According to the 2024 Interim Housing Needs Report, in the next two years Cortes Island will need another 95 new housing units and Area C will need another 270.
The studies underlying assumption is that the Discovery Island’s population will continue to grow by 8% over the next few years.
Continue reading Discovery Islands in the 2024 Interim Housing Needs ReportFrom the desk of Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney
Hello,
It’s my sincere hope you’ve managed to stay warm and dry during the recent storms. The weather ‘bomb cyclone’ was certainly impactful! Along with the local power outages and ferry cancellations, the power went out at the Board office and roads to some of the smaller municipalities were closed, resulting in our regularly scheduled Board meeting of Wednesday November 20 being cancelled (and rescheduled for November 27).
Close to 400,000 BC Hydro customers, primarily on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, lost power during the recent windstorms. Gusts of up to 159 km/h were reported on November 19, the first night of the storm. By 4 PM on Friday, November 22, all but about 5,000 customers on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands were back online. Parts of Cortes and Quadra Islands were among the last areas to be restored.
BC Hydro identifies extreme storms like this with climate change and, in their 2023 Climate Change Accountability Report, states:
Continue reading Loss of Electricity and CityWest Internet During Recent StormWith winds of up to 159 km/hr the ‘bomb cyclone’ hitting Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland is far from the worst we’ve seen in recent years. As of 3:43 AM this morning, 272,000 people had been deprived of power and that number is still increasing. According to BC Hydro, “Climate change has led to an increase in extreme weather events in British Columbia, and this is something BC Hydro has been preparing extensively for.”
Continue reading Hydro says BC is experiencing worse storms and the cause is climate changeAround 40 people turned out to the Cortes Island Museum on November 10 for the launch of a series of community speakers. The host, Brian Scott traced the idea for ‘Finding Home: The Cortes Island Experience’ to a conversation he had with Sherman Barker.
“Sherman and I have known each other for a few years, it’s long other story, but he was up on Easter Bluff one day when Jane and I went up for a hike. We’re chatting, and he started telling us his arrival story. It actually goes even further back to when he came as a kid. He said, there’s lots of stories on the island here and if we don’t somehow capture them, we’re going to lose them.”
“I thought it would be an interesting thing for the museum to do because the museum has artifacts that it’s saving and preserving and sharing with the public. Stories are artifacts as well. How do we capture those? Then it occurred to me, well, why don’t we do a speaker series? I approached Sherman and said, ‘Hey, what do you think? You want to be the first?’ And he’s like, ‘yep, It’s awesome.’”
Continue reading Brian Scott, Sherman Barker & Isabelle LaPlante: on the Cortes Experience
