is a two year position, expected to take about 24 hours a week and pays between $35 and $40 an hour.

“We at the Cortes Island Community Foundation are really excited to be able to offer a job and to attract someone into this awesome role as Project Manager for the Cortes Island Village Commons development,” explained Executive Director Manda Aufochs Gillespie (MAG).

“This job is going to entail two different aspects. One of which is filling the terms of BC government funding that we have for the Village Commons, helping to build some of the infrastructure needed for community gatherings and help fulfill the near term project potential of this place. The second part is to really have someone who is passionate about the potential of this place and the role that it could serve in the Cortes Island, community economy and social community.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Cortes Island’s natural history centre just expanded. In addition to the main exhibition area, Wild Cortes now has displays in the Linnaea Education Centre’s lower atrium area.

While the Ecolab has been operational for some time, it has not been widely publicized. In the conclusion of a two part series about the 2023 displays at Wild Cortes, local biologist Sabina Leader-Mense (SLM) takes us outside of the main exhibition area.

Greg Osoba/ CKTZ News - Once again, the Cortes Natural Food Co-op is opening garden plots to residents to grow plants and crops when garden space on the island can be limited.

Up to five garden plots are available in the Cortes Island Natural Food Co-op's community garden, according to new volunteer garden coordinator Kate Maddigan. With 35 plots in total, she says the Co-op views the space as a great resource for helping with food security and sustainability on the island, where finding an area to garden and grow produce can be difficult.

The garden was started 20 years ago by people living on the property when the Co-op was leasing it from the local school board. However, when the Co-op purchased the land in 2019, residents had to move due to local bylaws, Maddigan says. Those still wanting to garden are grandfathered in to being able to work their plots annually, and the number of available plots varies each year.

De Clarke/Roy L Hales - Hollyhock Retreat Centre is holding a Silent Auction (online) this year from April 10th to May 12th. Proceeds from the auction will go to fund scholarships for Hollyhock events and programmes. A wide range of “lots” have been donated by a variety of individuals and businesses.

Roy Hales interviewed Rhys-Thorvald Hansen about the auction, its purpose, the fundraising target, and items being auctioned.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Wild Cortes celebrated Earth Day, on Saturday April 22, with the opening of the new Mother Tree Exhibit. One of the advantages of being among the first to arrive, is that the facility was not too crowded. There were only half a dozen people when Wild Cortes opened at noon. Local biologist Sabina Leader-Mense agreed to give Cortes Currents a walk through. She was making some last minute touches to the exhibit when I asked some of the first viewers, ‘What’s your impression of the exhibit?’

“It's actually pretty amazing. This is my first time seeing it,” replied Charissa Hunt.

“What do you especially like?” asked Cortes Currents.

“The way it's set up and how everything's so easy to see and accessible for kids too,” she said.

Co-curator Donna Collins was attaching one of the last labels to the Mother Tree display, when Leona Jensen exclaimed, “Well Donna, I'm amazed - the displays have improved so much!”

The main exhibition room was filling up by this time. Alona Levesque was deeper in the room, where several species of owls were perched upon the shelves and a young fawn looked up from a patch of salal bushes.

“I like all the taxidermy animals. My sister is apprenticing with Laurel Bohart, who does the taxidermy.”

My walk through with Sabina Leader-Mense (SLM) began after that.

SLM: “We are here at the 2023 opening of the Mother Tree Exhibit, for the Cortes Wild Partnership, at the Linnaea Education Center. Cortes Wild is a partnership of five organizations. The Cortes Island Museum and Archive Society, the Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island Society, Friends of Cortes Island Society, Linnaea Farm Society, and the Discovery Islands Ecosystem Mapping Project from Read Island. We're a regional partnership that got together in 2018. Cortes Wild is the brainchild of Lynne Jordan, the former president of the Cortes Island Museum.”

“This beautiful display we have behind us, created by Laurel Bohart in about 2000, is called Wild Cortes. It follows water from falling on the bluffs of Cortes, moving through the forest, through the riparian, into the wetlands, and eventually into the sea. This was the permanent display at the museum and, as we all know, the building is very small. As we tried to bring new things in, it was constantly being reduced or compromised, and Lynne really wanted to see it find a permanent home. So she went out looking, talked to the Linnaea Farm Society and found this permanent home for the Wild Cortes Exhibit. Then, around that, we created the Cortes Wild Partnership just to have fun with the words.”

“Every year, or every second year, we try to have a new exhibit. This year the main exhibit in the display gallery is called ‘the Mother Tree.’ Donna Collins, Director with the Cortes Island Museum, Laura Bohart, our taxidermist, came together and said, ‘Let’s celebrate Suzanne Simard.’ They had read her book, Finding the Mother Tree, and were very impressed with Suzanne's work. They said, ‘Let's celebrate the work of Suzanne with a beautiful canvas of a Mother Tree!’ So they brought in Kathleen Pemberton, a fabulous Whaletown artist. Kathleen created a mother tree at the center of the display for us, and the other partners from Cortes Wild brought in their individual ways in which they celebrate forest on Cortes.”

“Suzanne Simard, for people that may not know her name, is a Professor at the University of British Columbia, in the Forestry Department. She has created a bit of a stir globally with respect to her research on mycorrhizal networking communications systems happening below the ground in our coastal temperate rainforest. It's called the ‘wood wide web.’ Suzanne is a very, very influential researcher in that field.”

Roy L hales/ Cortes Currents -  Seafest is returning to Squirrel Cove on Saturday, May 20, 2023.

“SeaFest is coming out of hiatus. It ran for over 20 years and then we shut it down during COVID. We were going to start it up last year at the Gorge, but then the Gorge was going through a lot of changes. This Sea Festival is coming back to Squirrel Cove. The view is spectacular. I think it's got the best view on the island and it's got a rustic feel about it too. The old store has been there for a hundred years. The interpretive centre is there. This Seafest probably won't be as big as it was the last few years at the Gorge. It will be more like a community get-together. We’re going back to good food, good entertainment, and a lot of locals coming,” said Julia Rendall, Secretary of the Cortes Island Seafood Association.

“We have a lot of ideas we've been throwing around. We're hoping that Klahoose will be involved. We'll want to have a lot more children's activities. We want to showcase a lot of musicians, especially the younger musicians. There's so much talent on this island. The takeout will be operating, if somebody wanted a quick oyster burger.”

The festival’s backbone is its volunteers.

“We would just love to have people from all walks of life volunteer.”

They are also looking for local organizations who want to set up booths.

“Also individuals if they have something they'd really like to showcase: arts, crafts, pottery. One lady wants to have desserts, which finishes off the meal. If anybody wants to have a booth at this Sea Festival, we will be very happy to have you take part.”

The association’s annual celebration was held in Squirrel Cove for six years before moving to the Gorge in 2014.

Those were some of Rendall’s favourite Seafests, “By then we knew what we were doing and could do these other play things. We had a lot of kids games. We made cutouts of oysters with legs and had the kids paint them. They had a little point so you could stick them in the ground. So by the end of the day, we had all these little oysters stuck in the ground on the grass, which was very cute and the kids loved it. We had a touch tank. I think they even had a trebuchet shooting onto the beach. We had ‘the largest oyster’ competition, which was quite successful. Phil Allen was telling me the other day that he had a huge, beautiful oyster. He thought it was the largest oyster, and then somebody came with this long, skinny, oyster, and it won.”

The Festival changed after it moved to Gorge Harbour.

“The Gorge was a perfect setup. It was very good food and very organized. It was love, but it was different. I think Squirrel Cove was the most spontaneous, but that's my personal opinion.”

Curt Cunningham, owner/manager of the Squirrel Cove General Store added, “The store is hosting Seafest. We're very privileged and happy that they are bringing it back to Squirrel Cove. I think we're going to have an excellent day. We will do everything we can to make it successful. The funds go to the oyster growers and it's a really good cause.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - In response to a request from the Tla’amin First Nation, Rachel Blaney is asking the electoral Boundary Comission to change the name of our riding to North Island qathet.

Blaney explained, “the North Island component of my riding is very similar to the provincial riding, which is also called North Island. So that part is a fine and a good name that makes sense. On the other side of my riding, of course, is a huge chunk of the mainland. I have a neighbor here with me in committee today and we share an area in common. That is the Powell River part of my writing, which is reflective of just one community, not the many communities that are represented.”

“My suggestion to the commission is to change the word Powell River to the word qathet. This is a name that the Tla'amin Nation to the regional district of Powell River, and they received it with much graciousness and then changed their regional name, their district to reflect that name ette. If you go to that area now, you'll see a lot of businesses and organizations have changed their name from Powell River to reflect the more regional approach, if that means working together. I really respect the nation's name and the presentation of that name.”

Hegus John Hackett of the Tla’amin First Nation stated, in a press release, “The proposed electoral riding name change is a small and tangible step on our reconciliation pathway, but is one that will have great impact for Tla’amin Nation and our citizens,” says Hegus John Hackett in a press relase. “Israel Wood Powell, for whom the City is named after, has caused deep suffering in our community, which continues to affect us to this day. Tla’amin Nation appreciates MP Rachel Blaney’s ongoing support and reconciliatory effort her office shows for our community and our Sister Nations through initiatives like this.”

Chief Stephen Brownof the Klahoose First Nation, Chief Darren Blaney of the Homalco First Nation and Chief Councillor Ken Price of the K’omoks First Nation have all endorsd the change. 


Blaney continued, “I recommend that the name, of course now be ‘North Island qathet’ and recognize that the nations that are related to Tla’amin, K’omks, Homalco and Klahoose have a shared culture and language have all agreed to this change and respect that I've had a conversation with the Powell River Mayor.”

“He did not express any concerns at the time, and I also just want to make sure that the. Committee understands that the name Powell River was named after Israel Wood Powell, who was the first superintendent for Indian Affairs in British Columbia, and the chief architect of Colonial policies, including residential schools and the banning of the potlatch. And it is my understanding that he never came to the community.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - One of the biggest stories coming out of the SRD may be the way the new Electoral Areas Services Committee (EASC) seems to be working together. It has only been a little more than five months since the election, but the deep personal divisions that were so apparent in the previous EASC committe are not there, at least not yet. Cortes Currents asked our two local Discovery Island Directors about this.

Mark Vonesch, Regional Director of Cortes Island, said, “I wasn't involved in the last administration, but there is a lot of teamwork between the Rural Directors. We talk a lot. We don't agree on everything, but we have relationships where we feel comfortable sharing our ideas and our thoughts and reflecting on each other's ideas. Generally there's a lot of cohesiveness and support for getting things done in our own communities.”

“Gerald Whalley, he's been such an interesting person to work with because his political values are quite different from mine. He doesn't really believe in climate change. He's a Trump supporter. Any tax or government intervention is overreach, but he's also been really supportive of me, of how to get things done. As long as I'm not trying to push things into his community, he's very happy and generous with his time to share with me on just bouncing ideas off in a realistic way of how to get things done in government.”

“One of my hopes for politics is that people who are different from each other can sit down and have conversations. We can hear each other. We can be okay with thinking differently and having different visions, and we can come to a place that is of compromise and working well together.”

Robyn Mawhinney lives across the waters on Quadra Island, “I haven't seen any friction. I haven't felt any friction. We're all there to work for the betterment of our communities. We listen and hear the will of our communities and arrive at the board table or the committee table, knowing those desires and hopefully able to represent those as well as being willing to think regionally.”

“I'm happy to support Director Rice and a bylaw to legalize having four chickens in backyards of Area D and Director Whalley to find a noise bylaw that works for the Sayward Valley and Director Vonesch’s Cortes Island Initiatives.”

MV: “I think politics at its best is when people who think differently and have different values can work together and support each other and be colleagues and be allies and in getting positive things done and for the people that we work.”

“I think it's important to recognize in politics that nobody is the same. There's never going to be a hundred percent consensus. I think the important thing is that we can hear each other. We can have empathy and understanding before each other, and we can make decisions that are best for everybody.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District is applying to have its name added to the list of Regional Districts that can take special votes on urgent matters.

This regulation states that the SRD must make reasonable attempts in writing, by phone or electronic means to ‘ensure that each director entitled to vote has the opportunity to do so.’ There is no need for a quorum. When necessary, resolutions and bylaws can be passed even if only the chairperson and one other director are voting. The results of this vote are to be reported at the next Board meeting.

This regulation currently applies to thirteen Regional Districts, all but one of which are on the Mainland. The only Regional District from Vancouver Island on this list is Mount Waddington