In the beginning, the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island (HACI) looked after three docks. Now there are five: Whaletown, Gorge Harbour, Mansons Landing, Cortes Bay and Squirrel Cove. While most of the traffic is pleasure craft during the summer, the docks are still home to Cortes Island’s flourishing aquaculture industry. From 11 AM to 2 PM on Sunday August 4th, HACI will celebrate 20 years of service with a nautical swap meet and second annual gumboot toss.
What was life like in the era before cell phones, computers and televisions. Did British Columbians feel closer to nature when they worked outside in the elements rather than within the artificial confines of a building? In this mornings program I ask Mike Manson, a descendant of one of Cortes Island’s oldest European families, and Mike Moore, one of our better known eco-tour guides, how public attitudes towards nature changed since the first settlers arrived.
Aside from the incredible run of 2010, reports of the Fraser River’s sockeye salmon tend to be glum. I believe there is only one Cortes Island based fisherman still working the Johnston strait and recently learned this is the second year he did not receive an opening to fish sockeye.[1] Though the culprits were last year’s drought and a culvert (close to my home), most of the chum returning to Basil Creek in 2015 were killed before they could spawn. These were just a few of the stories that prompted me to seek out evidences of the impending demise of what was previously one of our province’s leading industries. Instead, I found good news about BC’s fishing runs.
There are more than more 40 names on the Cortes Island Museum’s list of fishermen from the 1970’s. Some were wives, who worked alongside their husbands. Others may have been deckhands. The names of 28 boats are given, though not how many were working in any given year. Now there are two.[1] In this week’s radio program (podcast below), the owner of one of those 28 fish boats describes close to four decades of gillnetting on Cortes Island.
