The most recent addition to Wild Cortes may turn out to be a species that has not been seen on Cortes for close to 50 years. Or it could be a Horned grebe, which is said to be fairly common.
“It’s a Black-necked grebe. It’s possibly an adult molting, or it could be an immature. I believe it’s an adult male,” said Laurel Bohart, taxidermist and co-curator of Wild Cortes.
Continue reading Return of a bird species not seen on Cortes for 50 years? Or a Horned grebe?
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
Wild Cortes came into being as a result of a series of interactions between Laurel Bohart and Lynne Jordan, former President of the Cortes Island Museum. They started in 2005, shortly after Bohart moved to Cortes Island.
“I met Lynn Jordan on on the ferry. She had this parrot, an African grey, and it was dead and frozen. She wanted to find a taxidermist, so I mounted her bird. That was the beginning of Wild Cortes, because we did ‘Ravens Relations,’ and put it up in the museum for a few years. People were absolutely enthralled. They wanted to know if we would have more animals, so we dreamed up the original Wild Cortes, the story of water,” she explained.
Continue reading Fresh look at an iconic display: The Cortes Island Water Cycle
Laurel Bohart has volunteered her time to mount or prepare the study skins of 100 birds, fish and mammals for the Cortes Island Museum. She is a member of the Board and one of the co-curators of Wild Cortes in the Linnaea Farm Education Centre. Bohart is also a professional taxidermist, whose interest can be traced back to her parent’s missionary years in Nigeria during the mid 1960s.
The first words she used to describe taxidermy were, “It’s fun.”
To which she added, “It’s a form of sculpture when you mount a bird or a mammal. It’s better than a photograph, which is two dimensional. These are three dimensional.”
Continue reading The Taxidermist behind Wild Cortes
About 350 people* came to Squirrel Cove for Seafest on Saturday May 20. There was a flow-through crowd and not much more than a third of this number appeared to be at the six-hour long festival at any given time.
“I think Seafest is great, it brings a lot of cultures together and lots of different seafoods,” said Sharon Francis, a Squirrel Cove resident and member of the Klahoose First Nation.
Curt Cunningham, owner manager of the Squirrel Cove General Store which hosted this year’s festival, added, “They’ve done an incredible job. We’re going to have a good day, a good summer, and this is gonna kick it off!”
Continue reading Seafest 2023 At Squirrel Cove
