Tag Archives: Whaletown

Rivers & Oceans

Growers Perspective: Boats and Aquaculture in Gorge Harbour

On Monday March 6, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) closed the waters and intertidal foreshore of Deep Bay Harbour, on Vancouver Island, to oyster and scallop growers, due to ‘sanitary reasons.’ 

 Erik Lyon, owner operator of Rising Tide Shellfish on Cortes Island explained, “The problem is too many people  in too close a proximity to shellfish farms. You can’t have any shellfish destined for human consumption in  water where there’s any kind of a man-made dock, boat liveaboard or float house within 125 metres. That’s a setback that’s always been in place.” 

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Animals

Success: The search for Western Screech Owls on Cortes Island

Up until now, there have not been any reports of Western Screech Owls on Cortes Island since 2017. That just changed a few weeks ago in the island’s more remote northern forest. 

Field biologist Sabina Leader Mense reports, “I was sitting in the skiff with my husband Dennis, under an unbelievably brilliant sky of stars. It was the last station of the night, pushing midnight, and in the 16th minute of that 17 minute call playback sequence, I heard something. I remember pivoting around in the boat. The sound was behind me and you do what owls do, you turn around.  I think your ears and the muscles and your ears cup and you’re just straining to hear something. Then I heard the call again. It was very distant, but I recognized it was an owl. I began analyzing the audio disks in my head going, ‘is it a Northern Pygmy Owl? Is it a Northern Saw-Whet Owl?’ As I was doing this, it called the third time and I recognized it was a Western Screech Owl.”  

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Animals

George Sirk: Frog Stories 

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Cortes Island naturalist George Sirk knows a lot about frogs.  

GS: “A lot of people know me because of my interest in birds, which is really an addiction, isn’t it?  I’m just hopeless when it comes to birds.  I’m just totally into them. They’re so fascinating.  I came from Venezuela when I was 10. My parents immigrated to Vancouver and I couldn’t speak English. I could speak Spanish and I knew a little Estonian and I could understand German because my parents argued in German.”  

“So there I was in Vancouver, a little weird guy 10-years-old, and I met some other weird young people too, what we would call nerds.” 

“They were into frogs. Jim Palmer was one,  Lowell Orchid, that’s another.  Jim just passed away actually in December, but Lowell’s still with us all here. We used to collect frogs  very close to Kits Beach, the Lacarno beach area. It used to be a military base at one time.  So there used to be a lot of empty properties,  fields and it  got very wet in the wintertime. The tree frogs would all go in there and have a great time.” 

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History

‘Wayfinding’ at the Cortes Island Museum

‘Wayfinding: Stories of Maps & Place’ opens at the Cortes Island Museum, between 1 and 4 PM on Sunday, March 26.

“I think wayfinding really touches on so many aspects of our current life.  We have a really fabulous series of maps and artifacts. It’s an opportunity to share that with the public for the first time on many counts. I think everybody, on some level, has a personal story to do with wayfinding. This is a celebration, and a reminder that we all have stories to tell of place and an evolving relationship to the landscape,”explained Melanie Boyle, Managing Director/Curator of the museum.

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Indigenous Nations, Tourism

Gorge Harbour Marina Undergoing Renovations

Gorge Harbour Marina is undergoing extensive renovations this year. The general store, marina and gas pump is open, but much of the resort is expected to remain closed until 2024.

General Manager Jason Johnson explained, “We had a fairly successful last season and then became even more aware  of some major infrastructure issues needing to be addressed. It wasn’t just a matter of ‘it’s a septic issue,’ or ‘it’s a water issue,’ or ‘it’s an electric issue” – it’s all of it. We are having to take a look at some major infrastructure at the Gorge with the understanding that the property has a lot of age behind it. So we really need to take a look at that and press the pause button.”

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