Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -More than 11,000 Pink Salmon are said to have returned to the Ahta River this September. This is more fish than the river has seen for many years and Alexandra Morton believes this is because Glacier Falls and Burdwood salmon farms were removed from their migration route.

She is not the only one suggesting that this year’s numbers are a result of removing salmon farms from the Broughton Archipelago. In August, Chief Bob Chamberlain of the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance told the Vancouver Sun they haven’t seen these numbers in decades.

Ruth Salmon, Interim Executive Director at the BC Salmon Farmers Association, calls this statement a mixture of ‘misrepresentation’ and ‘speculation.’

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - In the concluding episode from Noba Anderson's Exit Interview, she talks about 14 Years of Change on Cortes Island

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Housing Society has made some important steps towards making the Rainbow Ridge affordable housing project shovel ready. They received a $99,000 grant for the associated trail network and are close to closing the sale of their Gregg Road property. They have applied for two more grants, the final report on housing insecurity in our area is now available and the new plans for the Rainbow Ridge affordable housing project are about to be unveiled.

“I'll keep you posted as far as our town hall meeting for around the middle of November, when we want to share the new site plans, the dwelling plans, and the landscape plan,” said Executive Director Sandra Wood.

The Cortes Housing Society, Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) and Southern Cortes Community Association (SCCA) jointly received a $99,000 grant from the Community Foundations of Canada Healthy Communities Initiative.

“The plan is to connect those three properties more efficiently and beautifully so that people can walk from the Health Centre through the Rainbow Ridge property into the CCEDA property next door and ultimately to and from Mansons Hall. It's an east west corridor connection that doesn't exist right now and is a way to keep people off of Beasley Road if they want to have a more pleasant forest experience. We'll create a more vibrant village core and have more connection between our three adjacent properties,” explained Wood.

Some of the money will be used to renovate the old deck on Manson's Hall, which is starting to show signs of wear and doesn't have ramp access for people with mobility challenges. The SCCA is going to make improvements to their outdoor spaces.

Wood added, “We’re hoping that there'll be enough money, as well, to make improvements on the cemetery road end of the existing trail at the South end of the Rainbow Ridge property. We'd really like to reroute that to higher ground so that it's not so wet in the winter and to better connect with the Siskin Forest Trail head, so that people don't get lost when they're trying to get from Siskin Forest into Rainbow Ridge.”

The contract for this work has not yet been awarded, but Wood said there were a number of qualified contractors on Cortes Island.

They may use gravel in sections that have drainage issues, but it is an expensive resource and most of the trail will be finished with wood chips.

Wood said a lot of this will come from the trees and tree limbs that will be removed.

“The timing of that healthy community's initiative couldn't be better in that finally the rains have arrived on Cortes. That's going to reduce the fire risk, as far as dropping trees for the new trail route. It also means that the bird migration is almost over, as far as them heading south for the winter. Our plan always was to do the trail work through the winter months, so that we would not impact the bird nesting. Our plan is to have that finished by April 1, 2023, before they come back looking to build their new nests,” explained Wood.

Earlier this year, she informed Cortes Currents the Cortes Housing Society had been given a property on the corner of Gregg and Sutil Point Roads. They intend to sell this plot to raise capital for the Rainbow Ridge project. A prospective buyer has come forward and agreed to pay the $200,000 asking price.

“We are hoping that the sale is going to close this week. It's between the lawyers right now, and the paperwork is hopefully being completed. I should be able to tell you who the new owner is next week,” said Wood.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - Episode 6 of Noba Anderson, the Exit Interview - Looking to the Future: Unfinished Business and What’s On The Way

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - In the fifth episode of her exit interview, former Cortes Island Regional Director Noba Anderson talks about the Community Conflict of 2018-19, litigation, and her hopes for resolution.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - When the rain finally started about 5 PM on Sunday, October 23, Cortes Island had received almost no precipitation for 97 days. The “Rain’ chart at Cortes Island School shows that 3.5 mm of rain fell overnight and I can hear the drizzle continuing to fall on my roof early Monday morning. Hopefully light rains will continue to soften up the soil before we receive a downpour.

“The 2022 drought is worse than people think, it's worse than scientists predicted, and its impacts up and down the coast are a lot worse than I had even feared when I started researching it,” said Forrest Berman-Hatch, author of FOCI Report: Climate Change and Drought.

Berman-Hatch prepared this study for the Friends of Cortes Island, but is also a member of the Simon Fraser University group RESET (Research for Equitable Ecosocial Transformation), which studies global health in relation to climate change.

The opening paragraph of his report states, “Cortes Island has been in a level 5 drought which weather forecasters predict will end soon. According to BC’s Drought and Water Scarcity Response Plan, level 5 droughts bring ‘adverse impacts to socio-economic or ecosystem values’ which are ‘almost certain’ (Ministry of LWRS, 2022, p.16). Impacts can include the drying of shallow wells and wetlands, increased risk of wildfires and drying of streams during salmon spawning season. The plan recommends local water restrictions be put in place at stage 5 and warns regulatory action and even emergency response to be possible.”

Berman-Hatch said scientists are fairly certain that climate change causes droughts. The IPCC report states that there will be more droughts as a result of climate change, and they will be more severe.

“We had a student at SFU do climate modelling for Cortes, and what really concerned me was that the 2022 drought is longer, hotter and drier than was predicted for the year 2025 under a climate model that uses the precautionary approach,” said Berman-Hatch.

“Scientists such as Simon Donner at the University of British Columbia talk about how climate modelling is really good for averages, were fairly accurate, but they fail to capture the extreme weather events. For instance, the heat dome last year was also quite a bit worse than scientists had predicted the effects of climate change would be within this decade. So when we talk about climate adaptation planning, we need to remember that the models are good guidelines, but the extreme weather events may actually be worse.”

Q/Is this the worst drought on record?

“It's certainly the longest, worst is hard to say. This is a level 5 drought, which is the highest level in BC's scale. It's only the second time since we have been recording drought data that we hit level 5 and the first time was last year. That is a pretty concerning trend. Last year during the heat dome, we experienced higher temperatures than we experienced in this drought. So it may have done more damage than this drought. Certainly, the human impacts were pretty high — over 600 people died,” he replied.

“This drought is longer and drier, but less hot. It's the longest since we have begun recording weather data. In some places we have over a hundred years of weather data on the West Coast and this is the longest drought in that time period. It's certainly the longest since we've had weather data for Cortes and Quadra Island.”

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - The fourth episode coming out of Noba Anderson's exit interview.

Photo credit: Hornby Island Community Hall – Courtesy HIRRA website

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Current - “I feel that the museum should reflect the community. It helps to strengthen our identity and strengthen our sense of not only ourselves, but what we can do for one another,” said Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the Cortes Island Museum and Archives.

One of the mottos of the museum is ‘Reflect, Celebrate, Imagine.’

Boyle explained, “I’d like to think of it as reflect on the past, imagine the future and celebrate what we have today.”

“I look at the museum as a visitor's information booth and a museum, which automatically makes us a visitor's hub,” said Laura Balducci, the outgoing program and events coordinator.

Balducci does not want to leave, and the museum does not want to see her go. They have wanted to hire a program and events coordinator for a long time and a grant made it possible this year. They hope to secure funding to rehire her next Spring.

We were sitting around the lunch table in the back of the museum. Balducci seems like a pent up bundle of creative energy, ready to explode into action. Boyle appears to be more relaxed. She hopes that everything that happens in the museum looks effortless, as if it appeared magically — but it is really hard work.

Boyle attributes the museum’s accomplishments to funding, committed volunteers and community support.

Balducci added, “Come to our events. Have a good time and sign our guest book. The more signatures we get in the guest book, the better it is for our possible grants and stuff like that. We need people to come.”

Boyle expanded upon this, “We keep our programs free by donation, and there's a reason for that. We really want to make all our programming accessible. So that everybody can participate and enjoy. Please come and visit us. If you can make a donation, we really appreciate that. That helps us to keep the lights on, the doors open and be able to also offer more programming. It's just like a great cycle, isn't it?”

The Cortes Museum is always looking for new members, especially Board members.

“Check out our organization, and see if you would like to participate on any level,” said Boyle.

Balducci proceeded to list other areas where they need help, “We need more volunteers for setups, tear downs, baking, offering to put out posters for all of our events and programs and exhibitions. If you have any plants in your garden, you could offer some of your plants for our garden to keep things fresh. Volunteer online on social media. If you see us sharing a poster, feel free to share it. That's volunteering, that's helping spread the word. So there's many different directions for volunteer help. If we have events at the hall, we need help behind the concession. We need help doing dishes, cleanup.”

She also had a list of some of the smaller things that still needed to be funded, “We need art supplies, paper, toilet paper, paper towels, garbage bags, laundry supplies, treats to have at events. If we wanna have a liquor license, we need booze money to be able to serve. We need insurance money.

They also need funds to pay honorariums for the speakers, artists, and writers who participate in Museum events.

Boyle explained, “Minimal funding, you get a minimal museum. What we've been able to offer due to funding is new exhibitions and new exhibitions take a lot of work. They take a lot of material costs, labor time, all these factors, but at the same time, a new exhibition will generate a lot of new energy and around that new programming. The more support we have, the more we can offer in terms of new exhibitions.”

Without funding, the Cortes Island Museum would become another institution that does not change its exhibits for a decade.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - “Last week, the Minister Fisheries, Joyce Murray, went on the road and she traveled the length of Vancouver Island talking to people, First Nations environmental organizations, scientists, about the transition of salmon farms in British Columbia. This is incredible. I've never seen a minister go on the road before, and I have so much respect for her for doing this,” said independent biologist Alexandra Morton.

A BC Salmon Farmers Association spokesperson a list of facilities emailed that Murray visited:

Cermaq Canada’s Millar Channel farm and semi-closed containment site in Clayoquot Sound.

One of Creative Salmon’s Chinook farms and their processing plant in Tofino.

MOWI’s Shelter Pass farm in Port Hardy and their Big Tree Creek Hatchery in Sayward. 

Murray is said to have met with industry and expressed an interest in co-developing a Transition Plan.

According to the industry spokesperson, “The Minister is focused on a range of metrics driving the ongoing transition to reduce or eliminate risk to wild salmon rather than push a specific type of technology. Innovations achieved to meet specific metrics will depend on the preference of each Nation whose territories we operate in.” 

 

Ruth Salmon, Interim Executive Director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, issued a press release stating, “Salmon farming is continuously evolving, improving, and innovating, which can come as a surprise to those outside of the farming community. It was a pleasure to meet with the Minister and her team to not only discuss these improvements but showcase them, as she visited several farm sites and a hatchery.”

Morton was concerned about the degree of industry influence:

“The meetings were run by the Director of Aquaculture Management, and this person was reprimanded twice this year by her superiors for failing to include the science that DFO is doing that is showing significant impact of salmon farms on Pacific Salmon.”

“She left this information out of a briefing to the Minister before she went in front of the standing committee on Fisheries and Oceans. She left it out of the report to the Committee of the Whole on DFOs 2022/2023 main estimates, basically the funding that DFO needs going forward. These are really high level government document that did not include important information about the salmon farming industry — that it is impacting, that it is harming, that it is spreading pathogens to wild salmon. One of these emails to this Director says, ‘This is a glaring omission that needs to be patched rapidly.’ Has it been patched? I don't know.”

“This person is now out on the road with the Minister. Is she filtering the information that is coming in from all of these people who are worried about the state of wild salmon and want these salmon farms removed from the ocean and put into tanks? We don't know.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A tiny education program on Cortes Island has been getting a lot of media attention lately

“We were featured on the National Observer with our local journalism initiative reporter, Rochelle Baker. She did a fabulous piece on This program that got picked up then by the Vancouver Sun and then was picked up by some Vancouver radio stations and by the CBC. So as nearby as Cortes Currents and as now far away as the reach of CBC,” explained Manda Aufochs Gillespie, one of the organizers of the Cortes Island Academy.

Q/So what are you doing that's getting so much attention?