The Cortes Island School Wetland Project is transforming part of the school field into a living classroom that blends ecology, culture, and community effort. In today’s interview, we speak to Miranda Cross from Rewilding Water and Earth, the wetland restoration specialist, and biologist on the project
Continue reading The Cortes Island School Wetland ProjectOriginally published January 22, 2024. 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.
Continue reading Schools of Squirrel Cove
The Cortes Island Academy’s third semester is wrapping up and in this year’s end showcase the students are taking the audience on an imaginative visit to the year 2040. It starts at 7:00 this Thursday, January 13, 2025 at Mansons Hall.
“A really important part of the Cortes Island Academy is our year end showcase where the students are given the task of finding a way to share some of the learning that they’ve gone through in the semester in a form that is digestible for the community at large. So they put on this big event which is supposed to be fun and compelling and also spark the imagination of the citizenry of Cortes and the surrounding islands. We are really hoping that a lot of people will come out. I’m quite proud of the way the students have really taken things a different way this year,” explained Executive Director Manda Aufochs Gillespie.
Continue reading Visit 2040 with The Cortes island AcademyFrom the desk of Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney
Hello, In this report is news on two recent meetings, the first Official Community Plan meeting at Surge Narrows and a recent SRD-SD72 Liaison Committee meeting, as well as a link & reminder about the Area C Active Transportation survey.
Continue reading Area C Director’s Report: Official Community Plan meeting on Read Island + more
The Cortes Island Community Foundation (CICF) just published the Cortes Island’s Vital Signs report.
“ When I started with the Community Foundation a few years ago, I was already in the community, trying to make things happen. In particular, I tried to make things happen in the most grassroots small nonprofit ways possible, but often in the area where I saw that there was a lot of need. Very quickly, I was in the process of writing grants and trying to figure out how to bring in those resources that I knew were out there somewhere,” explained Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Executive Director of the Cortes Foundation.
Continue reading The 2024 Vital Signs Report for Cortes Island
