Tag Archives: Coulter Bay

Cortes Community Forest receives funding, moves to complete Wildfire Protection Plan

By Louis Belcourt, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

The Cortes Community Forest Cooperative has obtained funding to implement two wildfire risk reduction projects in the community forest, a project that’s been in the works for years.

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A walk through memory lane to Carrington Lagoon and Grandmother Grove with George Sirk

George Sirk explained some of the history and wildlife that he and Kim and their friend Janet Gemmel recently explored during a walk to Carrington Lagoon and Grandmother Grove.

“Janet Gemmel came to visit us for a week. Her husband, Jim Palmer, died last December. He had a very rare lung cancer.”

“Jim and Jan lived out in Carrington, at the Reversing Rapids, in the 80’s.  So Jan wanted to take the ashes back and release them there, but she forgot to bring them from Courtenay.”

Continue reading A walk through memory lane to Carrington Lagoon and Grandmother Grove with George Sirk

Early Logging on Cortes Island and Vicinity: Local History with Lynne Jordan

Lynne Jordan has contributed to historical booklets available at the Cortes Island Museum and is currently researching the history of early logging activity in Whaletown.

In the course of an extensive 3-part interview, Lynne draws on original documents, archives, and oral histories to paint a picture of early settler loggers on Cortes — their equipment, their floating camps, the economy in which some prospered and some failed.

The logging community was always a really mixed bag… Much of the logging was done by hand. Some of it using horses.

Logging was not a good way to get rich.

Continue reading Early Logging on Cortes Island and Vicinity: Local History with Lynne Jordan

When fishing was an industry in Whaletown

A great many fisherfolk once worked out of Whaletown. The Cortes Island Museum’s list goes back to the 1930s, at which point there were 7 men and a woman. Three of them used rowboats. 

“There used to be a huge fleet rafted out, both six and seven abreast all along  both sides of the dock, in Whaletown.  In the last 10 years or so, there’s only been three or four boats in there, fishing. The main one  that I know of in the last little while is the ‘C-Fin,’ but he goes outside of the Vancouver Island area and fishes tuna. When he comes back he doesn’t sell it to a fisheries, he sells it from the dock, and the same with his prawns.  So he’s not using a middle man to sell his products, which I suppose is one of the few ways you could make a little bit of money now,“ said Lynne Jordan, former President of the Cortes Island Museum, in the latest instalment of her history of Whaletown.

Continue reading When fishing was an industry in Whaletown

Focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation

The Cortes Forestry General Partnership is currently focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation strategies. 

While none have been large, there were recent fires on West RedondaReadQuadra and Sonora Islands.

“It’s highly possible that we can have a fire here,” said General Manager Mark Lombard.  

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