by Manda Aufochs Gillespie | Jul 19, 2021 | Folk U
In partnership with the Cortes Island Museum and Archives, this Folk U features Jane Newman sharing news of the museum and stories of Spring from the archives. The second hour features Laurel and Donna curators of the upcoming Big 3 Exhibit opening soon at Wild Cortes! to learn about this exciting new exhibit and the stories of Cortesian interactions with bears, cougars, and wolves from over the ages. Folk U Radio asks “What do you know?” with host Manda Aufochs Gillespie. Tune in to hear neighbours share their interests, knowledge and skills with each other. This show has the diversity and breadth of the people of the Salish Sea: featuring everything from ancient history in the area form a professor who wrote the book to the current take on Wildfire protection and everything in between. Folk U Radio is produced by Folk University in collaboration with CKTZ 89.5 FM and support from Cortes Currents. Folk U Radio: taking old-school viral. Host Manda Aufochs Gillespie is the author of the Green Mama series of books, free-lance journalist, writer, and provost and producer at Folk University. Learn more at FolkU.ca. Links of Interest: (CIMAS) Wild Cortes The Corte s Island Museum and Archives website (Cortes Currents) Wild Cortes Reopens with the Big Three (Cortes Currents) articles about, or mentioning, the Cortes Island Museum (Folk U)...
by Manda Aufochs Gillespie | Jul 19, 2021 | Folk U
Folk U Radio celebrates 50 live shows on CKTZ 89.5 FM this Friday at 1 p.m. Please join host Manda Aufochs Gillespie and Cortes’s local musicians the Awakeneers (developers of the Folk U Radio theme song Think!) for live music and a peak “back stage” into the music-making lives and inspiration of these neighbours. Folk University has brought hundreds of neighbours together to share their interests, skills, and knowledge in the fewer than three years since its founding. And when the pandemic shut most everything else down, Folk U didn’t miss a beat thanks to a partnership with Cortes Community Radio and Cortes Currents and neighbours willing to tune-in rather than turn-out. In 50 shows we’ve learned more about the local environment, wild fire, the brain, art, and what the big issues of our day mean to small towns and smaller islands. You can catch-up at folku.ca/podcasts. Now, let’s dance! Celebrate! Listen with a friend! Folk U Radio is taking old school viral every Friday at 1 and Mondays at 6:30 @CKTZ89.5FM or livestreamed at cortesradio.ca or you can find repeats anytime at www.folku.ca/podcasts. Links of Interest: The Folk University website (Folk U) Podcasts (Cortes Currents) all of Manda Aufochs Gillespie’s content on this website (Folk U; Cortes Currents; Deep Roots) Top photo credit: Folk U celebrates 50 episodes with CKTZ with the Awakeneers – photo courtesy Manda Aufochs...
by CKTZ | Jul 18, 2021 | Folk U
Chief Kevin Peacey of the Klahoose First Nation presents Klahoose Success and Strong Leadership and answers neighbours questions. Then Colin Funk gives a brief update on the Cortes Community Economic Development Association and Carrie Saxifrage gives an update on the Community Forest. This was part of the Making it on Cortes forum, providing resources and a network for neighbours making a life and a livelihood on Cortes. Folk U Radio asks “What do you know?” with host Manda Aufochs Gillespie. Tune in to hear neighbours share their interests, knowledge and skills with each other. This show has the diversity and breadth of the people of the Salish Sea: featuring everything from ancient history in the area form a professor who wrote the book to the current take on Wildfire protection and everything in between. Folk U Radio is produced by Folk University in collaboration with CKTZ 89.5 FM and support from Cortes Currents. Folk U Radio: taking old-school viral. Host Manda Aufochs Gillespie is the author of the Green Mama series of books, free-lance journalist, writer, and provost and producer at Folk University. Learn more at FolkU.ca. Links of Interest: Klahoose First Nation website Cortes Forestry General Partnership website Cortes Community Forest Co-operative website Cortes Community Economic Development Association website The Folk U website (Folk U)...
by Manda Aufochs Gillespie | May 10, 2021 | CKTZ News, Folk U
In this edition of the Folk U Radio’s Reporters Roundtable, our journalists talk about environmental issues in some small Vancouver Island communities. Ernest Hare, US star of Vaudeville, phonograph records, and radio, listens to the radio with headphones. Circa 1921-1925. Bain News Service photograph via Library of Congress website via Flickr ((Public Domain). Our host, Manda Aufochs Gillespie of Folk U Radio, is joined by: Shalu Mehta, reporter for The Discourse in the Cowichan Valley and the West Shore in Greater Victoria. Rochelle Baker, Quadra Island resident and reporter with the National Observer Roy Hales, editor of Cortes Currents . Marc Kitteringham, reporter with the Campbell River Mirror Adapted from Google Maps by Roy L Hales Environmental issues in the West Shore community of Highlands (3:57 in podcast) “Do small community members truly have a say in the clean water, forest management, land use decisions, and other “ecological” issues that create the very basis of their existence?” asks Manda. Shalu Mehta explains that the WestShore community of Highlands, in Greater Victoria, was founded around the idea of conservation. It sits between three fast growing municipalities, Langford, Colwood and Sooke. “This community really fights against urban incursion. Their goal is to protect natural spaces and their aquifer which most of the community relies on,” Shalu began. Proposed gravel quarry Five years ago a company purchased the land to build a gravel quarry in Highlands. When they applied for rezoning, the majority of the community said they did not want a gravel pit. They were concerned about: groundwater; ecological impacts; the wetland; native bird species and the forest. So last year the company applied for a mining permit, which the province granted them. Since then, the District of...
by Manda Aufochs Gillespie | Apr 6, 2021 | Folk U
Folk U Radio’s Reporters Roundtable on CKTZ: where we go in-depth on today’s big issues from a small community perspective with the journalists that are researching and writing about them from within these communities. Today’s topic is the unique nature of the the Housing Crisis in rural/isolated and small communities. Photo credit: Tiny House by Paul VanDerWerf via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License) Cortes Island the home of CKTZ Cortes Community Radio. Wherever you are I invite you to take a moment to think about the land, beings, and people that make up the place you call home and those that came before you. The Cortes Community Radio station is on the unceeded territorial lands of the Klahoose, T’liammen, and Homalco peoples. Thank you to these people, thank you to all the people who have walked this land through time and those that continue to love and work to honour this place we call home, and thank you to this land. Our Reporters Shalu Mehta is a reporter for The Discourse in the Cowichan Valley and on the West Shore. She has worked at news outlets throughout Canada is the recipient of the Jack Webster Award for Excellence in Science, Technology, Health and Environment Reporting (2019). Rochelle Baker is a Quadra Island resident and local journalism initiative (LJI) reporter with the National Observer who covers issues in the Discovery Islands and the North Island region. (Some of her articles are reposted on Cortes Currents)Roy Hales is the editor of Cortes Currents (formerly the ECOreport), which has been a local news website and program on Cortes Radio since 2014.Marc Kitteringham is with the Campbell River Mirror where he writes about environmentalism, housing, emergency services and local government, as well as any other topic that piques...
by Manda Aufochs Gillespie | Mar 16, 2021 | Folk U
Today’s Folk U show is Lessons on Governance, Ecology and Protecting Rural Character: What Cortes can learn from the Islands Trust model. The Islands Trust is a special purpose government entrusted with a mandate to preserve and protect over 450 islands and surrounding waters in the Salish Sea. Known as the Islands Trust Area, the region comprises the Southern Gulf Islands, Howe Sound, and Denman & Hornby Islands. In 1974, the Government of British Columbia acknowledged that unrestrained development arising from the Islands Trust Area’s proximity to major urban centres such as Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo and Seattle could irreversibly damage this uniquely biodiverse and ecologically sensitive region. It established the Islands Trust Act, a unique provincial legislation to preserve and protect the Trust Area and its unique amenities and environment for the benefit of its residents and of British Columbia generally. This gave rise to a federation of thirteen local trust areas / island municipalities, represented by twenty-six locally elected trustees, with a special regional mandate for conservation-oriented planning, regulation, inter-agency cooperation and advocacy. In this show, Cortes Islander, Sobhana Dilani Hippola, shares some personal insights and reflections from her current role working as Senior Policy Advisor for the Islands Trust. She highlights her sense that the same pressures that gulf islands to the south have faced over the years are now making their way north and requiring Cortesians to think strategically about how they govern these special lands and waters into the future. Drawing reference to the complex policy landscapes facing all local governments today, Sobhana highlights some of the unique challenges and strengths that many rural islands share in common, and the...