Tag Archives: Squirrel Cove

Rivers & Oceans

Four Decades Of Gillnetting On Cortes Island

There are more than more 40 names on the Cortes Island Museum’s list of fishermen from the 1970’s. Some were wives, who worked alongside their husbands. Others may have been deckhands. The names of 28 boats are given, though not how many were working in any given year. Now there are two.[1] In this week’s radio program (podcast below), the owner of one of those 28 fish boats describes close to four decades of gillnetting on Cortes Island.

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Animals, Rivers & Oceans

Cortes Streamkeepers in Basil & Hanson Creeks: What happened to the salmon?

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Six to eight hundred adult Chum Salmon used to come up Hansen’s Creek. Now there are 30 in a good year and as few as 3 in poor ones. Though we were talking about Cortes Island, this is a common phenomenon along the West Coast of British Columbia. What happened to the salmon?

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Forests

Cortes Island’s Quest For Sustainable Logging

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By Roy L Hales

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Most of the great forests that once covered the West Coast are gone. Though there is still an extensive canopy, the trees are scraggly compared to the stumps and historical photographs left from decades ago. The clear cutting in British Columbia is so extensive that, since 2003, the forests have been emitting rather than storing carbon. Some call for a more environmentally sensitive industry and an example of Cortes Islands quest for sustainable logging is about a mile from my home.

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Arts, Forests, Indigenous Nations

The Klahoose First Nation & Origins of Cortes Community Forest

Originally published on Heartwood, Field Notes

Their plan is to net out of the equation sensitive ecosystems, riparian zones, areas with very thin soils, and groves of old growth—and do selective, ecosystem-based forestry on what remains of the land base.

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