Tag Archives: Aaron Ellingsen

The 2024 Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour On Cortes Island

The Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour is Saturday June 22, from 10 am to 4 pm. This is an annual fundraiser for the Cortes Island Museum, as well as a showcase of some of the island’s hidden gems.  

“It’s a great opportunity to feature creative talents of people on the island, and it’s a self guided  tour of studios and gardens that takes you all the way around from Whaletown, down to Smelt Bay, and Cortes Bay. We’ve got painters, textile artists, weavers, spinners,  ceramicists .  We’ve got a number of potters and pottery studios that are participating. And then some beautiful spaces with gardens that range from low bluff to high bluff. You pick up a map, which includes a button, and you just go around the island visiting people with talents you may not have known about, or see spaces that you were curious about but never had an opportunity to actually walk into. Walk through the gates and see what people are growing there,” explained Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the Cortes Island Museum.

Continue reading The 2024 Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour On Cortes Island

From The Ground Up: The Story Of Cortes Island Dwellings

A new exhibition in the Cortes Island Museum looks at the island’s housing from pre-colonial times up until the present. ‘From the Ground Up: Cortes Island Dwellings And Their Histories’ combines photographs and artifacts from the museum’s collections, stories and images from the community and a display from the Cortes Housing Society. Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the Museum, took Cortes Currents on a tour of the exhibit. 

Continue reading From The Ground Up: The Story Of Cortes Island Dwellings

Cortes Community Forest Five-Year Plan Update: Tour of the Larsen’s Meadow Cut Block

Public consultation around plans for the next five years of timber harvesting got back underway on Saturday, March 23, with a tour of the Larsen’s Meadow cut block led by Operations Manager Mark Lombard. Two more public tours are currently scheduled: March 30 in the Carrington/Coulter Bay area and April 20 in the Green Mountain area. These outdoor tours are part of the follow-up to an initial public meeting in the Spring of 2023, when maps and preliminary plans were presented.

Lombard works for the Cortes Forestry General Partnership (CFGP), which holds the tenure (right to log) for the Cortes Community Forest, comprising much of the Crown Land on Cortes Island. CFGP is a partnership between Klahoose First Nation (KFN) and Cortes Community Forest Co-operative (CCFC). 

Continue reading Cortes Community Forest Five-Year Plan Update: Tour of the Larsen’s Meadow Cut Block

What Moon Dance Productions wants for Cortes Island

Cortes Island has a new volunteer production company. According to their recent press release, Moon Dance Productions will pay travelling expenses, accommodation etc for bands coming to Cortes Island. They have already booked the Awakeneers for an Earth Day Contra Dance in Mansons Hall on Saturday, April 13th. A dance troupe will be coming on Tuesday, April 16th, and Elise LeBlanc with Sahara Jane on Saturday, April 27th.

Continue reading What Moon Dance Productions wants for Cortes Island

Kim Paulley (part 2): George Sirk, Cortes Island and the rebirth of her career

Part 2 of a 2 part interview, click here for part 1. 

Her singing career appeared to be a thing of the past, when Kim Paulley came to Cortes Island in 1992. The release of ‘Straight From The Heart’ had been promising, but she turned to Classical music. While there had been ‘fantastic’ moments between 1985-90, there was also the toil of auditions (and sometimes not getting the part). Her career was on hold when a friend  recommended the retreats at Hollyhock, where George Sirk was a naturalist guide.

Continue reading Kim Paulley (part 2): George Sirk, Cortes Island and the rebirth of her career