All posts by Melissa McKinney

Waste

Getting to Know Quadra’s New Recycling Depot

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Originally published in the Bird’s Eye

Quadra Island has a new recycling depot, and if you have not visited yet, it is worth taking a few minutes to get familiar with how it works.

The new Quadra Island Recycling Depot, located at 657 Industrial Way at the corner of West Road, has been years in the making. While the transition away from the recycling bins at Quathiaski Cove left some residents with questions, the new facility offers a much more comprehensive recycling system and a dedicated location where residents can sort a wider range of materials.

The depot operates as a one-way site, with vehicles entering from
Industrial Way and exiting onto West Road. Hours are Friday through
Monday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., including statutory holidays.

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Children

40 Years of the Quadra Children’s Centre: The Next Generation

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Originally published in the Bird’s Eye

This is our third article of the trilogy marking 40 years of the Quadra Children’s Centre (QCC). What follows is where it’s going, what it needs to get there — and what it has always had in abundance.

Forty years ago, a small group of women said yes to something hard because it needed doing and they loved their community. That hasn’t changed. The names have rotated. The work has evolved. But the Centre has been held, in every era, by warm, vibrant, deeply caring people — mostly women, many of them mothers themselves — who showed up because generations of children were counting on it. That thread of stewardship runs unbroken from 1985 to today.

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Business

Quadra Island Thrift: One Year, 30,487 Items, and a Very Well-Dressed Island

Originally published in the Bird’s Eye

A year ago, Hannah Rohan and Shelby Mitchell stood outside a paper-covered storefront in Quathiaski Cove, grinning in front of a hand-painted sign: Thrift Store Grand Opening, Saturday, May 17. It was one of my first real cover stories as the Bird’s Eye’s new editor — two Quadra-raised locals who came home with a vision, a shared love of thrifting, and one legendary bonding bike trip behind them.

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Arts

Quadra Island Studio Tour 23 fever

Thirty-six artists. Twenty-seven studios. One weekend.

The Quadra Island Studio Tour returns for its 23rd year this weekend, June 5 to 7, offering visitors the chance to step inside creative spaces across the island and meet the people behind the work. Woodworkers, painters, jewellers, potters, photographers, fibre artists, printmakers and mixed-media artists will all be opening their doors. The range is staggering.

This year also introduces a new Friday evening preview from 6 to 9 p.m. at select locations, marked with a star and moon on the tour map. It is the official start of the tour and an opportunity to spread studio visits
across the weekend.

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Gardening

Midge Salter: When Math Becomes Beauty

Originally published in the Bird’s Eye

There are spaces you enter for the first time that feel, inexplicably, like you’ve always belonged in them. Kris Wellstein’s mostly finished greenhouse is one of those spaces. I walked in and immediately had an imaginary martini in hand, a good book, and the sound of rain on glass overhead. Then it became a cocktail party. Then I remembered I was standing in a greenhouse and that the garden part is probably the main point — though I maintain the party potential is significant.

Welcome to the sixth instalment of our Creator Spotlight Series, where we celebrate the artists, makers, and builders whose work shapes life on this island. This month we’re looking at something a little different — the art in building, and the magic that happens when the right person gets handed a vision, a scrim pile, and total creative freedom.

Continue reading Midge Salter: When Math Becomes Beauty →