Tag Archives: Ron Forest

Schools of Squirrel Cove

This is the first audio recording of the article below, and may have sufficient additional details to be called the most recent version. The text was originally published in the booklet Squirrel Cove (Cortes Island Museum & Archives Society)

At the beginning of the 1900s, Squirrel Cove on the east side of Cortes Island was a hub of activity for homesteaders, loggers, fishermen, miners and trappers. They came from all the surrounding islands for supplies, groceries, mail, repairs, radios and dances in the hall. There were two stores, a post office, church, hall, two machine shops, a boatworks, a marine ways, and a big dock where the Union Steamships stopped regularly. Jim Spilsbury also stopped frequently to install or repair his radios in boats and homes.

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Paul Kirmmse remembers Cortes Island in 1971

Born in New York, he chose Canada. Another two years passed before he arrived on a remote island off the West Coast. Paul Kirmmse remembers Cortes Island in 1971.

“I originally came here in January of ’71, looking for land. A guy gave me a job for the summer, beginning in April, serving coffee to the fishers and the loggers. There was a little cafe just above Mansons Lagoon, across from what used to be the Barton store – which I understand is now the Cortes Island Museum. It was dragged up the road and put in place to become the museum,” he says.  

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