Tag Archives: Radio

Arts

At the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery: Meinsje’s Uncanny Puppets and Sublime Paintings

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Editor’s note: Meinsje has asked that some of the more detailed images be held back until after her show opens. They will be added to this article next week.

‘The Uncanny and the Sublime’ exhibition opens at the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, June 19, and runs until July 5. In this morning’s interview, exhibiting artist Meinsje Vlaming discusses her puppets and paintings.

Meinsje: “I’ve been involved with the Academy of the Wooden Puppets. That’s a two-year education online by Bernd Ogrodnik, a German teacher, master puppeteer, and carver who lives now in Iceland. That’s one of the good things that happened with COVID: we have a lot of things online now, and we don’t have to go there.

“Bernd put together a program on carving puppets—from the beginning, very simple puppets, to a very, very complicated marionette. Of course, being a puppeteer, that had my interest. So I enrolled.”

“Well, actually, I first applied for a grant. I got it, I enrolled, and I started carving. I got all these puppets that are not really related, and I haven’t put them in a puppet show, but it would be nice to hang them on the walls in a gallery and display them.”

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History

At the Cortes Island Museum: Fossils Left by the Last Glacial Age

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The story of fossils left during the last glacial period is currently on display at the Cortes Island Museum. They are Buchia mussels, Belemnites, and Ammonites—creatures that lived in the Chilcotin region at the same time as the dinosaurs. The rocks containing their fossils were relatively undisturbed for nearly 130 million years. Then, during the last glaciation period, fragments broke off and were carried to Cortes, Read, Sonora, and other Discovery Islands.

In this morning’s interview, Christian Gronau, a retired geologist and Cortes Island resident, tells their story.

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Community

Folk U: Life on Read and Sonora Islands (Part 1)

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(Interview by Manda Aufochs Gillespie; written version by Roy L Hales)

On Friday, June 5, host Manda Aufochs Gillespie welcomed three women from neighbouring islands to Folk U Radio. Renate Harvey and Renée Desautels from Sonora Island and Sheila Hollanders from Read Island talked about their lives, families, communities and hopes for years to come. This is the first part of a highly edited and abridged version of that interview.

Manda (Host of Folk U):  Today, we’re getting closer in community with our neighbour islands—many who are even more remote than Cortes. What do we have to learn and share with our neighbours from across the waters?

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Community

Folk U: Life on Read and Sonora Islands (Part 2)

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(Interview by Manda Aufochs Gillespie; written version by Roy L Hales)

In the conclusion of a two part story, Manda Aufochs Gillespie interviewed Renate Harvey and Renée Desautel from Sonora Island, as well as Sheila Hollanders from Read Island, about life on their islands. In Part 1 they talked about their daily lives, the seasons and community life. This segment deals with community support and future sustainability— the Surge Narrows Community Association and funding, land access/emergency preparedness, relationships with Homalco First Nation, youth and schooling challenges, and hopes for the next decade. 

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Disaster

Cortes Island’s greatest risk: wildfire

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 My assumption is that we will, at some point in time, see a fire on Cortes of a severity that will flabbergast the population. It may not happen this year, and it may not happen in 10 years, but the conditions are getting very, very bad.

That is what Mike Brown, volunteer fire fighter and long time Cortes resident, had to say at the May 3rd meeting on Emergency Preparedness in the Pioneer Room.

At that thinly-attended meeting, SRD emergency services staffer Sarah Rosen gave a presentation on emergency preparedness for individuals and households. As part of her presentation she reviewed potential emergencies in our local area.

Cortes Island is fortunate to be sheltered from tsunamis; earthquakes are rare in BC; the island has no rivers to flood or dams to burst (unlike Campbell River, where the hydro power dam is currently undergoing seismic safety renovations). The island has no hazardous chemical plants or huge fuel dumps. The one serious disaster-grade risk to the Cortes community is wildfire.

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