Cortes Community Docks ( formerly called Harbour Authority Cortes Island) received the necessary funding to carry out needed upgrades to the 111-year-old dock in Whaletown. In today’s article Harbour Master Jenny Hartwick gives the details, and also talks about the upcoming August 30 dock swap.
Jenny Hartwick: “When Transport Canada divested the dock to our organization, a number of upgrades were done, including new floats and some work to the wharfhead and approach. Many of the elements that are part of that infrastructure are very old, and at the time it was handed to us, they didn’t need repair. It’s now been close to 15–20 years and it’s definitely time for another facelift.”
“In the spring of 2024, we had an engineering survey done on the dock so that we could better understand what we were looking at in terms of necessary repairs for the coming year.”
“The floats themselves are in great condition.”
“We were looking at a number of repairs to the approach, which is the part that you drive down or walk down, and then the wharfhead, which is the large structure that sits on the pilings. There were a number of deck boards that needed to be replaced, but bigger than that, there were a number of concrete footings and pilings which need replacement.”
“Concrete footings are the part that actually sit on the rock bed or the ocean floor.”
“Pilings are the large wooden posts that sit underneath the dock and are responsible for holding the dock up.”
“The engineering survey identified that a number of those pilings and concrete footings needed replacement. They actually recommended, for insurance reasons, that we block off vehicle traffic to the dock. Not a safety issue for foot passengers or anything, but because we had little control over the size of vehicles that had access to the dock, we chose to barricade that off.”
“We began to explore options for funding to help us fix this. Cortes Community Docks has worked very hard over the last number of years to maintain reserve funds to cover repairs and maintenance of the Whaletown dock, and we were extremely lucky because we had a small kitty of funds that we could leverage as matching funding for grant applications.”
“The bigger challenge for us was finding a grant that was willing to let us repair existing infrastructure. There are lots of grants available out there for new buildings, new projects, new economic opportunities. Everybody likes ‘new.’ There are very limited grant opportunities to repair existing infrastructure.”
“We were extremely excited when we discovered that REDIP, which is BC’s Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program, had an opportunity under one of their funding streams to help us address all these infrastructure issues.”
“So in October, on a wing and a prayer, we put an application in and sat with bated breath and crossed fingers for many, many months, while still continuing to look for other funding opportunities. We recognized that there are so many other very deserving applications. We didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. It turned out that all of those eggs hatched. And at the end of March we received notification that we had received funding for our full request. We received $558,000 to rebuild the approach and the wharfhead structure.”
“So we’ve been working quite hard behind the scenes. We have matching funds. There’s a significant amount of in-kind support coming from our organization to make this work. I want to really draw attention to the huge amount of behind-the-scenes effort that the board is doing right now. Just hours and hours of time and energy going into volunteering to make this project happen.”
“We’re extremely excited to announce that we’ve gone through the tendering process. We’ve selected a contractor already, and mobilization for this project is scheduled to start September 15th, so less than one month away.”
Cortes Currents: What will ‘mobilization’ look like?
Jenny Hartwick: “Over the next month, we’re going to be getting lots more information from the contractor. We have requested a full building schedule that we will be sharing with the community — what the stages of construction are going to be, the work schedule of the crew, when the community can expect to see certain elements being replaced and repaired, what hours and days the crews will be working, and what that means for access.”
“One thing that we’re very, very adamant with our contractors about is that public access needs to be maintained to that dock at all times. While, for safety reasons, for an hour or two access to particular parts may be blocked off, public access to the dock is going to be maintained at all times.”
“So there should not be any limitations to community access.”
Cortes Currents: Isn’t the new wharfhead going to be considerably smaller than the old one?
Jenny Hartwick: “Yes, the dock was originally built and used as a Union Steamship dock. It was designed to take much larger vessels, lots of vehicles, storage space — all of that space on the outside portion of the wharf really isn’t utilized the way it was originally constructed for. Today all we see is typically people parking on the wharfhead when they’re not supposed to be.”
“One of the things that Cortes Community Docks had to look at was how to best leverage the funds that we have available to us, to make sure that we could repair and replace the largest amount of that structure and leave it in a position so that further down the road, we weren’t faced with having to put in a whole other round of repairs.”
“The pilings that were labeled as ‘good condition’ now have aged another 10 years, and now they’re in ‘poor condition.’”
“So as it stands right now, yes — the approach, which is the narrow section that runs from land out to the wharfhead, is getting completely repaired. Any elements that were slated for replacement in there are getting 100% upgraded.”
“A portion of the outside of the wharfhead is going to be removed.”
“Working with community members, working with other dock users, and with our engineer, we’ve designed a rebuild that will still allow for vehicle access to the top of the gangway. You’ll still be able to drive a vehicle down, turn it around on the wharf, and head back up to the top of the gangway. If you’re unloading heavy things or if you’ve got bulky items that you want to get up or down that gangway — 100%.”
“In the future we will have a smaller facility that is going to require maintenance. One of the key elements — and this is nerding out a little bit on dock terminology here — but it’s an extremely important point, is that the Whaletown dock has two different types of pilings.”
“Again, the pilings are essentially the large posts underneath the dock that help support the actual structure. About half of that dock actually sits on concrete foundation pads, which were poured because they sit directly on exposed bedrock. It was not possible to drive a pile.”
“The outside third of the dock sits on driven piles. To replace a driven pile requires very specialized equipment, a pile-driving barge, very heavy machinery, and it is extremely expensive. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars just in mobilization costs to get a pile-driving barge to appear, and upwards of $10,000 per pile. So one of the key elements of our engineering rebuild is that the structure will actually be left with no driven piles.”
“In the future, any additional repairs and maintenance will be happening on pilings that sit on concrete footings, and they’re much easier to replace. They can be done with a Hiab truck and a crew of two. They don’t require this massive mobilization of extremely expensive equipment.”
“We’re really excited about this upgrade. Not only is it going to ensure the ongoing life of that structure, but we’ve also built in a number of additional upgrades. A bunch of the lighting on the dock is going to be redone with new night-friendly, motion-sensor lights to help alleviate the existing light pollution that the facility contributes to.”
Cortes Currents: Tell us about the Dock swap that’s coming up.
Jenny Hartwick: “Cortes Community Docks is going to be hosting a dock swap. We’re encouraging anybody with anything, marine or otherwise, that they would like to buy, swap, trade, barter, or sell to bring it down to the dock, and we’re going to have a giant dock swap meet.”
“We had originally planned that for August 16th, but we were rained out. So we have rescheduled that to August 30th, from 4 to 7:00 PM on the Manson’s Landing dock. We would like to invite and encourage the community to come out and attend that event. By that time, we hope to have more information from our contractor as to what the building and repair schedule is going to look like.”
“Not only are we going to be serving up free hot dogs and veggie dogs and hosting a dock swap, we will have a display booth of the plans for Whaletown. There’ll be board members and myself available for community members to ask questions and find out additional information.
So we really encourage the community to come out, talk to us at that event.”
“If they have any questions or concerns and can’t make it to the event, we’re always available. They can call the Harbour Authority at any time. They can email us. We’re happy to meet and communicate with people.”
“We’re really excited about this opportunity.”
“It’s exciting for our organization, but it’s really exciting for the broader Harbour Authority community as well. We are one of the only harbour authorities on the entire BC coast that owns a divested dock. So this is big news and very exciting within the broader community, to show what is possible for this infrastructure and the ongoing life and importance of those facilities in the community.”
Links of Interest:
- Harbour Authority Cortes Island (website)
- Cortes Community Docks (Facebook)
- Open House at the Whaletown Dock; Renovations Needed – Cortes Currents
- Articles about, or mentioning, HACI
- phone: (250) 935-0263
- email: [email protected]
Top image credit: pilings sitting on concrete blocks – courtesy HACI; All undesignated photos by Roy L Hales
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