Image credit: Kim Pauley singing ‘The Book of Right On’ during Wiley Ferguson’s performance – Igor Backmann photo

(The podcast of this program opens with a clip of saxophone player Dave Blinzinger’s version of the blues classic ‘Route 66,’ in which he added lyrics like ‘Get your kicks right here on Cortes Island’ and ‘When you take that Linnea Farm trip, get your kicks on Route 66.’)

I can’t take too much heat anymore and had to pack it in by 4:30, but it was already apparent that this year’s Lovefest was another success. 

Their were 619 attendees over the age of 12, musicians, volunteers and vendors.¹ (As children under 12 got in free, there is no record of their numbers.) How does a little music festival on a remote island consistently draw crowds as numerous as its entire adult population?  

Singer/songwriter Denise Wolda gave a partial answer to this during a totally unrelated interview a few days ago: 

“ I wanted to talk a little about the current musical scene on Cortes. This is a very different community than when I moved here 30 years ago. There were always musicians on the island, but the getting together and the sense of there actually being a Cortes Island musical scene did not exist, as far as I’m concerned, until Rex Weyler and Rick Bockner did the initial and maybe the bulk of the work to get this ball rolling. Lovefest has been so important and the beautiful Hollyhock Lodge coffeehouse that happens over the winter, which gives us a place to be musicians in the wintertime as well.”

Cortes Island’s first Lovesfest, in 2017, was a celebration of the 50 years since the ‘Summer of Love’ in Haight Ashbury. 

Lovefest became an annual event. 

“It’s one of the few events where the entire community comes and joins in one place. It’s a really special thing for that,” said Radio Sean.

Hugh Barton agreed, “It’s just a great sense of community.  So many people come out to set up and organize it all. We get these fabulous musicians from off Island as well.”

David Rousseau elaborated, “Lovefest is Cortes Island distilled into a one day event, that’s why. When I first came here 50 years ago, I admired the old timers, I respected the old timers, I learned a lot from the old timers. Now we’re the old timers and the vintage is about, what, 1969, right? And here we are.” 

David has been a prominent voice on the island for so long that it is hard to think of him as anything but a Cortes resident, but he now lives in Comox. 

Namchi is another Cortes resident who has moved off island. She lives in the Comox Valley during the school year, but returns to Cortes every summer. Namchi was also one of the dancers in Meinje’s Dream Caravan during the first Lovefest and has come to every Lovefest since then.

“Lovefest seems like a fun melting pot of many generations and different types of people,” she said.  

CC: Why is Lovefest so important? 

Namchi: “I definitely know the people that put on the first one, the ’50 Summers of Love’ wanted to remember their youth. The 60s had a big impact on my life, even though I’m only born in the 70s. I grew up with a lot of tie dye. It’s fun to see it out and about, and it’s nice to see a lot of local talent showcased here too.”

It would be a mistake to think of Lovefest as a gathering of old hippies. 

Rick Bockner, one of the festival’s principal organizers and an MC, commented,” I love seeing the younger people in our community come forward with the music that they’re creating. For all of us, listening to them makes a big difference in people’s lives.”   

A young woman named Amber George opened the show. 

(A short clip from one of her songs is in the podcast)

Another young woman, Jemma Hicken, sang about the ferry trips to Campbell River that have taken anywhere from 3 to 6 hours depending on the amount of traffic and number of missed connecting trips:

“This is for all my fellow Cortesians out there: Will I be the last car on the ferry? Or will I be the first one in the goddamn line? Will I die here? It’s a Friday in July, sprinkle my ashes at the ‘possible wait’ sign …”

Greg Osoba stated, “This year felt to me like the community vibe and the love, for lack of a better word and being cliched, it felt more inclusive in some ways.”  

“Last year was the first year after a couple of years off due to COVID. People were still cautious about gathering in numbers, so people stuck to their immediate bubbles. This isn’t a disparaging thing, but I think there were a lot of the summer residents with their friends and families and stuff that  maybe composed a larger contingent for the festival, which was great, but I think people were just more separated into groups.” 

“This year, I was so delighted by the range in age of people, the young to the very old, the people dancing and just communing and enjoying the music and conversing. Also all sectors of the Cortes community and their visitors.” 

CC: What do you mean by all sectors? 

“Well, I mean: Whaletown, Squirrel Cove,  Mansons,  the wealthy, the poor, the middle class. For what there is on our island, it just was the full spectrum  of the community, I felt, and that was such a delight because that’s the community.”

Dave Blinzinger is a saxophone player from Quadra Island, who described Lovefest as “a beautiful gathering of wonderful people on an island that I love. So to me it’s very special and it’s my favourite festival to play at.” 

CC: You play all over the place, and you’re from Quadra? 

DB: “That’s true. Quadra is like a happy medium. I moved there about 30 years ago. I didn’t want to leave Cortes, but I needed a job. I went to Quadra because there was nothing here. And now, even though I still live on Quadra, I get to come to this place I love for work and for fun. So it’s great.” 

One thing I (Roy Hales) have noticed – both as a former web administrator of Cortes Radio and on my own website, Cortes Currents – is that about 75% of the web traffic is coming from off island. Many of the visitors have a connection to Cortes, some are expats. Judy Malek and her husband, Ron Croda, are about to join them. 

“I’ve been living on Cortes for 17 years, but we are moving to Vernon in 10 days.  Four of Ron’s six children live there. So Lovefest, it’s wonderful for me today,  I get to  say goodbye to a lot of people. Hi and goodbye.”

Three of the people Cortes Currents interviewed were visitors from Victoria. 

Brenda Vandermeer said, “I just got here and so far so good.  I like the little kiosks that are selling what looks like local goods.  I haven’t checked it all out yet though. The music sounds lovely.”    

Greg Elvedahl joined the festivals’ set-up crew, “My wife and I live in Victoria. We’ve been coming up to Cortes for the last three years. Love the people, the community. We were here last year and  were informed that we missed Lovefest just by a couple of days, so we were sure to be on time and put it on the calendar  for this year. So we’ve been helping out with some of the setup and whatnot. It’s been fantastic meeting everyone from Cortes and it’s just a fabulous community.  We’re just so happy and feel honoured to help out in such a beautiful festival.” 

Kashi was one of the vendors, ” This is a project about human connections.  I’ve been doing this since 2018 in Victoria, Vancouver, and other cities as well. And it focuses on silence and eye gazing. So, it invites strangers to sit down and gaze with me in this instance. And we share silent eye contact without speaking for a minute or longer, sometimes much longer.  I’ve been doing this with several thousand people now, and it’s been great.” 

CC: Are you from Cortes? 

Kashi: “No, right now I’m living in Victoria. Originally I’m from Norway. My parents are from Pakistan so I guess it’s a long story. I spend parts of the summer here because I really like it. This is my third year on Cortes Island.”

While the Indigenous presence at Lovefest was small, it was both very present and welcomed. 

Brenda and DJ Hanson brought one of the two acts from the Klahoose First Nation. 

“DJ and I are brother and sister, we’re ‘Jae Jae.’ Anybody recognize that word – ‘Jae Jae?’” explained Brenda.”

“So is anybody feeling the love yet,” added DJ. 

Several people in the audience responded with a cheer. 

He mentioned learning a new Ayajuthem word. 

His mother Rose Hanson, who was sitting in the audience, said he was mispronouncing it. DJ was actually saying ‘stingy.’

Brenda and a few members of the audience laughed.

“Well, I’m going to be stingy with my love today, right?” quipped DJ.

Brenda added, “That’s one thing Cortes is known for, there’s no lack of love. I’ll tell you that. That’s one of the reasons why I really love being here so much aside from the fact that it’s our traditional territory.”      

Someone yelled out, “We love the Klahoose” – which prompted a chorus of cheers. 

“And we love you back,” responded Brenda.

(There is a short clip of Brenda and DJ playing ‘Bring it on Home to Me’ in the podcast.) 

Brenda introduced her mother, who was brought onstage to say a prayer:

“I always like to say that Rose is a really big deal, she really is.  Like so many of our other elders in the Klahoose First Nation, she attended residential school, around the age of roughly five and six. She has retained the language even though they weren’t allowed to speak it in the institutions. So, for her to retain the language is a miracle, it really is.

So to hear and listen to the language is very sacred.”

You can listen to Rose’s Ayajuthem words in the podcast, this is the English segment: 

“I’m saying it’s a really nice day and, and that means I’m so happy to see you all here. I’m from Squirrel Cove, my grandparents and my father and mother are originally from Toba Inlet, but at some time in their lives they moved to Squirrel Cove. I’m not too sure about the history of that, but it was probably way before I was born. I’m asking the Creator to give you a really nice day.”

“I’ll be here all day and if there’s anything that you’d like to ask about Squirrel Cove and our people, I’ll be happy to answer your questions, if I can. Best wishes and I love everybody here. I hope you have a wonderful day.”

(Mixed cheers and clapping.)

Cortes Currents wanted to get a performer’s perspective of Lovefest and asked Greg Osoba about the acts he was performing in.

“I played with the brilliant guitarist, Michael Keith and Zach Sukuweh on percussion. I was playing bass with them.  The three of us have just been getting together recently and that is really fun because Michael is so creative and expressive with his playing.”

“I feel he gets so much texture in the music and has a lot of soul at the same time. His music tends to be a sort of blues bass, we do a lot of improvising and so it’s extremely jam oriented, but with structure. That was really fun.” 

“The second group I played with, I just found out a week or two ahead, was Wiley Ferguson. His mother, Julie Keith runs Julie’s Cafe in Mansons. Her husband, Sandy Keith, is Wiley’s stepdad. He did the sound at the festival and did just an amazing job.” 

“Wiley’s music is very, very complex. We played three Frank Zappa tunes. They’re very complicated in terms of modern sort of rock, progressive rock, and then a couple of classical pieces by Eric Satie, which was an amazing contrast. Talk about a wide musical spectrum. Wiley recently did an apprenticeship with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra that lasted six months from last October to May of this year, where he had to study and then compose a piece for the orchestra, about a six minute piece that was a modern classical piece.”

“So he does that, and yet he plays in heavy metal bands and loves pop music.  His biggest influence is Frank Zappa and for me as a teenager, that was one of mine. So we kind of coalesce and relate on that exposure to music as young people. But, that was the biggest challenge for me: being brought in fairly close to  the date of the festival and having to look at chord charts and things like that rather than just play intuitively, which is what I normally do. My dear friend, Garden Stein, was hired to play drums. He and I play in a longstanding Cortes band, Six Foot Johnson. That gave me some comfort, to play with one of my favourite drummers.” 

CC: Have you played in every Lovefest?

GO: “No, I did not play last year, but I really enjoyed it just the same being an audience member and that’s where I first saw Wiley.  His set was one of my favourites.” 

“This year also I was delighted to see Pierre Schreier and Adam Dobrez come back, the fiddle player and guitarist. Oh my goodness, they’re so top of the game. They’re just ultimately skilled professionals and they had everybody up dancing from the gecko. They’re just terrific! They just ripped it up!” 

“And then I’m also a big fan of Cuban music. So to have Adonis Puentes come from Victoria …who migrated to Victoria from Cuba a number of years ago and still plays the very traditional Cuban music. I’ve had the good fortune to visit Cuba a few times. So to have traditional Cuban music come to Cortes was a thrill, and they were the final act. And again, people were dancing till it was all over. It was beautiful. 

The podcast of this program closes with a short clip taken from Adonis Puentes  performance at the Harrison Arts Festival in 2021.

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1. attendance figures courtesy Lovefest. ↩︎