A joint Cortes Community Housing & Folk U Forum; podcast & written version by Roy L Hales
Viewers from Cortes, Salt Spring and Galiano Islands down to the cities of Victoria and Vancouver logged in to the virtual Cortes Housing Forum on Friday June 14, 2024. The topic was ‘increasing rentals’ and host Sadhu Johnston invited two high profile guests.
Continue reading Virtual Cortes Housing Forum: Increasing Rentals
By Julie Chadwick, IndigiNews, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Surrounded by sun-dappled trees and the gentle rushing sound of Skutz Falls, a historic agreement to return 312 hectares of land to Lyackson First Nation and Cowichan Tribes was signed last week as part of an Incremental Treaty Agreement.
Continue reading After generations of displacement, ‘Vancouver Island’ lands returned to Lyackson, Cowichan First NationsEditor’s note: Prior to the colonial era, Coast Salish Peoples used mountain goat wool, dog hair and plant fibres in their woven textiles. Cowichan sweaters were produced after the arrival of sheep and European two-needle and multiple-needle knitting techniques. According to Marianne P. Stopp, The first documented instance of Coast Salish knitting took place at the Sisters of St. Anne Roman Catholic mission in Duncan, in the Tzouhalem district, which opened in 1864.
By Mike Graeme, Indiginews, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The art of knitting Cowichan sweaters has been in Zena Roland’s family for generations.
Her grandmother knit sweaters for the likes of Bing Crosby — and Roland herself has been practicing the craft almost her entire life, for more than 50 years.
But although the Cowichan sweater has become an iconic symbol of the West Coast, cultural appropriation and the exploitation of artisans has made the craft unsustainable for many knitters who need to make a living.
“We weren’t getting a good price for a while and it wasn’t worth doing,” Roland said.
Now, Roland is part of a group of Coast Salish knitters who are reclaiming their work crafting Cowichan sweaters, with a new initiative that pushes back against the unfair wages and design theft that has stifled their practice for decades.
Continue reading After years of exploitation, the iconic Cowichan sweater is being protected with a new fair-trade program
Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
High atop a dike hemming the Koksilah River as its fresh waters meet salt, red-winged blackbirds call out as they patrol their territory.
Noisy heralds of spring, the blackbirds return to the Cowichan Estuary each year to nest and protest human intrusion with sharp signature trills from the brush along the riverbank.
Today the interloper is Tom Reid, conservation land management program manager with the Nature Trust of British Columbia (NTBC), who stands atop the 15-foot-high rock embankment he is working to destroy.
The dike, built to fortify farmland stolen from the estuary, is stifling the tidal marsh vital to the survival of a host of endangered salmon and bird species that rely on it for breeding, feeding and migration, he said.
Continue reading Saving the Cowichan Estuary from drowning in a climate-fed ‘coastal squeeze’
By Anna McKenzie, The Discourse, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter.
People gathered outside of an RCMP detachment in Cowichan territories on Friday to demand justice for 15-year-old Carsyn Mackenzie Seaweed, whose sudden passing has rattled the community.
On May 15, Carsyn was found in “Duncan” in a “semi-conscious state under suspicious circumstances,” according to a statement from police issued Thursday. Family members of Carsyn say she was found covered under pallets, cardboard and twigs. Tragically, Carsyn did not make it.
Continue reading Community rallies for Carsyn Seaweed, as RCMP apologize for ‘miscommunication’ in her case
