The Southern Cortes Community Association (SCCA) estimate 500 people may have turned out for Cortes Day on Saturday, July 15, 2023.
Mike Manson, whose great uncle(1) and grandfather(2) were among the island’s first known European settler, remembers there were once two festivals.
Continue reading Cortes Day: Then and now
‘Wayfinding: Stories of Maps & Place’ opens at the Cortes Island Museum, between 1 and 4 PM on Sunday, March 26.
“I think wayfinding really touches on so many aspects of our current life. We have a really fabulous series of maps and artifacts. It’s an opportunity to share that with the public for the first time on many counts. I think everybody, on some level, has a personal story to do with wayfinding. This is a celebration, and a reminder that we all have stories to tell of place and an evolving relationship to the landscape,”explained Melanie Boyle, Managing Director/Curator of the museum.
Continue reading ‘Wayfinding’ at the Cortes Island Museum
According to Lynne Jordan, former president of the Cortes Island Museum, there have been telephones on Cortes Island for more than 110 years. They arrived in 1910, along with telegraphs, but only in the stores.
“Telegrams were really cheap. They were so much for 10 words and so much for 100 words. People got really good at confining their messages to 10 words. Telegraphs that came in for people were just put in an envelope and then pinned on the bulletin board at the store. Then they either had to check themselves or a friend would tell them that there was a message there for them,” she said.
Continue reading How telephones came to Cortes Island
The Union Steamship Company served communities along the West Coast up until they were supplanted by airplanes and small motor boats in 1956. Few would have guessed that as little as a generation earlier, when they were still the main way of transporting people and supplies. In the conclusion of her segment about the Union Steamship company, Lynne Jordan talks about the company’s twilight years.
Continue reading Twilight of the Union SteamshipsBy Melissa Renwick, Ha-Shilth-Sa, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Tofino, BC – When a Tofino Air floatplane struck an Ahousaht First Nation water taxi in the Tofino Harbour on Oct. 18, vessel operators started raising questions over the lack of regulation in the open water.
Continue reading Floatplane collisions in Tofino harbour ignite safety concerns
