Tag Archives: Nanaimo

Animals, Education

The Taxidermist behind Wild Cortes

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.”   

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Health

BC Promises Four New Cancer Care Centres

By Michelle Gamage, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

British Columbians will get four new cancer care centres that can offer radiation treatment as the province gets ready for an increase in  cases of age-related cancers. 

Health Minister Adrian Dix said Thursday that new cancer care centres will be opening in Kamloops, Nanaimo, Surrey and Burnaby. 

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Animals, History, Indigenous Nations History

A Breed Apart: What was the Coast Salish woolly dog, and can we bring it back?

Editor’s note:  Salish Woolly dogs are believed to have been common throughout Coast Salish territories, so were most likely kept by the ancestors of the Homalco, Klahoose and Tla’amin First Nations. The oldest remains of this breed date back 4,000 years and were found in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. Sheep wool is believed to have replaced dog wool in Indigenous communities after 1862.

By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

If you had been wandering the Coast Salish territories of British Columbia some 4,000 years ago, rambling dense woodland and visiting village longhouses, you would likely have spotted a number of small, white, flocculent pooches.

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Community, Food, Indigenous Nations

Seafest 2023 At Squirrel Cove 

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!” 

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Community

Canada is facing the largest wave of Ukrainian immigration ever

By Yuriy Umansky, New Canadian Media, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

More than seven million Ukrainians were forced to leave the country when Russia invaded Ukraine  –   20 per cent  of the country’s population. And while most of the refugees are remaining in Europe, many have applied for a visa to come to Canada.

According to the Canadian government, Canada has received almost one million applications under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET) and has approved more than 650,000.

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