Tag Archives: Bobo Fraser

Arts, Community

At The Museum: ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbour’ Exhibit Explores Community Life In Cortes Island

What does it mean to be a neighbour on Cortes Island? This  question is at the heart of the new Cortes Island Museum exhibition ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbour?’ curated by Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the museum and Monica Hoffman. Opening Sunday May 4th the exhibit invites visitors on a visual and narrative journey through both the historical and contemporary communities that shaped life on the island.

“The  idea of focusing on neighbourhoods came from the prior exhibition, ‘From the Ground Up,” explained Hoffman.

Boyle added, “We did touch on how people work together to build structures, in terms of collaboration.  It was also about repurposing material and sharing of resources and, in a way, this is also what this new exhibition is about. Collective land arrangements are a way for people to live affordably on Cortes, to share  the land, but also to share the material, resources and work collaboratively. So there’s a lot of overlap.” 

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Community, History

Beginnings of the Co-op at Refuge Cove

Norm Gibbon’s novel ‘Sea Without Shores’ is set in the tiny village of Refuge Cove, on West Redonda Island, during some of the years he was a member of the community. Refuge Cove’s story goes back several decades before that, but in today’s broadcast Norm outlines some of the history surrounding the beginnings of the Refuge Cove Land and Housing Co-op. 

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History

Vintage Vignettes #8-#14

Have you ever wondered what life was like in a small island community in simpler times?  Imagine: no ferries, no electricity, few roads or cars, no medical services, ambulance or firefighters. Back then life was what you made of it, with the help of your neighbours. Local self-reliance meant gathering and growing food, rowing and walking to get around, and generally having a great deal of practical knowledge and skills. And making your own entertainment. But that doesn’t mean life was dull. Not at all.

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History

Vintage Vignettes 1-7

Come on board for the first season of Vintage Vignettes, a joint project of Cortes Community Radio and Cortes Island Museum and Archives, brings you “radio snapshots” of local life in simpler times. These brief episodes feature dramatized voices from the past with archive recordings of music from the “Old Timers”, a dance band that played locally for several decades. In Vintage Vignettes 1 -7 we focus on colourful characters and memorable events, from the first drive across Cortes Island to the 1946 earthquake.

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