Tag Archives: Calvert Island

Parks

West Coast multimillionaires gift land for parks and donate remainder of their fortune to philanthropy

Editor’s note: Scientists from the Hakai Institute have played a prominent role on Cortes Island, often in partnership with local organizations like the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI), or Cortes Island Academy. They have also been frequently interviewed by local media like Folk U, Rochelle Baker of the National Observer and Cortes Currents.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

When multimillionaires Eric Peterson and his wife Christina Munck launched their charity foundation more than two decades ago, the couple pledged to go to their deaths flat broke.

On Wednesday, Peterson and Munck made good on that longtime vow, gifting a chunk of pristine island coastline to the BC Parks Foundation and the bulk of their remaining fortune to the Hakai Institute and the Tula Foundation, which the pair created to leverage science and technology to tackle issues for the public good.

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History, Indigenous Nations History

The Ice Age settlement of Vancouver Island and the Discovery Islands

New evidence suggests that First Nations people may have arrived in northern Vancouver Island as early as 18,500 years ago. 

Chris Hebda, from the Hakai Institute, is the lead author of a study that found Topknot Lake, near Cape Scott, has been ice free since then.  In today’s interview he also gives a tentative outline of our area’s history from post ice age settlement down to the First Nations of our era.

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Rivers & Oceans

The ‘Blob’ may have temporarily dampened the Pacific Ocean’s ‘biological pump,’ study suggests

A new study suggests that ‘the Blob’ of warmer ocean temperatures, which stretched over 3,200 kilometres off the coast of North America at its peak in 2014 and 15, may have temporarily dampened the Pacific’s ‘biological pump’ that acts as a carbon sink for fixed atmospheric carbon. 

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Disaster

Observing Earthquakes off the West Coast

The offshore region between Northern Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii is one of the most seismically active regions in Canada. There have been more than 2,000 earthquakes during the last 4 to 5 years, and four of them measured more than 6 on the richer scale. While the magnitude 2.9 quake in Campbell River last February was smaller, it is a reminder that earthquakes happen here. In this morning’s broadcast Andrew Schaeffer, an Earthquake Seismologist with the Geological Survey of Canada, describes the network of seismic stations that observe earthquakes off the West Coast

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Rivers & Oceans

The Discovery Islands Sea Star Monitoring Program

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Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) has become the Hakai Institute‘s first partner in a new citizen science sea star monitoring program.

As Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI explained, “”We just launched a really exciting joint project with the Hakai Institute. They are initiating a project to monitor the health of Sea Stars in the Discovery Islands and we can contribute from Cortes Island.”

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