Tag Archives: Film

The Most Exciting Conservation Story on Cortes Island

Transcript of a radio broadcast by Sabina Leader Mense

Just last weekend several of us were at the Cortes Island Museum for the launch of Sheila Harrington’s new book ‘Voices For The Islands: 30 Years Of Nature Conservation In The Salish Sea.’ What Sheila does in this book is she celebrates this amazing community of conservationists that are living and working in the Salish Sea.  

In the foreword, Briony Penn wrote, “If you’ve picked up this book, chances are that you’ve fallen in love with the islands in the Salish Sea. You might have wondered how the heck they’ve retained their natural beauty against the hostile tsunami of contemporary clear-cuts, cookie cutter suburbs, and mindless malls that are encroaching elsewhere.” 

Briony talks about the collective efforts of thousands of people over generations that have actually been working to maintain the beauty of the islands. 

Sheila’s book documents the last 30 years of people (voices in the islands) who have been working at conservation. She includes a chapter on Cortes, so we’re in there with the best of them! I encourage everybody to pick her book up and have a read  to see what the island community of conservationists have been doing. 

The most exciting conservation story on Cortes today is definitely the Children’s Forest! This is the 624 acres of forest lands that stretch all the way from the Carrington Bay Road trailhead, east across Carrington Lagoon to Goat Mountain, just on the northern shore of Blue Jay Lake.  These are lands owned by Island Timberlands. It’s part of their privately managed forest land base on Cortes Island.

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Turning Down the Heat

By Maureen Williams and the FOCI Climate Action Committee

In early July of 2024, a small group of Cortes Islanders, supported by Friends Of Cortes Island (FOCI), screened the film “How to Boil a Frog” for the community. The film is about the five-pronged problem life on Earth is currently facing — overpopulation, a war on nature, wealth disparity, peak oil, and climate change—and offers five actions that can help—boycott Exxon, change your “life” bulb (reduce consumption), a change of heart, one kid per couple, and kick some ass. This article is the first in a series focused on each of these five solutions from the film, and more. You can learn more about the film and the filmmaker, Jon Cooksey, here and here. You can even watch the film, here.

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On Climate Change, Peak Oil, Overshoot, and the Importance of Relationships: An Interview with Jon Cooksey

Last week, I sat down on zoom with television showrunner and independent film maker Jon Cooksey to talk about his 2010 film, “How to Boil a Frog”. The film, which also features Rex Weyler, is being screened at Manson’s Hall on Tuesday, July 9, at 7PM. Jon and Rex will be there to participate in discussion after the film.

In the interview, we talked about the events that led to his interest in climate change and ecological overshoot, his long friendship with Rex, and how his thoughts about impacting the future have evolved since making this film.

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Screening of ‘the Test’ On Cortes Island Thursday, June 20, 2024

Male voice: “I’ll vividly remember there was a very large wall of flame methodically marching towards Logan Lake and a huge column of smoke coming off of that  and looking down at these cul de sacs and thinking, ‘wow, they look so small.’ And in my mind, all I could think was that this is either going to be a great day for Logan Lake, or a horrible day.” 

Female voice: “What inspired the first activities in Logan Lake was fear.”

Second female voice: “We’re a small community on top of this beautiful hill surrounded by forest.” – excerpt from ‘the Test.’

There will be a screening of ‘The Test’ in the Mansons Fire Hall at 7 PM, on Thursday, June 20.  

“This is a documentary about the Logan Lake wildfire and their success in preparing for it using the FireSmart methods.  I believe they had been preparing for 18 years before they had a major wildfire come through the community, “explained, Interim Fire Chief Eli McKenty.

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The Cortes Island Academy looks ahead to 2024/25 & back at the past year

The Cortes Island Academy’s school year is over. Graduation was on January 25. Executive Director, Manda Aufochs Gillespie, just gave Cortes Currents an overview of the 2023/24 semester and a peek into the year that is just about to begin.

“This school year (Sep 2023-Jan 2024), the Cortes Island Academy was a lot of fun.  We learned a lot from our first year. So this year we really got to just revel in the model, the awesome kids and local knowledge holders that came out to make this year happen. It felt to me like a lot more fun, and a lot less trailblazing,” she began. 

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