Category Archives: Rivers & Oceans

Rivers & Oceans

BC fish farm slapped with hefty fine for illegal operations

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A West Coast fish farm was hit with a $350,000 fine for illegally operating a steelhead salmon farm in Lois Lake, near Powell River. 

West Coast Fishculture (Lois Lake) Ltd pleaded guilty Thursday in Powell River Provincial Court to operating without a license under the Fisheries Act after knowingly operating its fish farm outside the bounds of its aquaculture tenure. 

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Rivers & Oceans, Waste

Canada’s National Observer takes you on a sailing ship with an impossible mission

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada’s National Observer sent reporter Natasha Bulowski to B.C.’s remote central coast for a special expedition this month.

Teams of people are on B.C.’s central coast this week, facing the Sisyphean task of removing marine debris and garbage from remote islands. For every plastic bottle you pick up, there are at least five more buried under the mess of driftwood washed up on the shores. Ropes and nets are even worse: right when you think you’ve freed a section and are ready to move on, a flash of turquoise rope buried in the driftwood catches your eye and condemns you to another 15-minute to hour-long struggle — or “project” as the crew calls these monstrosities.

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Community, Rivers & Oceans

Cortes sailing school offers access, training to underrepresented individuals in an ‘elitist sport’

By Louis Belcourt, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

A local sailing company “Calma Sailing” is offering a free sailing course aimed at providing Indigenous and lower-income people an opportunity to learn the sport.

“I think sailing is a bit of an elitist sport,” said Dominik Domanski, co-owner of Calma Sailing. “It seems so inaccessible.”

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Rivers & Oceans

Fishing communities welcome B.C. intention to reform licensing and quotas

Editor’s note: Fishing was one of Cortes Island’s major industries. The museum records the names of 28 boats and 40 individuals active during the 1970’s. Government regulations changed that. According to  the study SET ADRIFT: THE PLIGHT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA’S FISHING COMMUNITIES, 71% of the people working in the province’s commercial fishing industry lost their jobs. “What remains in the commercial fishery is not a vibrant and healthy fleet, but a fleet ravaged by consolidation.” DFO licensing practises “diverted the fish away from the populous small-boat fleet and delivered the resource into the hands of a venture capitalist…”

By Hope Lompe,  Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Fishing communities, harvesters and advocates are welcoming British Columbia’s intention to work with the federal government to reform the purchase system for fish licences and quotas for B.C.’s commercial fishing industry.

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Animals, Rivers & Oceans

Whale Blitz teaches locals how to report entangled humpbacks in the area

By Louis Belcourt, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

= Cortes Island was included in the third annual Oceanwise Conservation Association’s 2024 Whale Blitz, which included events all over the Vancouver coast, educating people on whale information and how to spot whales and report on their sightings.

A booth hosted by the coordinator of the Oceanwise Conservation Association provided information on whales in our area and encouraged people to report their whale sightings to the Whale Report App.

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