Childhood memories are some of the best. As a young boy I spent my summers on Cortes. It was before the days of ferries and power. We stayed in our little shack on the beach and when the evening darkness came I would ask my father to tell me stories of the olden days. My […]
Tag Archives | Photography
Spring Migration Bird Count Event, 7 May 2022
Cortes Island Spring Count – A Success! The weather on May 7 was very favourable for the approximately 20 birders that partook in the Cortes Island’s Spring Migration Birding Event organized by the Cortes Island Museum. A total of 14 lists with species names were collected and just over 90 species tallied. It is an […]
Christmas Bird Count 2021/2022
Christmas Bird Count 2021/2022 – by George Sirk Sunday, 5 January 2022, was a wonderfully brisk birding day for the 29 participants of the Cortes Island Museum’s Annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC). Probably the coldest weather in the twenty years that the Museum has been sponsoring the count. The daytime temperature dipped to minus […]
Wrapping Up “From the Archives”
— Valerie Wernet, Cortes Island Museum The summer season is coming to a close, and the archives team at the Cortes Island Museum is wrapping up our summer photo-sharing campaign, “From the Archives.” The course of the summer brought twelve weeks of hand-selected photos, each with a unique theme, and it was a great […]
Lilies – Living History – The Heritage Garden at the Cortes Island Museum
LILIES IN THE HERITAGE GARDEN Lilies provide fragrance and colour in early summer and bloom at the same time as roses and lavender. Regale lilies Lilium regale have been in western gardens since the early 1900s, and this beautiful trumpet lily is famous, fragrant and long-lasting. Aurelian trumpet lilies Lilium aurelianense were developed in the […]
Judith Williams’s Book Launch
The Cortes Museum and Archives Society presented Cortes Island’s author Judith Williams (in Mansons Hall on Sunday, June 9, 2019) for a book launch and slide show based on her new book, Raincoast Chronicles 24: Cougar Companions, Bute Inlet Country and the Legendary Schnarrs, which examines the history of Bute Inlet and traces the remarkable story of the […]
Hoping to Curry Favour!
This young raven had a rough day. I found him late this afternoon while gathering eggs during a lull in the rainstorm. He may have been hung up for as long as five hours. The chickens didn’t seem overly alarmed and luckily for the raven, the farmer was not overly alarmed! With Donna’s help using […]
Calendar 2005
Cortes Island at Work and Play It was an engaging start to the Museum’s fall season as Richard Trueman presented a three-day (September 21, 22, 23) exhibition of photographs he took for the 2005 calendar, Cortes Island at Work and Play. On the final day, patrons were entertained by Annica de Trey and George Sirk […]
A Zero Tide
Friday the 13th was special for more than its usual notoriety. Just after noon, we had a zero tide. This is a relatively rare event, often not happening for a number of years. The “zero tide” refers to the tide height. Typically for this area “a low tide” is measured in the range of 2 […]
HUGE THANKS to George Sirk
HUGE THANKS to George Sirk for so ably entertaining those attending the Cortes Museum’s AGM on March 18th. George, with some help from wife Kim, regaled guests with hilarious tales of travels, animals, birds, volcanoes, flowers and jungles in Costa Rica. In his inimitable way, George transported everyone to this lush land with his amazing photos. […]
2017 Christmas Bird Count
On a very rainy Sunday, December 17, 2017, thirty-five bird enthusiasts attended the CBC – Christmas Bird Count Day, sponsored by the Cortes Island Museum, Audubon Society and Bird Studies Canada. In the heavy at times and continuous rain, with water covered eye glasses, binoculars and cameras, it was difficult to spot and recognize birds. […]
Erratics – by Christian Gronau
A Brief Survey of Cortes Island Beach Rocks DEFINITION: erratic (er-rat’-ic) n. A rock fragment carried by glacial ice, or by floating ice, deposited at some distance from the outcrop from which it was derived, and generally though not necessarily resting on bedrock of different lithology. Size ranges from a pebble to a house-size block. Bates […]
