Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -Harbour Authority Cortes Island (HACI) has embarked upon a campaign to inform the public who they are and what they do. Harbourmaster Jenny Hartwick provided Cortes Currents with a concise description of the organization.

“The Harbour Authority is a nonprofit organization, which is made up of an eight volunteer board of directors. All of whom are local year round, residents and are actively involved in boating on Cortes, either commercial fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, or as recreational boaters. Under contract with Small Craft Harbours, the Harbour Authority is responsible for the operation and basic maintenance of the four government docks on the island: Squirrel Cove, Manson's Landing, Cortes Bay, and Gorge Harbour,” she said. “We also operate the Whaletown Dock, which was formally divested from Transport Canada in 2009. The Harbour Authority actually owns that dock outright.”

I asked one of the Directors, Andy Ellingsen, how the Harbour Authority came into being.

“It was around 1997, at the instigation of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) who ran most of the docks on the island. They felt they weren't getting good organization on the docks and the other thing that they were trying to do was derive some income from the docks. The docks had been free prior to that.”

“Small Craft Harbours, a division of DFO, came up to the island and did a presentation. They were interested in commercial fishermen primarily, but any dock users that were interested in seeing the docks operated on the island in a meaningful fashion were being consulted.”

“About 2000, maybe 2001, I attended a public meeting of the Harbour Authority group and was interested in what they were doing. I put my name forward and was elected to my first term as a director of the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island.”

“I've been a director of the organization pretty well since then, with one exception. The bylaws used to call for a two year term for directors before they have to stand down to get out of the way for new blood. That has since been changed. So with a one year break, I've basically been a director of the Harbour Authority since about 2002.”

“The primary mission from the perspective of Small Craft Harbours is serving the commercial producers. That would be the commercial fisherman. Now with their new recognition of the shellfish industry's contribution, they're recognizing that as a core value to Small Craft Harbours.”

“By contrast, I would say that the mission of the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island is to maintain the harbours because we are an island. We have a lot of people who use the water in a number of ways, some of which are economic and some of which are recreational and some of them just for fun. Those kinds of things have a real value to the people in our community and we recognize that.”

“While we work with Small Craft Harbours to make sure that the harbours are there and in good condition for the commercial fishing and the shellfish industries, we have put a lot of emphasis on making sure that the people who live on the islands and the people who have ‘boat access only residences’ have a way to get from the roads to their homes.”

“We've developed quite good working relationships with the Small Craft Harbours division of DFO. We are their local eyes and ears. For example, the anchors on the dock at Cortes Bay occasionally don't support the dock the way it needs to be supported. We let them know that the dock has shifted in the bad southeast wind and needs some attention pretty quickly.”

The responsibility for the repairs on the docks is divided. We do minor stuff, for example: replace a plank on a float, which is just a piece of two by six. When it comes to the major structural elements of the dock, that's Small Craft Harbours, but we're the ones that are pointing out that we see some problem coming up.