Author Archives: Andrew Findlay

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About Andrew Findlay

Vancouver Island Since buckling into the back seat of a Ford Meteor for summer road trips with the family clan, journalist Andrew Findlay’s restless spirit has found room to roam in Canada and abroad pursuing stories of adventure, business, ecology, travel and whatever else piques the Vancouver Island-based Findlay's curiosity. Amongst his extensive catalog of adventures and misadventures, Findlay has played shinny with monks in Ladakh, spent a frigid night on the northwest ridge of Mount Sir Donald in the midst of a fierce lightning storm, played hide-and-seek with fictional banditos in Bolivia's Cordillera Real, sailed in search of elusive marine wolves along B.C.'s wild central coast and sifted for the soul of a skiing nation in Slovenia.

Saving the Island’s Courtenay Estuary Through Informed Recreation

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A call to action for the Comox Valley’s Courtenay River estuary

by Andrew Findlay

The Courtenay River estuary is an ecosystem under siege – hence the formation of  the Estuary Working Group back in 2008 to bring together environmental groups, individuals and government to safeguard this biologically diverse heart of the Comox Valley.

Estuaries form where rivers greet the sea, forming a rich interface of fresh and saltwater that teems with life. These biologically diverse bodies of water are also where humans generally settle, because they are where nature tends to be at its most generous, and the waters of the Courtenay River estuary are no exception. Five species of salmon, blue herons, bald eagles, loons and trumpeter swans, as well as many more migrating waterfowl and shorebirds, frequent the estuary itself, while on its fringes, incoming freshwater braids into numerous channels that thread through tufts of pondweed, Widgeon grass, Lyngby’s sedge and cattails.

And when the tide is out, the sprawling mud flats of the estuary are revealed, along with evidence of a remarkable, extensive pre-historic First Nations fishery, supported by a vast system  of cedar-staked fish weirs in chevron, spiral and other patterns. Some of these stakes date back more than 500 years, a testament to the important role the estuary has played in sustaining life in the region. Ingenuous in their simplicity, these fish weirs worked in a way that allowed First Nation fishers to collect as much fish and other seafood as was needed without the rapacious practices expensive fossil fuel-powered fishing fleets, which are the hallmarks of modern commercial fishing. In this way, the estuary and the  peoples who lived off its abundance for generations hold valuable lessons about sustainability.

Today, the estuary is also the watery link between the municipalities of Comox and Courtenay, two rapidly growing communities that are putting increasing development pressure on this vital ecosystem. However, the environmental degradation of the Courtenay River estuary is not a new problem. For many decades the Courtenay River has been dredged upstream to allow for the passage of tugboats, log booms and barges, destroying vital salmon habitat in the process. And more than 20 years ago, municipal governments authorized the construction of a Superstore on prime agricultural land upstream of the estuary, opening the door to intensive big-box and strip-mall development on adjacent properties. Invasive species such as Himalayan blackberry and purple loosestrife have also altered and damaged the natural plant communities associated with the estuary. And shellfish harvesting in Comox Harbour is permanently closed because of contaminants such as fecal coliform. Most recently, a fierce battle has been fought over a proposed gas station on Dyke Road, which runs next to the estuary between Courtenay and Comox.

In many ways, it is argued that the estuary defines the Comox Valley both topographically and spiritually, making it easier, perhaps, to take this ecological treasure for granted. It’s just there:  we see it, we drive by it, we boat on it. And this is why the Estuary Working Group is encouraging Comox Valley residents as well as visitors to get reacquainted with the estuary through non-motorized recreation, whether by foot, paddle, bicycle or sail. Putting on our walking shoes and rollerblades, or saddling up a bike on the paved trails of the Courtenay Air Park, for example, provides an unparalleled shoreline view of the estuary, while paddling it by  sea kayak imparts a last sense of the power and beauty of this natural system, as one experiences close up the freshwater of the Courtenay River mixing with the sea in Comox Harbour. Harnessing the energy of the wind in a sailboat enables the adventurous to venture further, out into the bay, for an even greater perspective on the scale of the estuary and the interconnectivity between terrestrial and marine ecosystems in the valley. The message is: only by getting out to smell, feel and experience nature can we appreciate it, and this is key to a healthy future for the Courtenay River Estuary.

>>For more about the Estuary Working Group and its Courtenay River Estuary efforts, click here.

Lead photo courtesy Andrew Findlay.

Cortes Island Daytripper: Shuck It Up

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FOOD & WINE

Cortes Island’s annual slurp fest is the perfect venue for oyster newbies to display their raw courage

by Andrew Findlay

Plump, dark clouds obscure the Coast Mountain summits that brood over the misty reaches of TobaInlet, B.C. Here on the eastern shores of Cortes Island, the Pacific has rolled out to reveal the broad, rocky tidal flats of Squirrel Cove. Now the air has a thick, briny aroma, as though someone has pried open an oyster shell and placed its slippery contents beneath my nostrils. To breathe in is to inhale the enduring mysteries of the ocean, fecund and remotely unsettling.

The enigmatic mollusk, which comes gift-wrapped in a fable of almost mythological sex appeal, is almost a religion on Cortes, albeit of the pagan variety. When the faithful are summoned to celebrate its charms at the annual OysterFest, they descend on the pebbled beach of Squirrel Cove in droves. 

When the faithful are summoned to celebrate its charms at the annual OysterFest, they descend on the pebbled beach of Squirrel Cove in droves. This May long weekend, even the threat of a spring squall has not deterred the congregation from gathering. They’re here to slurp raw oysters, sample a few from the barbecue, launch homemade bottle rockets over the beach with the kids, listen to music and salute a noble bivalve that is the livelihood of roughly 75 Cortes islanders. “I’m just a real happy camper right now,” says one of their number, Brent Petkau, as he surveys the boisterous crowd blissfully slurping the ocean’s bounty. Members of the volunteer fire department have joined young parents with dreadlocked hair and hemp clothing. Savoury aromas, slightly smoky, waft heavenward on the sea breeze. The fruit de mer’s appeal knows no bounds: Doctors, farmers, fishermen, loggers, lawyers and realtors alike line up at the oyster bar sheltered beneath a giant white awning, where volunteers man the controls of a half-dozen barbecues.

I wander over to where Kathy McLaggan is taking bids in a friendly mollusk competition to guess the weight of one particularly prodigious specimen. “This is a chance for all of us farmers to get together and feel good about what we do,” explains McLaggan, who has been harvesting oysters in the waters around Cortes for the past 18 years. “It’s also a chance for us to give something back to the community, by raising some money for the volunteer fire department.”

I take my chances and estimate the prize bivalve’s weight at 2 1/4 kilograms, while in the background a solo guitarist plucking on the nearby stage warbles a slightly off-key cover of Neil Young’s “Old Man.” I stuff my entry into the jar, and McLaggan winks, wishing me luck. Moments later, I’m jostling through the crowd in search of Marcel Creurer (pictured), a barrel-chested mountain of a man with a deep baritone voice and strikingly bushy white beard. I find him chatting with a couple of oyster neophytes at an interpretive display on shellfish aquaculture near the old wood-sided Squirrel Cove Store. Creurer hails from Saskatchewan, a province known more for its prairie oysters than the oceanic kind, but has farmed off Cortes since the mid 1990s. He is also master of ceremonies for this year’s gastronomic hoedown. It’s a tradition revived in 2003 after an earlier incarnation fizzled in the ’90s. But despite the characteristically laid-back island nature of the proceedings, Creurer tells me, there is a political subtext.

Only 13 kilometres wide and 25 long, with barely 900 full-time residents, Cortes is dappled with  white-sand beaches, secluded coves and forest-shrouded lagoons, and has the relaxed ambience of a place whose inhabitants derive their living from the land and sea. 

Recently, the oyster-farming community waged a low-intensity public relations war with “newcomers” – those who had only just discovered what others have long cherished about this sliver of an island in the Discovery Islands archipelago. Only 13 kilometres wide and 25 long, with barely 900 full-time residents, Cortes is dappled with  white-sand beaches, secluded coves and forest-shrouded lagoons, and has the relaxed ambience of a place whose inhabitants derive their living from the land and sea. But the sound of generators and the bustle of boats coming and going as oyster farmers tended their leases was ruining some residents’ sense of island idyll. And for a time, the battle had all the hallmarks of the classic island dichotomy: money versus tradition, newcomers versus old-timers; millionaires mixed in with artists, loggers, fishermen, aging Vietnam draft dodgers and, yes, oyster farmers. “They didn’t want us spoiling their view and making noise,” Creurer says with a shrug. “But today there is a lot less tension. A lot of people worked hard to mend fences.”

On the surface, oyster farming is a lonely, introspective and physically demanding way to make a buck, but one with an undeniably romantic appeal. It is an occupation governed not by nine-to-five drudgery but by the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tides. If low tide falls at 3 a.m. in the depths of a West Coast winter, then that’s when the oyster farmer dons his rubbers, rain slicker and headlamp to work the beach lease. It’s also the kind of work that engenders strong fellowship among practitioners, which makes happenings like today’s festival possible. Then again, we are talking about oysters ¬– that seafood of legendary aphrodisiacal fame that sends poets into rapture and propels chefs to new echelons of kitchen creativity.

For it’s part, the oyster is a shamelessly sedentary yet promiscuous little creature. All we humans need do is provide a clean ocean environment and this bivalve thrives. A young oyster will attach itself to one spot for its entire life and, once rooted, proceed to gorge on plankton. The hermaphroditic-looking bivalve then sends sperm and eggs adrift upon the ocean currents by the millions. Eventually an oyster egg becomes fertilized and a larva settles out of the water column and crawls along the ocean floor in search of a suitable place to drop anchor – preferably on a rock, but perhaps on another oyster shell or even burrowed into the mud or sand.

At this point, the initiate will either recoil in terror or prepare to embark on what feels like some kind of forbidden gastronomic adventure. As Mark Kurlansky, author of The Big Oyster, notes, oysters are one of the only foods routinely eaten not only raw but while still alive

There it will sit, eating, procreating and eating some more until, perhaps, we eat it, though the oyster doesn’t go easily. The adductor muscle that holds the two halves of its shell together exerts a whopping 9,900 kilograms of pressure. But when we do manage to pry open its home, and stand eye-to-eye with the raw oyster propped inside on its platter of calcium carbonate, we have time to ponder the bivalve’s imminent passage into our digestive tract. At this point, the initiate will either recoil in terror or prepare to embark on what feels like some kind of forbidden gastronomic adventure. As Mark Kurlansky, author of The Big Oyster, notes, oysters are one of the only foods routinely eaten not only raw but while still alive.

“If the oyster is opened carefully, the diner is eating an animal with a working brain, a stomach, intestines, liver, and a still beating heart. As for the ‘liquor,’ that watery essence of oyster flavour that all good food writers caution to save, it is mostly oyster blood,” Kurlansky states bluntly.

With such thoughts in mind, I amble over to a stall to sample my inaugural – fresh and raw – Cortes Island oyster. To this Kamloops kid, albeit one who relocated to the coast 10 years ago, oysters, particularly raw ones, seem as foreign as coconuts to the Inuit. So I approach the oyster altar tentatively and, without overcontemplating the slime factor, slurp back a loonie-sized specimen. It’s mild, accompanied by nothing but a tart squeeze of lime that almost brings tears to the eye. I sample another, then one more, and soon a trickle of brine dribbles down my chin. I am consuming the sea, a messy act of communion with the hundreds gathered around me.

Petkau, who no doubt has already ingested his fair share of oysters today, appears at my elbow. Born in Manitoba, he has the hale, ruddy complexion of someone who spends much time in fresh air. He planted trees for years in the woods of B.C., lived in Nelson while working as a forest technician and then, a decade ago, bought an oyster lease before moving with his family to Cortes Island. Petkau oysters now find their way into high-end restaurants from Vancouver to Toronto. While as a guest oyster shucker, Petkau has cavorted in the kitchens of iconoclast chef Michael Stadtländer and, as a lay philosopher, waxed poetic on the cultural significance of this divine shellfish on CBC Radio. But it’s events like today’s festival that put a big smile on the bearded mugs of Petkau and Creurer.

“There’s nothing like an oyster – they’re the ultimate fast food. We don’t have to feed them, we don’t use chemicals of any sort, it’s all natural,” says Petkau, as giant raindrops begin to patter on the big tent. “Though honestly, this food is all about sex appeal.”

party on the half-shell

  • The Cortes Island OysterFest, held every May long weekend, features a day of oyster feasting followed by a dance at the island’s Gorge Community Hall.

An estimated 500 gourmands attended 2007’s Cortes OysterFest, with volunteers serving up 330 dozen oysters, 60 kilograms of clams and 77 litres of seafood chowder.

Folks working the oyster bar tantalized the tastebuds with such delicacies as the angel on horseback (oysters marinated in white wine, wrapped in bacon and broiled), the Mexican-style

barbecued oyster and the ever-popular oyster burger. cortesislandbc.com

What the Shell? A few oyster facts
• Oysters are a nutritionally balanced food, containing protein, carbohydrates and fats.
• The oyster most common to our B.C. plates: the Pacific (Crassostrea gigas). The Japanese native was introduced on the B.C. coast in 1912 and has been a remarkably successful pioneer ever since.
• In 2006 alone, 7,500 tonnes of oysters were harvested in B.C., with a wholesale value of close to $18 million.

Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley: A Mountain Biker’s Dream

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ACTIVE LIVING

I’m not a religious person, but I go to church – sporting a helmet, shin pads and goggles

by Andrew Findlay

Whenever I get bogged down with a piece of writing and tire of the computer screen, I hop on a mountain bike and pedal out my backyard to the Puntledge River and the head of a trail called Twisted Sister. This is my church. Instead of a preacher, pulpit and pews, there is the rush of the river, the throaty squawk of a raven echoing through hemlocks and red cedars festooned in wolf lichen and old man’s beard, and a ribbon of dirt winding through the forest. I know each log, rock and bridge intimately because I attend mass frequently.

A few years ago I adopted this trail, which had fallen into disuse since being scratched out of the forest by someone else. I cleared deadfall, carved out switchbacks where needed, raised bridges over small tributary creeks and built new sections of trail. I enjoyed being in the woods alone, doing something physical with my hands. In the years since, Twisted Sister has also been adopted by the “River Rats,” a group of Comox Valley retirees who happen to be biking fanatics who love building trail. They do a beautiful job of it, and Twisted Sister is an obvious beneficiary of their skills.

That’s one of the things I love about riding a mountain bike, beyond the buzz and adrenalin – the anarchic nature of the community that grows up around the sport. 

That’s one of the things I love about riding a mountain bike, beyond the buzz and adrenalin – the anarchic nature of the community that grows up around the sport. When mountain bikers want a new trail, they gather friends, some tools and head out to build one. They generally don’t ask permission, because doing so invites discussions about liability and legality. (I’m not advocating disrespect for the land or private property rights, here, just simply acknowledging that, for better or worse, volunteers building renegade trails is traditionally how communities develop a mountain biking scene.) Which is why Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley is now such a riding destination – along with Cumberland’s extensive network of trails splayed across the Cumberland Community Forest, a 60-hectare chunk of land purchased through donations and dogged fundraising efforts back in 2005, and the Island’s Forbidden Plateau and Comox Lake’s labyrinth of technical single track.

Several years ago, the B.C. government finally woke up to the fact that the province is riddled with a treasure-trove of world class mountain bike trails; albeit most of them illegitimate, making it difficult to market them as a tourism product. Surprisingly, countries such as the United Kingdom are paving the way when it comes to promoting off-road riding. The forestry commission of Great Britain, for example, has already established the “7 stanes” in southern Scotland, a series of mountain bike parks serviced by trailhead shops and cafes. But the good news for riders here is that B.C. has taken note of these efforts and is following suit with its Provincial Trails Strategy, an effort by B.C.’s tourism, culture and arts ministry to develop protocols around new trail development and legitimize existing ones. And to this end, pilot projects are now underway in a number of B.C. communities, including Williams Lake, Squamish and Nelson.

Of course, as with most things involving government, the Provincial Trails Strategy is bureaucratic and a kind of anathema to the anarchic spirit of the sport. But it’s also a progressive attempt to better harness the tourism potential of mountain biking.

Of course, as with most things involving government, the Provincial Trails Strategy is bureaucratic and a kind of anathema to the anarchic spirit of the sport. But it’s also a progressive attempt to better harness the tourism potential of mountain biking, and similar initiatives will likely follow suit. In concert with the Trails Strategy, for example, the Vancouver-based Western Canada Mountain Bike Tourism Associations is launching a provincial marketing strategy designed to help B.C. become “the next big thing in mountain bike tourism.” Meanwhile, renegade trailsmiths will continue their work, in their quiet unassuming way, building trails such as “Twisted Sister” and the foundation of the sport in B.C.

Vancouver Island’s Mount Cain: The Soul of Skiing

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If you could dream up the perfect ski hill, what would it look like?

by Andrew Findlay

Somewhere in the primordial recesses of a skier’s mind is the memory of a ramshackle operation where the lifts barely limp from one day to the next. There are no double de-caf lattes whipped up by young baristas with Australian accents; instead, hearty bowls of chile con carne are served by a swarthy woman in a white apron who looks like she fells old-growth Douglas firs in her spare time. In other words: this place hasn’t been branded into some generic, four-season destination of over-inflated real estate with slick high-speed lifts whisking skiers to the top of runs as manicured as pressed corduroy slacks. And believe it or not, it exists.

Whenever I need to ground myself with the soul of skiing, I head north 120 km Campbell River to Mount Cain – tucked into the rugged folds of Vancouver Island. Run by a non-profit society, Cain has a total complement of one glove-shredding rope tow and two T-bars. And it’s here at 10 a.m. one morning this week that I stand with my cohorts: Guy, a pilot, and Jan, a local mountain guide, at the “golf clubs ” – a knob of rock that’s a short bootpack above the top T-bar. Snow ghost trees are laden with fresh snow. Below us, the west bowl is a tantalizing sight, unblemished by a single track. Soon familiar faces join us: Tod, Song and a few other bushy-bearded folks with duct tape holding their gloves together, skiing enthusiasts I meet only when I go to Cain.  One by one we drop into a narrow chute funneling into the bowl. Calf-deep snow curls from ski tips, frosting our faces. And together we relish in the shared euphoria of a ski hill that is too far from anywhere to be of interest to real estate speculators. This is where the soul of skiing still dwells.