Ann Mortifee seemed to be on the verge of a breakthrough few artists even dream of, when she left the music industry in 1975. EMI Records had just produced her second album and set up a world tour.
Yet Ann’s inner voice clearly stated, “if you go down this path, you will not fulfill your destiny.”
She resisted at first, but finally told her music director, “I’m leaving music, and I’m going on a pilgrimage.”
Continue reading Ann Mortifee part 2: A 3 year pilgrimage & returnAnn Mortifee is probably the most famous musician on Cortes Island, which is more of a compliment than it sounds like because there are a lot of talented musicians on Cortes. However from the start of our interview, it was apparent this story was about a lot more than singing. I had this bizarre feeling to lead with the question, ‘When did you start becoming Ann Mortifee?’
Her answer came out of the memories of a 4-years-old girl.
AM: “It happened maybe a hundred times in my childhood. I had the same dream. I’d be standing somewhere looking into a bedroom and there’d be someone lying in the bed. I’d go, ‘Oh no, I’m starting to dream of her again.’ Then I would get this anxious feeling, ‘I’m going to get stuck there in the dream and I’m going to believe it’s real.’ This dream gets more and more upsetting to me. I can feel myself starting to fall asleep and that I’m in a dream.”
Continue reading Ann Mortifee: ‘Dreaming I am Ann’By 1979, Norm Gibbons wanted a change. He had been one of the partners in the Refuge Cove Store for the past eight years. He had not yet decided to move to Cortes Island, when he started looking into the oyster sector.
“Oysters weren’t cultured at that point in time. There were just oysters out there. Anybody involved in the industry picked oysters, shucked them, and sold the shuck to Vancouver.”
Continue reading Norm Gibbons: Cortes Island, beginnings of oyster cultivation and writing
Stephen Antle has visited Cortes Island most summers for the past 20 years. He started coming after a family sailboat trip through Desolation Sound.
“The last two days of that trip were spent at Manson’s Landing and Gorge Harbour. And we just said, ‘holy cow, we’ve got to check this island out!’ So the next summer we rented Cedar Moon (AirB&B) for the first of many years and came up for one or two weeks, pretty much every summer since.”
Antle is also the lead vocalist in a band that plays traditional Hawaiian music and this Thursday, August 31 at 6:30, he will be performing at the Cortes Island Museum.
Continue reading At the Museum: An evening of real Hawaiian musicRecording and initial transcript by Bill Weaver, but very much a collaboration in which Darshan Stevens photography and Cortes Currents all participated.
On the evening of Friday August 20, 2023, in the Cortes Co-Op Courtyard, 155 people arrived with their folding chairs to attend a 25th Anniversary Celebration for Marnie’s Books. First Marnie gave a history of her book selling, and the origins of the Courtyard. Then Shaena Lambert, Rex Weyler, Priya Huffman, Norm Gibbons, Ruth Ozeki, and Erin Robinsong read from their writings. For two hours these wonderful presenters held this large crowd spellbound. This event was co-Sponsored by the Cortes Island Museum and Archives Society.
The following transcript begins with an introduction by Melanie Boyle, from the Cortes Island Museum.
Continue reading 25th Anniversary Celebration of Marnie’s Books
