Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -The Quadra, Cortes, and Surge Narrows communities, as well as the Klahoose and We Wai Kai First Nations, have sent the BC Ministry of Health an application for funding to set up a Discovery Island Community Health Centre.  “It offers stability for practitioners. It offers leadership stability through a joint board and a hired executive director. It offers some economie...

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/Folk U - On this Folk U, the students of the Cortes Island Academy took over the radio waves to answer this question: If you were to send a message in a bottle that drifts through time and space to another “time being”: another person, species, or world, what would it sound like? These short 3 minute podcasts were the result of a week-long intensive with guest artist Ruby S...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -The Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island Society has raised just over 70% of the $7.5 million it needs to purchase 261 acres of forest along Carrington Lagoon from Mosaic Forest Management. Society Chair Chris Dragseth says this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the community: “We’re protecting some valuable properties from an ecological point of view...

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents -On Tuesday, October 14th the Cortes Island Foundation invited island nonprofit and public service organisations to attend a Social Profit Forum hosted at Hollyhock. This all-day event was well attended and featured presentations by two representatives from “local economy” projects with successful track records: Tara Janzen from the Shorefast Institute for Place-Based Ec...

Roy L Hales / Cortes Currents -The long-awaited Rainbow Ridge housing development has passed a milestone. The foundations of the first two homes are in place. Sadhu Johnston, Executive Director of the Cortes Housing Society, gave Cortes Currents a tour of the site and spoke about the vision, challenges, and progress to date. Rainbow Ridge is rising in Mansons Landing, the most settled community on...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -The Cortes Forestry General Partnership held its public meeting on October 9th, 2025. In today's interview, Operations Manager Mark Lombard talks about leadership transitions, plans for selective logging, the Forest Stewardship Plan review, and other topics from the meeting. He also shares his personal opinion about how climate change is affecting our forest. “We try...

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U -Tune in on October 10th for a special episode of FolkU radio, where we listen to an episode of another talk show, Chatter That Matters, by Tony Chapman. This episode features a conversation with Zita Cobb about the story arch of her home in Newfoundland, Fogo Island. This is a discussion about tourism, circular economies, community, and rurality. Introduction by Ma...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -Shane Berg, BC’s Chief Forester, has a message he is taking to trading partners around the world. On Thursday, October 2, 2025, he made a presentation to the Strathcona Regional District’s Natural Resources Committee. In today’s broadcast there are select clips from that presentation, including reactions from the committee. Also Bruce Ellingsen, one of the founding di...

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U -On October 3 2025, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by Kate Maddigan, Bruen Black, Amy Robertson, and Genevieve Cruz, for a special group discussion on revenue diversification for rural non-profits. Tune in for talk of circular economies, transportation, a brainstorm on creative revenue solutions, and updates from the Cortes Natural Food Co-op, CCEDA, and th...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Campbell River wants to take control of the Strathcona Regional District’s Electoral Areas Planning Service away from rural directors. They are thinking of joining the service, which would cost Campbell River tax payers close to $500,000 a year for their resulting share of the assessments, and have asked other municipalities to do the same. This morning’s story consis...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - As of September 30th, 2025, Raincoast Networks serves the 347 remaining customers in what was once the Twincomm service area on Cortes Island. Mascon by Telus acquired Twincomm in 2022. “I come from Savary Island. We provide internet to those who have decided to live off grid and in remote communities and cannot be served well by other telecom providers, majors and th...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -There have been speculations about Cortes Island becoming a municipality and at the September 17 SRD Board meeting staff was instructed to prepare a report about the process. In the unedited audio that follows Cortes Director Mark Vonesch makes the motion. Mayor Julie Colborne of Zeballos seconds it twice, to some laughter, and Campbell River Director Doug Chapman poin...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - SRD staff will prepare a staff report identifying public lands on Quadra Island that may be available for affordable housing development. This is the second time that Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney of Area C brought forward a motion asking for a report and in both cases she was opposed by Directors from Campbell River and Area D. They successfully blocked it at the...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -The Cortes Island School Wetland Project is transforming part of the school field into a living classroom that blends ecology, culture, and community effort. In today's interview, we speak to Miranda Cross from Rewilding Water and Earth, the wetland restoration specialist, and biologist on the project Miranda Cross: “The Cortes Island School Wetland Project is a wetlan...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents =People from 93 nations will be calling upon their governments to Draw the Line - For People, for Peace, for the Planet - on Saturday, September 20. Demonstrations are planned in major cities across Europe, Asia, Latin America, the United States and Canada. More than 200 organizations, including 350Canada, the Council of Canadians and the Migrant Rights Network are par...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -What does the Comox Strathcona Waste Management Service update mean to Cortes residents? Rates will go up. You may be paying more if you have a project that requires a bin to remove a lot of waste, like from a construction site or a rennovation. There may be some money for the free store. There are actually 33 proposed actions, but at this point it is not clear how man...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - On Monday, September 15th, 2025, Anna Kindy, the MLA for our riding, visited Cortes and Quadra Islands. Cortes Currents met up with her at the Cortes Medical Clinic and then we took a quick tour of the downtown Mansons Landing area. Cortes Currents: What’s it like coming to Cortes Island? Anna Kindy: You forget how beautiful it is. Just taking the ferry over, my first...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -One of the speakers at the September 8 zoning bylaw meeting at Mansons Hall was Maureen Williams of Cortes Island’s Climate Action Network. While she welcomed the decision to increase the number of lots at Rainbow Ridge up to a maximum of 35, Williams said the proposed zoning update does little to address affordability, environmental protection, or increase Cortes Isla...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -Book #4 of Gumboots series, 'Gumboots In The Straights' is coming to Gorge Hall on Cortes Island on Saturday September 20. Six of this volume’s authors are Cortes residents, who will be reading excerpts between 1:00-3:00. That’s free. You can purchase food and drinks between 5:00 and 7:00 followed by dancing to Cortes Island’s own ‘He Said; She Said.’ Tickets for that...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -In the past, Rural Directors have not always appreciated Campbell River ‘interference’ in their affairs. An initiative coming out of the Strathcona Regional District’s (SRD) Municipal Services Committee could result in a lot more interference from Campbell River and other municipalities. Planning is one of the most fundamental and strategic activities within the SRD. T...

This is the unedited audio from the September 8, 2025 Public Meeting about Cortes Island’s zoning bylaw chaired by Regional Director Mark Vonesch. Annie Girdler, from the SRD’s panning department gave an overiew of the proposed bylaw changes Cortes Island residents commented about: regulations preventing people from doing what they want on their property we need regulations to protect the communit...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -Cortes Island’s aquifer health study has been released and in this morning’s interviews we are speaking with Sylvia Barroso, of GW Solutions, the Senior Hydrologist who participated in this project, Sadhu Johnston, Executive Director of the Cortes Island Housing Society and Mark Vonesch, Regional Director of Cortes Island.  First, there are two key questions at the top...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -Cortes Island will have a public meeting on its proposed Bylaw changes on Monday, Sept 8th, 5pm at Manson’s Hall.  “This is a chance for folks to weigh in on the proposed draft. We're really looking at a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decision on this zoning bylaw. There's almost two years of community consultation and input, and this is what staff have produced and the best, happy med...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - From August 29 to September 14, the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery will host ‘How Do You Like the Underworld?—Kristen Scofield-Sweet’s final large-scale exhibition.  “This is my retirement party swan song on the wall,” she began. “This is a body of work that’s complete. One of the remarkable things about that is the artist doesn’t usually get to see their work all hung t...

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Food Bank was one of the nation’s first food banks to receive Standards of Excellence accreditation from Food Banks Canada. The Associations President Beatrix Baxter, explained, “Filipe Figueira, our Executive represented us at the Food Banks Canada Conference in Montreal. During the event, Food Banks Canada honoured food banks across the country tha...