Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents: About 200 Campbell River residents turned out to the ‘Rally for Our Community’ outside of city hall at 5 PM on Thursday, September 24, 2026. City council met an hour later. With an election a little more than three weeks away, they suddenly pivoted and announced that staff is looking into the possibility of 'saving' Simms Creek. The crowd had five concerns: Stopping W...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A provincial election has been called. Neither the NDP nor the Greens have selected a candidate for this riding yet. In this morning’s interview, we speak with Anna Kindy, the Conservative Party candidate and incumbent MLA. Anna Kindy: "Eby has a majority government with two years left in his term, and this seems very self-serving and cynical, to be honest. British C...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Mansons Hall was going through a difficult time in 2022. All of the experienced staff had left and the board was new. That's when Jade Jordan was the manager. As she relates in a post to the Tideline, she found herself asking, 'What exactly does the Hall Manager do?' So she talked to community members and went through the files 'trying to understand how everything wo...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Campbell River residents will be holding a ‘Rally for Our Community’ outside of the city hall at 5 PM on Thursday, September 24, 2026. The future of some of the city’s greenways may be at stake. In this morning’s interview Gloria Heistermann, who is organizing the rally, and Barb Round, of Save Sims Creek, explain some of the issues involved.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Weather permitting, Earth Chat takes place in the courtyard beside the Cortes Natural Food Co-op, in Mansons Landing, every Friday from noon to 2 p.m. This is the third year Maureen Williams has been there, from spring through fall.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Fire Department successfully passed the tests needed for Superior Tanker Shuttle Service accreditation. Some Cortes Island residents in Whaletown and the south of the island will probably see their home insurance bills reduced by hundreds of dollars. Where and how much is up to the individual insurance companies, and it will be months before we see...

Roy L Hales /Cortes Currents - Filipe Figueira felt the urge to paint for decades before bursting onto the local art scene with a solo exhibition at the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery. That was two years and many paintings ago. Since then, Filipe has exhibited in Sooke, and was one of the contributors to a show organized by the Federation of Canadian Artists on Granville Island. In March, he had a re...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Rainbow Ridge Affordable Housing Project will soon be connected to the electrical grid. Traffic on Beasley Road was reduced to a single lane last week while underground electrical service was installed beneath the road. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was also held recently, so Cortes Currents spoke with Sadhu Johnston, executive director of the Cortes Housing Society,...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - UBC partnered with Hornby Island to run Seaweed School, a program that allowed high-school-aged students to remain in their community for an additional year instead of attending high school in Courtenay. Through fieldwork with UBC instructors and biology undergraduates, students learned to identify, study and monitor local seaweed species. This is more than an academ...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents: It has been a year since Rob Everson and his daughter Keisha mailed political leaders in North Island copies of their booklet 'Cultural Erasure: The Impact of Colonization - Past, Present and Future. Everson is the Hereditary Chief of the Gigalgam Walas Kwagut around Port Hardy and the Pentlatch people from the Cowichan area. On Wednesday, August 26, Chief Everson gav...

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Local family folk band, the Awakeneers, joined host Manda Aufochs Gillespie on Friday, September 4, 2026 to listen to their new album, Live at the Duncan Showroom, which was released in summer 2026. Tune into 89.5fm CKTZ to hear the album, song by song, and listen to the band give background and tell stories about each tune! Folk U Radio is taking old school viral...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At its August 26 meeting, the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board approved the wording of four measures to be put before voters during the October 17, 2026, local election. The most controversial, originating from Campbell River and its allies, was for residents of Campbell River, Electoral Area D, and Quadra Island to say whether they thought Quadra Island resi...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The new Canada’s Changing Climate Report, from Environment and Climate Change Canada, states the global average temperature rise since the pre-industrial era is currently on course for  2.7°C. Even if the world were to adopt net zero policies it will not be possible to limit the rise to less than 1.8°C.   The situation is worse in Northern latutudes. "Since Since 197...

Immanuel McKenty / Folk U - Thanks for joining us on August 21st, 2026 for the 8th and final week of our Village Commons Music Series, a simultaneously live and live-broadcast show, happening on Fridays from 1 - 2:30pm on the new Pavilion stage. Stand-in host Immanuel McKenty was joined by Paul Wolda, Cory, Cyrus, and Sean Coyote who played an in-the-round show and swapped songs and stories. Thank...

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U Radio - On July 20th 2026, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by climate activist Max Thaysen and Fire Department chief Eli McKenty to talk about wildfires and what we’re doing on Cortes to prevent and prepare. Folk U Radio is taking old school viral every Friday at 1 p.m. and Mondays at 3 p.m./Wednesday at 6 a.m. @CKTZ89.5FM or livestreamed at cortesradio.ca....

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Twenty-five-year old Emily Lowan was declared leader of the BC Greens on September 24. 2025. She is believed to be the first member of generation Z elected to office. Lowan was one of the three speakers in a session Activate 2026 dedicated to 'Winning Campaigns: Stories & Tactics of Victories.' She credited her success to the aggressive recruitment of youthful member...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Harvey McKinnon has been one of North America's leading fund raisers for the past four decades. He's the author of six books and the producer of a wide variety of award-winning documentary films that have been aired on the BBC, CBC, ABC and PBS. He's also been a keynote speaker at conferences from Australia to Norway. Given the familiarity that he was received at Hol...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The audio version of this story opened with Sixfoot Johnson playing 'Action is Expensive.' This is a band whose local roots are so deep they could be called a Cortes Island Institution. Dana Trueman, Garden Stein and Greg Osoba have been playing together for 24 years. Their final concert for this year will be the Gorge Harbour Marina from 7 to 9, on Friday August 21....

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Saru Jayaraman, the President of One Fair Wage, is one of those people who it is easy to overlook, until she starts talking. Suddeny this outwardly quiet little woman is transformed into a torrential stream of passion. Everyone in the recent Activate program, at Hollyhock, was transfixed when she screamed 'F_____ Democrats!' on behalf of the 14 million restaurant wor...

Jemma Hicken/Folk U - Thanks for joining us on August 14th, 2026 for the 7th week of our Village Commons Music Series, a simultaneously live and live-broadcast show, happening on Fridays from 1 - 2:30pm on the new Pavilion stage. Stand-in host Jemma Hicken was joined by Katie Welch & Jodi Peters, Dude Lenon, and Louis Belcourt, who played an in-the-round show and swapped songs and stories. Listen...

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A little over two weeks ago, Laurel Dault, Director of Impact at Hollyhock, invited Cortes Island non-profits to take part in the Activate program as her guests. A number of us wanted to go, but in the end, I believe only three local residents actually made it. We joined more than 60 activists, non-profit leaders, digital media workers, and progressives for an incred...

Jemma Hicken/ Folk U - Thanks for joining us on August 7th, 2026 for the 6th week of our Village Commons Music Series, a simultaneously live and live-broadcast show, happening on Fridays from 1 - 2:30pm on the new Pavilion stage. Stand-in host Jemma Hicken was joined by Amos Mercier, Good Enough Dave, and Mike Desj, who played an in-the-round show and swapped songs and stories. Listen in for 3 son...

Unedited audio of Rick & Amy Bockner song

Unedited audio of Daniela Carmona & Pablo Cardenas' Cuban Soul Explosion

UNedited audio of Owyn Pengelly, Denise Wolda & Basil Aerie Thomas, unnamed song