Tag Archives: Denise Gibbons

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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Arts, Food Security, Rivers & Oceans

Norm Gibbons: Cortes Island, beginnings of oyster cultivation and writing

By 1979, Norm Gibbons wanted a change. He had been one of the partners in the Refuge Cove Store for the past eight years.  He had not yet decided to move to Cortes Island, when he started looking into the oyster sector.

“Oysters weren’t cultured at that point in time. There were just oysters out there. Anybody involved in the industry picked oysters, shucked them, and sold the shuck to Vancouver.”

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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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Community

Coming on May 18 – Seafest 2019

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By Roy L Hales

With Cortes Island’s largest annual event fast approaching, I met with event organizer Kristen Schofield-Sweet. As it was a glorious spring afternoon., we sat at the wooden picnic table behind the radio station. When Howie Roman finished his program, “Anything Goes,” he joined us in a discussion of Seafest 2019 and what this event means to our island community.

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