The Southern Cortes Community Association (SCCA) estimate 500 people may have turned out for Cortes Day on Saturday, July 15, 2023.
Mike Manson, whose great uncle(1) and grandfather(2) were among the island’s first known European settler, remembers there were once two festivals.
Continue reading Cortes Day: Then and nowOn August 20, 1977, Voyager 2 was launched from NASA’s facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida. And exactly 15 days later, on September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 was launched from the same facility. The timing was crucial because astronomical calculations had placed Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in a lineal alignment that would only occur once every 176 years. With this alignment, each planet could accelerate the two spacecrafts to their next destination, reducing the travel time from 30 years to 12 years.
Continue reading The Quadra Project: Sounds of the Earth
Lynne Jordan, former President of the Cortes Island Museum, is writing a history of Whaletown. Her manuscript is already 300 pages long. In the first of a series of interviews about her research, Jordan describes the history behind Whaletown’s name.
Continue reading How Whaletown got its name
Seven antique cars pulled into Mansons Landing shortly after 12:30 on Wednesday, June 21.
There was a lot of anticipation prior to to their arrival.
Melanie Boyle, Managing Director/Curator of the Cortes Island Museum, explained, “So far as I know, we’ve never had 15 vintage cars arrive here on the island. We as a museum celebrate histories of various sorts and histories of the island, old technologies and looking back at a day when people traveled differently, slower forms of transportation and different speeds in the world. This is really a celebration of that and, I’m sure it takes a special sort of person who has a devotion to restoring older things and a value of not trashing things and always looking for the newest, but respecting something of the past and with it heritage and stories that go along with it.”
Continue reading Antique Car Club: Lunch stop at the Cortes Island MuseumFifteen antique cars will be in our area this week. They will be checking in at the Discovery Inn, in Campbell River, later today. That will be their base for day trips to Cortes Island, Quadra Island and the Comox Valley.
“There’ll be quite a number of Ford Model Ts, I’m not just sure how many. There’ll be at least two Buicks: mine is a 1912 and a friend of mine is going to be bringing his 1910 Buick. There’s going to be a Russell, which is a Canadian built car, and there’s going to be – I think it’s called a ‘Premier’ and it may be a Canadian built car as well,” explained Bruce Beecham, one of the organizers.
Continue reading Antique Cars coming to our Area this week
