Tag Archives: Surge Narrows Post Office

Community

Folk U: Life on Read and Sonora Islands (Part 1)

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(Interview by Manda Aufochs Gillespie; written version by Roy L Hales)

On Friday, June 5, host Manda Aufochs Gillespie welcomed three women from neighbouring islands to Folk U Radio. Renate Harvey and Renée Desautels from Sonora Island and Sheila Hollanders from Read Island talked about their lives, families, communities and hopes for years to come. This is the first part of a highly edited and abridged version of that interview.

Manda (Host of Folk U):  Today, we’re getting closer in community with our neighbour islands—many who are even more remote than Cortes. What do we have to learn and share with our neighbours from across the waters?

Continue reading Folk U: Life on Read and Sonora Islands (Part 1) →
Politics

Cortes, Quadra and Read Island items at the March 25th SRD Board Meeting

At its March 25 SRD Board meeting, Campbell River and its allies passed a resolution to draft a bylaw making the average Quadra Island homeowner pay an additional $588 in property taxes to help fund Campbell River’s Recreate Strathcona Gardens project. (This fight is not over yet.) Whether the proposed bylaw will pass remains to be seen, but a large number of noncontroversial Cortes, Quadra and Read Island items were passed at the same board meeting. They pertained to: 

  • A Quadra Island Right of Way
  • Vacancies in Advisory Planning Commissions for Areas C & D
  • Squirrel Cove Aquaculture 
  • Who Pays Administrative Costs for the Electoral Areas Services Committee
  • Cortes Island’s Active Transportation Plan
  • Funding Opportunities for Active Transportation in Areas B & C
  • Legacy Gifts in Regional District Parks
  • Residency Requirement for Short Term Rentals
  • Proposed Electoral Areas Grant in Aid Service 
  • Waste Pick-up Contract on Cortes Island
  • Renewal of Post Office contract for Read Island
  • Grants-in-Aid for Quadra Island 

As these are all short items, Cortes Currents decided to use them as examples of how the SRD conducts board meetings.

Continue reading Cortes, Quadra and Read Island items at the March 25th SRD Board Meeting →
Tourism, Transportation

Sightseeing on the Discovery Island Mail Run

According to Luke, the pilot, there are usually sightseers on board when CorilAir delivers the mail in the Discovery Islands.

A man from Campbell River and his sister-in-law from Ontario were on the plane when it picked me up at Cortes Bay, on Wednesday, March 23rd. Neither of them had made the trip before, and they were busy taking pictures throughout the trip. So was I. Everything looks much different when you are sitting hundreds of feet up in the air!

Continue reading Sightseeing on the Discovery Island Mail Run →
Forests

Saving A Forest On Read Island

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

It’s a thoroughly unromantic name. Lot 302.

Yet the 20-acre parcel of timber symbolizes the achievement and ongoing battle by a tiny coastal community to protect as much mature forest as they can on their remote B.C. island.

Continue reading Saving A Forest On Read Island →