Tag Archives: Sean Coyote

Folk U at the Village Commons Music Series 2025: Denise Wolda, Owyn Pengelly, and Thomas Aerie

July 4, 2025 saw the launch of the Village Commons Music Series, a simultaneously live and live-broadcast show, happening on Fridays from 1 – 2:30pm on the new Pavilion stage. 

Host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by Denise Wolda, Owyn Pengelly, and Thomas Aerie, 3 local musicians who sat together on stage for an intergenerational in-the-round style performance, swapping songs, stories, and jokes.

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Cortes Island Residents Waiting for CityWest To Connect Them

CityWest started hooking Cortes Island residents up to the internet in December 2023, but many homes are still waiting. As the evidence is anecdotal, it is difficult to say how many people are currently connected through CityWest and how many are not.

Sherman Barker just informed me that he has never met anyone who is connected. After waiting for two years of waiting, he was using Starlink by the time a CityWest crew showed up to do the final hook-up. 

“I have a pile of CityWest cable, all the way from my driveway to my yard, that they don’t want back.”  

Sean Coyote, a techie who works for Cortes Community Radio, said typically people who have yet to be serviced are told their names are on a list. Some, like Sherman, subsequently moved on to other internet providers. Sean added that there are a couple of CityWest trucks working on the island right now. 

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Sean Coyote performs in the Village Commons

On Friday, August 16, Sean Coyote performed a live + live-broadcast FolkU concert in the big Village Commons tent. Hosted by Greg Osoba, Sean is a long-time Cortes resident who has been a musician & music lover since he was young. Sean mostly performs in his living room for the benefit of the cat, however he does occasionally sneak out for a few rare public performances.

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CityWest finally delivers: some Cortes Island homes already receiving service 

CityWest finally delivered on its promise to bring high speed fibre-optic internet to Cortes Island. 

It has been five years since Victoria Smith, then the  Strathcona Regional District’s Special Projects and Sustainability Manager, confirmed that Cortes Island was a proposed recipient for the Connected Coast Project.

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Why is Lovefest such an ongoing success?

Image credit: Kim Pauley singing ‘The Book of Right On’ during Wiley Ferguson’s performance – Igor Backmann photo

(The podcast of this program opens with a clip of saxophone player Dave Blinzinger’s version of the blues classic ‘Route 66,’ in which he added lyrics like ‘Get your kicks right here on Cortes Island’ and ‘When you take that Linnea Farm trip, get your kicks on Route 66.’)

I can’t take too much heat anymore and had to pack it in by 4:30, but it was already apparent that this year’s Lovefest was another success. 

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