The following authors submitted original articles, or Cortes Currents is carrying reprints of their articles.
Odette Auger (Sagamok Anishnabek)
Odette Auger comes to us through creative commons and was also one of the producers for Cortes Radio’s 2020 Local Journalism Initiative Grant. She moved to the traditional territories of the toq qaymɩxʷ (Klahoose) in 1999. She has worked with island youth as facilitator in local programming for 17 years, and works as Program support for Tides Canada Initiatives project Indigeneyez. She started working with Cortes Radio in 2013, fundraising and project management. Writing and producing for the Deep Roots Initiative (2016 -2019) gave an outlet for Odette’s storytelling skills, and a lasting love of the listening, story gathering, and collaborative process. Click here to access her articles and here for articles mentioning her.
Anastasia Avvakumova
Anastasia Avvakumova comes to us through creative commons and is a reporter for Cortes Radio’s 2021 and 2022 LJI grants. She has followed her curiosity to live on four different continents and has earned a living in a wide variety of jobs, including voice talent and writing for magazines in Asia. She is delighted to have settled into west coast island life, where she spends her time in the healing arts, glassblowing, gardening and reporting the local news for CKTZ News and Cortes Currents. Access her articles on this website here.
Rochelle Baker
Rochelle Baker is currently a staff reporter with Canada’s National Observer, thanks to the 2020, 2021 and 2022 grants from the Local Journalism Initiative of the Government of Canada. She previously worked as a newspaper reporter and photographer in BC’s Lower Mainland for over 7 years and is also a former board member of the Cortes Community Radio Society. Click here to access her articles and here to access articles mentioning her.
David P Ball
David Ball comes to us through creative commons and is a multimedia journalist who has appeared in the Globe & Mail, The Guardian and National Post. He’s won Canadian Association of Journalists and the Jack Webster Foundation awards, and was previously a reporter for The Tyee and Toronto Star, before which he co-hosted the Vancouver Co-op Radio morning show for five years before returning there in 2020 for The Pulse as part of the LJI program. Access his articles on this website here.
Rod Burns
Rod Burns is a contributor to Cortes Currents who has lived and travelled across Canada, from Yukon, Newfoundland to coastal B.C. In the past 35 years, work in British Columbia has included being a high school teacher, co-owner operator of C to C Tours, Victoria and 22 years co-owner of Bold Point Farmstay, Quadra Island. Major accomplishments include: a) bicycling solo across Canada, b) being the photographer – curator of Roadside Heart, a documentation of murals across Canada, c) Education Supervisor / Chief Interpreter at Salmonier Nature Park, Newfoundland. Click here to access his articles and here for articles mentioning him.
De Clarke
De Clarke is a contributor to Cortes Currents and was also one of the producers for Cortes Radio’s 2020 Local Journalism Initiative Grant. She is a sailor, photographer, retired software engineer and intermittent author who since the late 70’s has published both technical writing and essays on various topics ranging from feminism to technology and environmental issues. She has lived on Cortes since late 2011. Her motto: Show me the math. Click here to access her articles and here for articles mentioning her.
Zoë Ducklow
Zoë Ducklow came to us through creative commons and was the 2020 Local Journalism Initiative reporter for Black Press in northern Vancouver Island. Zoë reports on regional issues such as forestry, logging, fisheries, the environment and First Nations current affairs. She was not in the 2022 LJI program. Access her articles on this website here.
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Bruce Ellingsen
Bruce Ellingsen is a contributor to Cortes Currents, one of the founders of the Cortes Community Forestry Co-operative and is one of the six Board members of the Cortes Forestry General Partnership. Prior to that he was president of the Cortes Ecoforestry Society. A logger turned oyster and organic fruit farmer, Ellingsen is a fourth generation descendant of the first European family on Cortes Island and grew up in coastal logging camps. He graduated in commerce and business administration from UBC and has been involved in Island politics since the 1970s. – Click here to access his articles and here for articles mentioning him.
Abby Francis
Abby Francis is from Tla’amin Nation, and grew up in Powell River, BC. She plans to go to BCIT in September 2022 for their Broadcasting and Online Journalism diploma program. Abby previously worked with qathet Living magazine and Tla’amin’s nehmotl newspaper as in 2021 and 2022 Local Journalism Initiative reporter. She is now attending BCIT. Click here for her articles on this website.
Francesca Gesualdi
Francesa Gesualdi is a contributor to Cortes Currents and was one of the producers for Cortes Radio’s 2020 Local Journalism Initiative Grant. She is an author/producer living on Quadra Island. She produced Cortes Radio’s contributions to the National Campus and Community Radio Association’s 2018 and 2019 Rendevous de la Francophonie marathons. Access her podcasts on this website here.
Manda Aufochs Gillespie
Manda Aufochs Gillespie has a (Folk U) partnership agreement with Cortes Currents. She is a writer and of the author of the Green Mama series of books. Manda is also a mother, neighbour, and founder of Folk University (folku.ca). She has been a contributor to Cortes Currents since 2019, is host of Folk U Fridays on Cortes Radio, CKTZ 89.5 FM, and was one of the Cortes Currents producers for the Cortes Radio 2020 Local Journalism Initiative Grant. Click here to access her posts and here for articles mentioning her.
Ray Grigg
Ray Grigg was a teacher in senior secondary schools of British Columbia, prior to becoming a professional writer in 1985. He is the author of numerous internationally sold books on Taoism and Zen (The Tao of Relationships, The Tao of Being, The Tao of Sailing, Zen Brushpoems, The Tao of Zen, The New Lao Tzu, The Sage’s Way, The Zen of an Earth Mythology and Zen Tzu), and The EcoTrilogy: Ecologos, Ecopathy & Ecocide. Ray also wrote the environmental column ‘Shades of Green’ in the Campbell River Courier-Islander for 15 years. You can access his articles on this website here and click here for articles mentioning him.
Roy L Hales
Roy Hales is the editor of Cortes Currents, one of the former producers of the Deep Roots Initiative, and a former reporter for both the 2020 and 2021 Cortes Radio Local Journalism Grants. He is also a former President of the Cortes Community Radio Society, where he has produced a web platform and radio program (originally called the ECOreport, now Cortes Currents) since 2014. He has had over 2,500 articles published, in print or web publications, since 1982. A large number of the latter were republished on the environmental news website Clean Technica. Roy lives at Squirrel Cove, on Cortes Island. Click here to access his articles and here for articles mentioning him.
Kate Maddigan
Prior to coming to Cortes Island, Kate lived for many years in Yukon working in fisheries habitat management and environmental assessment. She has always kept her finger on the pulse of the community, both as ambulance attendant, and as community development worker. Both of these jobs require deep investigations, and Kate now brings these skills to reporting for CKTZ News on Cortes community’s happenings and events during 2021. – Click here to access her articles and here for articles mentioning her.
Mike Moore
Mike dives deep into the issues of Cortes Island, from examining what’s on the bottom of the ocean to the tops of the trees. He has decades of experience as a diver, naturalist/ lecturer in the Antarctic, and Desolation Sound tour boat operator aboard Misty Isles. Calling Cortes Island home for over 30 years, Mike is also known as an engaging story teller, speaking over the airwaves of CKTZ or in person on subjects ranging from history, penguins, ecology and the giant pacific octopus. Click here to access his articles and here for articles mentioning him.
Hayley Newell
Hayley Newell’s articles are on Cortes Currents as a result of her association with Folk U Radio (our partner program). Hayley is a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor as well as a certified Synergetic Play Therapist and certified Relational Somatic Therapist. She currently practices on Cortes and Quadra Islands, as well as the Campbell River and Comox Valley areas. Hayley is also the Administrative Assistant for Cortes Community Housing. Click here to access her articles and here for articles mentioning her.
Binny Paul
Binny Mary Paul’s articles came to us through creative commons. She was the 2020 Local Journalism Initiative reporter for Black Press Media’s Campbell River Mirror and Binny writing for the Terrace Standard in 2021 and 2022. As part of the LJI program, funded by the government of Canada, she reports on civic issues in underserved and remote communities on Vancouver Island. Access articles on this website here.
Daniel J Pierce
Daniel J. Pierce has been working as a documentary filmmaker and freelance video producer since 2008. He is a freelance director, producer, videographer and editor, while also pursuing his own independently funded documentary project, Heartwood, which explores the plight of B.C.’s endangered old-growth rainforests, the decline of B.C.’s forest industry, and grassroots solutions for how to regenerate our forests and revitalize our forestry practices for the 21st century. Click here for his articles and here for articles mentioning him.
Kristen Scholfield-Sweet Ph.D.
Kristen moved to Cortes Island in 1990 from Halifax, where she was teaching at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. While on the faculty her art writing was published in Arts Atlantic and Arts Canada. Kristen exhibits her photo-realist paintings and dream images of nature, makes frame drums for shamanic journeying, and created the Journey Oracle Divination card deck. Click here to access articles mentioning her and here to access her articles on this website
David Shipway
David Shipway is a contributor to Cortes Currents. He started learning about forestry in the early 70’s, first in engineering and survey with MacBlo on Vancouver Island, then in treeplanting all over BC. He discovered Cortes soon after the ferry service started, and bought a home in the early 80’s, making his living in construction and woodworking. “By managing my own land I realized it takes at least a century to grow big trees that produce good wood.” David became active in conservation issues. Click here to access his articles and here for articles mentioning him.
Jenny Mei Xi Tan
Jenny Mei Xi Tan’s (陳美希) articles came to us through creative commons. She has served in print, podcasting, and radio journalism. Prior to co-hosting The PULSE, Vancouver Co-op Radio’s morning news program founded by the 2020 Local Journalism Initiative, she produced the podcast The Canadian Diaries which highlighted stories of sustainability, race, and food. She also served as one half of a two-woman newsroom in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, where she covered all beats from civic politics to agriculture. She’s grateful to be constantly learning from the people she interviews, especially Indigenous folks, folks of colour, and women. Access her articles on this website here.
Max Thaysen
Max Thaysen is a contributor to Cortes Currents and one of the producers for the Cortes Radio 2020 Local Journalism Grant. He immigrated to Cortes Island from Vancouver in 2007. He has been elected to the board of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) in 2009, and served as president since 2012. – Click here to access his articles and here to access articles mentioning him.
Tara Warkentin
Tara Warkentin was one of the producers for the Cortes Radio 2020 Local Journalism Grant as well as Cortes radio’s Deep Roots Initiative. She grew up on Cortes. She studied Human Geography at Quest University Canada, where she wrote her undergraduate thesis on oil corporations and Canadian law. She’s curious about community food systems, the role of stories in anti-oppression work, grandmother’s recipes, and what lies underneath beach stones. – Access her articles on this website here and articles mentioning her here.
Rex Weyler
Rex Weyler has contributed both reposts and original articles to Cortes Currents. He is a writer, ecologist and co-founder of Greenpeace International. His books include Blood of the Land, a history of indigenous American nations, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; Greenpeace: The Inside Story, a finalist for the Shaughnessy-Cohen Award for Political Writing; and The Jesus Sayings, a finalist for the BC Book Award. He lives on Cortes Island and currently posts the “Deep Green” column at the Greenpeace International website. Click here to access his articles and here for articles mentioning him.
Maureen Williams, ND
Maureen comes to us through her association with Folk U. She earned her doctorate in naturopathic medicine at John Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine in 1995 and has been practicing for 22 years. She also teach community health classes and does literature-based research and writing, which keeps her current in the scientific findings regarding natural therapies. Click here to access her articles and here for articles mentioning her.
Pieta Woolley
Pieta Woolley is editor of qathet Living magazine. She lives north of Powell River with her family which includes her husband, two teens, and a bunch of random animals. Before moving to the coast, she was a staff writer and editor at The Georgia Straight, and wrote features for The Tyee, Broadview, and elsewhere. Click here to access her articles on this website.
- thumbnail image of Loni Taylor cropped from a photo by Darshan Alexander Photography