Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Viewers from Cortes, Salt Spring and Galiano Islands down to the cities of Victoria and Vancouver logged in to the virtual Cortes Housing Forum on  Friday June 14, 2024. The topic was ‘increasing rentals’ and host Sadhu Johnston invited two high profile guests.  David Hutniak has established himself as the voice of the rental housing industry in BC with the governmen...

Sadhu Johnston. Cortes Housing Society - Tune in on June 14 for this special pre-recorded episode of FolkU Radio. This week featured the May Transportation Forum, hosted over Zoom and presented by the Cortes Housing Society, CCEDA, and representatives from Quadra and the outer islands. This forum featured guest panelists from Denman, Gabriola, Bowen and more! Join us in chatting about passenger tr...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents Cortes Island’s Forum on ‘Rental and Ownership Opportunities’ came to Mansons Hall on Thursday June 13. There were breakout groups on what people were looking for in rentals, affordable ways to become an owner and renting your property out. Regional Director Mark Vonesh brought pizza. The whole board of the Cortes Community Housing Society appears to have turned out.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The future of fish farms in British Columbia is uncertain. On June 7, Judge Paul Favel supported the Ministry of Fisheries decision to not renew the licenses of 15 fish farms in the Discovery Islands, and denied a joint application by industry and the Laich-kwil-tach Nation for a judicial review. At the end of this month the licenses of the remaining 66 fish farms st...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Will Rendall released a CD called Keep on Smiling on May 22, 2024. Some Cortes Island residents will remember him as Julia Rendall’s son. He was 7 when he moved to Squirrel Cove in 1976. He emailed, “I had always liked music but it wasn't until I heard Billy Joel in 1978 that i became a rock and roll fan. I always thought his lyrics were amazing. I think it would hav...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour is Saturday June 22, from 10 am to 4 pm. This is an annual fundraiser for the Cortes Island Museum, as well as a showcase of some of the island’s hidden gems. “It's a great opportunity to feature creative talents of people on the island, and it's a self guided  tour of studios and gardens that takes you all the way around fr...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The first truckload was filled over the roofline with beach debris. Sam Gibb drove into the Klahoose village shortly after 10:30 AM on Saturday. Alex Bernier, followed with a smaller load. Helen Hall and Autumn Barrett Morgan, two other members of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI), were there to help them unload. Stephanie Valdal, Services Coordinator for the Comox...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Eighty-three people turned out on Friday June 7, for the gala opening night of the Old School Art Gallery’s 2024 season. This was a group show, with 28 contributing artists, that will be open to the public on Fridays (6-9 PM) and on weekends (2-6 PM) until June 16th. Bianca Lee,  Manager of the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery, was delighted by the large turnout, “I wasn'...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District will be carrying out FireSmart assessments on Cortes Island between Tuesday, June 11, and Thursday June 13. This is a free evaluation of the exterior of your home and surrounding yard,  which usually takes about an hour.    “I started doing home assessments across the Strathcona Regional District in January.  I have come to Cortes a f...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Vancouver Foundation, in partnership with the Government of BC, Community Foundations of Canada and over 50 local community foundations, is distributing $25 million to programs that advance poverty reduction and social inclusion. $105,000 of that will be channeled through the Cortes Island Community Foundation and another $110,000 the Quadra Island Foundation. Th...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - About 125 people turned up for the town hall meeting in Mansons Hall, on Monday June 3, 2024. Noticeably absent were the air strip’s owner, Michael Ching, his manager,  Judy Kemchand, or Martene Rothblatt, who is financing the air strip’s renovations. This did not come as a surprise. One of the three speakers at the meeting read out an email he sent Rothblatt in Febr...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Ben Coey is co-producing this year’s Lovefest, which returns to Linnaea Farm on Saturday August 19th. “Rex, Amy and Rick have been running and producing the festival for a number of years. They've decided that they need to have a bit of a break from doing it. I've worked with Rex on a number of projects previously. He asked me if I liked to get involved and help out...

Sadhu Johnston/ Folk U - Tune in on May 31st for the third collaborative monthly housing forum presented by the Cortes Housing Society and Folk University. Themed “Community Land Trusts”, this forum featured guest panelists John Davis, Sandy Bishop, and Lisa Byers and a following community discussion. This is a recording of the third monthly housing forum in mid-May, hosted over Zoom, with 28 peop...

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On Friday May 24, host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by  songwriter Jemma Hicken and founder of the DeathCaring Collective, Margaret Verschuur, in a program about grief.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - In 2021 Sheila Harrington embarked upon a three-year journey to explore the creation of local nature conservancies on 17 islands. Cortes and Quadra Islands were among them. She conducted more than 50 interviews, and wove together a chronicle of land conservancies and the people behind them since the 1990s. The resulting book, ‘Voices for the Islands, 30 Years Of Natu...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Given the amount of neighbourhood concern about the renovations underway at the Cortes Island airstrip, Cortes Currents asked Transport Canada: Do the owners of private airstrips have a duty to consult with their communities before undertaking extensive expansions?   What will Transport Canada do when, as appears to be the case on Cortes Island, this does not occur? ...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At the May 22 meeting, Director Mawhinney informed the board, “the Area C Advisory Planning Commission met and discussed this Kanish Bay application and the following Upshur Road application. They also heard a delegation from one of the applicants. The Advisory Planning Commission did not support either covenant discharge application. The Advisory Planning Commission...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - British Columbia is feeling the strain of a rapidly expanding EV market. On January 11, 2024, BC Hydro stated there are more than 150,000 EVs on the province’’s roads. While It is more difficult to access local data, ICBC figures show that in 2022 there were 11 EVS registered on Cortes Island, 19 in Quathiaski Cove, 172 in Powell River, 190 in Campbell River, 228 in...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Dave Blinzinger has toured Canada, the United States and Europe but, by choice, primarily plays his saxophone at local venues. 
“I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. My father had moved up to Cortes Island in the 70s. I lived there from 88 to 1990. At that time, well, there wasn't very much happening on Cortes. You could go up to the Cortes Cafe on Monday, Wednesday, or Fri...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A Cortes Island based solar company has been installing more systems that tie into the grid. There is a lot of potential for solar energy production in British Columbia. It has been largely untouched because of the province’s reliance on hydro-power and natural gas. As of October 2023, BC Hydro had 8,500 net metering customers with a combined solar capacity of 71 MW....

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At their May 22 Board meeting, the Strathcona Regional Distrct (SRD) passed 3 important monetary decisions for Cortes Island. Firstly, the SRD will be increasing the annual fee for waste collection by $10 a year. This will be paid through our property taxes. Regional Director Mark Vonesch explained, “we're basically being forced to do this because Recycling BC change...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Cortes Island author Carrie Saxifrage made a climate mitigation presentation at the May 22 SRD Board meeting. This is an abridged version of that talk.  She began with a simple admission, “This is my first time. Thank you so much for having me. If I were to do it again, I'd do it a little differently, but here we are. We're going to whisk through some slides, and I'm...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -There were questions about what can be accomplished, but the SRD will be asking Transport Canada about the safety requirements, noise levels and frequency of planes using the Cortes Island Airstrip. 
 At their May 22 meeting, Cortes Island Director Mark Vonesch told the SRD Board: 
“There is an airstrip on Cortes Island that's been there for a long time. A new buyer b...

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On Friday, May 17, Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by the Simon Fraser University field school that visited Cortes in the week of May 13-17 to chat about how ecosystem approaches to health can help us understand the implications and impact of climate change through the perspective of rural and remote island communities. Folk U Radio is taking old school viral e...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A new exhibition in the Cortes Island Museum looks at the island’s housing from pre-colonial times up until the present. ‘From the Ground Up: Cortes Island Dwellings And Their Histories’ combines photographs and artifacts from the museum’s collections, stories and images from the community and a display from the Cortes Housing Society. Melanie Boyle, Managing Directo...