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
The boats stored along the shoreline in Mansons Landing Provincial Park have been given a reprieve.
For the 15 most derelict vessels, this means another 30 days before they are removed by BC Parks. Cortes Currents followed three Park Rangers down the beach to watch them tag their first vessel, a fibreglass dinghy with holes torn out of its bottom. Another derelict vessel was being used as the roof of a crude shelter in the trees.
There were a total of 57 boats in the park when the rangers arrived last month. Some have since been removed, but there are still a considerable number on the beach. Most of them look seaworthy. At some point in the near future, albeit measured in years rather than days, they must all be removed.
Continue reading Boats at Mansons Landing given a reprieve
By Greg Osoba, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca
The historic Sunny Brae Farm had one of its best growing seasons to date, but the local farm faced challenges with help during the harvest.
Sunny Brae Farm was founded in 1888 by Scotsman John Manson, one of the first Europeans to settle on Cortes Island. The farm has remained in the Manson family through the generations and is now owned and operated by John Manson’s grandson, Mike Manson.
Mike Manson also describes his family and Cortes Island history in: The Manson Family: One of Cortes Island’s First Settler Families and How People’s Attitudes Towards Nature Changed
Continue reading 134 year old Sunny Brae Farm had strong growing season, but struggled to find enough help
