Originally published Oct 15, 2015
There are many stories of tree hangups, but one of the most colourful comes from Cortes Island. According to local tradition, the Survivor Fir would not be standing if it were not for a steam donkey’s explosion in 1923.
Continue reading The Survivor FirOriginally published on April 22, 2021
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.
Continue reading Paul Kirmmse remembers Cortes Island in 1971Originally 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
Originally published August 24, 2023
Norm Gibbon’s novel ‘Sea Without Shores’ is set in the tiny village of Refuge Cove, on West Redonda Island, during some of the years he was a member of the community. Refuge Cove’s story goes back several decades before that, but in today’s broadcast Norm outlines some of the history surrounding the beginnings of the Refuge Cove Land and Housing Co-op.
Continue reading Beginnings of the Co-op at Refuge Cove
Originally Published on September 6, 2022
The Union Steamship Company served communities along the West Coast up until they were supplanted by airplanes and small motor boats in 1956. Few would have guessed that as little as a generation earlier, when they were still the main way of transporting people and supplies. In the conclusion of her segment about the Union Steamship company, Lynne Jordan talks about the company’s twilight years.
Continue reading Twilight of the Union Steamships
