By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The city’s cemetery could be going green.
City council has put its staff on the path of reviewing and determining if green burials can be accommodated in the Memorial Park Cemetery, as well as City staff to complete a Parks and Cemetery Master Plan in 2024.
Continue reading Green burials: review and determination of natural burials to be made for Nelson’s cemetery
(A five part series airing daily on CKTZ ,89.5 FM, April 4-8, 2023.)
For the last several years, a small but dedicated group of Cortes Islanders have been taking practical steps towards an ambitious goal for themselves and their community: a healthier relationship with death and dying. Their projects include regular meetings for discussion and support, humane and family-led funeral arrangements, and green (natural) burials in our local cemeteries.
The DeathCaring Collective was kickstarted by Margaret Verschuur, in collaboration with Quadra Island’s similar effort (Way To Go). The two groups share an informational website, communityleddeathcare.ca, and the Cortes group now includes over a dozen volunteers and a larger membership connected by email list and regular meetings. The core group of volunteers offer several kinds of assistance for islanders dealing with a death (or anticipated death) in the family.
Continue reading The Cortes DeathCaring Collective
Every year, the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) give the Jo Ann Green Award to a Cortes Islander who has made a significant contribution to the environmental wellbeing of the community. Bruce Ellingsen is this year’s recipient.
“Jo Ann Green was an exemplary environmentalist who came to Cortes in 1969, and she immediately became involved in social environmental activities on the island,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI.
Continue reading Bruce Ellingsen: 2022 recipient of the Jo Ann Green Award
Jen Stevens left this world on Tuesday, July 26, 2022. In today’s program, her daughter Darshan Stevens talks about Jen’s life, her medically assisted death (MAID) and the changes that came about throughout this process.
“My biggest grief was when my mom received her diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer and my longest grief is probably what I was going into now, after she’s passed,” explained Darshan.
Continue reading Darshan Stevens: on her mother’s life, death and the grieving processNatural Burial & Community-Led Deathcare: FolkU Radio@89.5FM
Where we ask our neighbours: What do you know? It’s that time of year when the light is short and the natural world around is in its big rest, preparing for transformation. I feel particularly appreciate to be spending this season in this strange and tumultuous time, here on this island, surrounded by the natural world and by this community. Margaret Verschuur helped bring together the Cortes Island Deathcare Initiative and has served as a death doula on Cortes and Quadra Islands. In this episode she and Emma Tius, the new contact person for the Death-Care Collective, to discuss what community death care are and what natural burial looks like on Cortes and Quadra Islands.
Continue reading Folk U: Natural Burial & Community-Led Deathcare
