Basil (1910-2012) and Jill Seaton, environmentalists and naturalists, lived on Cortes Island from 1982 to 1992.
Elton Anderson (1908 -1975) was a naturalist and conservationist. He was born in Victoria and lived for some years on Cortes Island. A former logger, Anderson became a leader in conservation work in BC. He served as president of the Federation of BC Naturalists, was an honorary life member of the Vancouver Natural History Society and the Victoria Natural History Society, and a member of the Canadian Nature Federation.
Michael Manson started a trading post at Manson's Spit in the 1880s. In 1910, the "Lodge" was built to house the Mike Manson family. Many people - students and loggers - flowed through the building. In 1921 Hazel Manson and her husband Henry Herrewig moved into the Lodge, later turning part of it into a small store. Mr. and Mrs. Jacks rented the Lodge in 1940 and constructed the front half of a new building which became the Manson's Landing store. The Lodge, store and property was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Lowe and their in-laws, Ev and Jack Summers. Many improvements were made including living quarters in the store, cabins for rent along the beach and a coffee shop where Mrs. Summers sold her famous pies. Jim Taylor owned the property in the 1960s and it was sold to the government after his death. In 1974 the government designated the 117 acres at Manson's Landing a provincial park. The store continued to operate until 1995, but the Lodge and other buildings were dismantled soon after.
Ken Slater (1905-1970) was a long-time resident of Cortes Island, a commercial fisherman and boat builder who was also an accomplished carver and cartoonist. His boatworks was located on the site now occupied by the Whaletown Post Office. Ken built the "Sylva Jane", launched in 1946, for Reg and Sylvia Walsh. He also built a model of the ship, which is in the collection of the Cortes Museum. Ken moved to Cortes Bay in 1962. His cartoons, artwork and wood carvings were displayed and sold at many island affairs.
Mary-Anne Forman is the daughter of Daniel Erskine McIvor (1911-2005). Her family has a summer cottage on Hague Lake on Cortes Island and has spent summers on the island since the 1950s. Dan McIvor and his wife Isobel are buried in the Manson's Landing Cemetery, which also holds a memorial bench for Eric Collins.
Dan McIvor joined the R.C.A.F. in 1941. After his discharge in 1945, he and his family moved to British Columbia where he flew the B.C. coast as one of the legendary "Bush Pilots." In the 1960s he found and arranged the purchase of four Martin Mars flying boats - the only ones of their kind in the world. Dan had always believed that the safest and most effective way to fight forest fires was from the air. His innovative ideas resulted in the conversion of the Martin Mars to the first modern water bomber.
Sedley Bell-Irving Sweeny (November 29, 1917 - December 19, 2013) was born in England. He graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada with a commission in the Royal Engineers and went on to serve in World War II with the 8th Army from El Alamein onwards, then in Sicily, Italy and Greece; he was awarded Military Cross for valour at the Garigliano River crossing in Jan.'44.
He married Diana Game in 1941 and they had three daughters: Nicola, Terry and Robin. He retired from the army in 1957, bought a farm in Wales, and for the next thirty years devoted his energies to sustainable land management, self sufficiency and, increasingly, the welfare of marginalized people. With Diana, he managed an orphanage for Tibetan refugee children in Simla, India, on behalf of Save the Children Fund, subsequently founding The Society for Training in Rural Industries and Village Enterprises, through which he provided instruction and practical experience for Tibetan family groups on his farm.
Sedley returned to BC in 1985, divorced and single again. At age 71 he rowed to Cortes from Vancouver, where he met and married his second wife, Trude Albright, in 1989. Sedley was a Self Sufficiency advocate promoting a Cortes wide vision of cooperation and skill sharing. He and Trude were involved in many Cortes community initiatives including an emergency first aid and ambulance service; the Friends of Cortes Association; the Cortes Ecoforestry Society; the Cortes Earmark Book of islander skills; and The Cooperation For Cortes Self Sufficiency. Many of the associated activities happened at Trude's Café. A skilled boat-builder, he converted a fishing boat into a junk-rigged yacht, and he also instructed Cortes youth in boat-building and sailing.
Sedley died at home at the age of 96 and is buried in the Whaletown cemetery.
Marguerite (Peggy) Flora Pyner (1914-2009) grew up in a family of seven children on Valdes Island. In 1945, she and her husband Jim Pyner bought 62 hectares on Cortes Island (now Hollyhock Retreat Center) for $2,500, where they logged and farmed. Their children Nancy (Anderson) and Barb (Warman) were born in 1946 and 1949. She wrote a weekly column, "The Manson's Landing Mirror" for the Campbell River Courier.
Peggy Newsham (1907-1999) was born in Belfast, Ireland. At the age of 16, she emigrated to Vancouver, Canada. In 1937, Peggy met Doll (Jeffery) Hansen and together they traveled on the Union Steamship to Cortes Island. She worked for Alice Robertson at Burnside in Whaletown, helping with the gardening, livestock and household chores. Peggy moved to Manson's Landing in the late 1960s, where she was active in the Community Club and took part in many social activities. She was crowned "Queen of Cortes" by acclamation at Cortes Day in 1979. There is a memorial to Peggy in the garden of the Cortes Island Museum.
Doreen (Huck) Thompson, 1944-2006:
Doreen’s grandparents, William Edward Huck and Mabel Wells Huck, arrived on Cortes Island in 1915. Widowed in WWI, Mabel and her four children left Cortes for Vancouver in 1923. Her son Harry, Doreen’s father, returned to Cortes in the 1930s. He married Edith Launchbury in 1937 and they had two children, Doreen (b.1944) and Ed (b.1945, d.1993). Doreen and Ed were raised in Whaletown and attended school there and at Manson’s.
Doreen graduated from Vic High in Victoria before marrying Bob Thompson in 1962. From 1961 to 1963, Doreen lived in Teakerne Arm in a floathouse Bob had built on the shore of the Whaletown Lagoon and then moved to the shores of Heriot Bay on Quadra Island. Her children were born in 1964 (Janny) and 1965 (Debby). In 1970 the family and the house moved to Cortes Island where both daughters attended school to Grade 10.
Doreen spent a few years living in Alberta and Victoria in the early 1980s and then returned to Cortes Island. Doreen developed a deep knowledge of the history of the island and she devoted considerable time to preserving, gathering and sharing her own and others knowledge of the island through her volunteer work at the Cortes Island Museum and Archives.
Doreen was one of the founders of the Cortes Island Museum. She curated four exhibits at the Museum, including “Windows on Whaletown” in 1999, “Von Donop Inlet”, the commercial fishing portion of “Celebrating Wild Salmon”, and “Memories of Manson’s Landing”. She researched and created albums which combine photographs, reminiscences and clippings to document the history of various island areas, such as Green Valley and Whaletown. The Doreen Thompson Exhibit Gallery at the Museum commemorates her contributions.
Doreen was making a fourth cross-Canada road trip from Cortes to Newfoundland when she was killed in a car accident near Fort McLeod, Alberta on August 1, 2006.
Frederick (Fred) Hawkins (1866-1952) and his wife Doris (1906-1959) settled in Manson's Landing in 1908. The Hawkins family lived across from the entrance to Manson's Lagoon at the Spit in a house originally built by Horace Heay (at the end of Taka Mika Rd). Fred lived there until his death in 1952; he is buried in the cemetery in Manson's Landing. Doris died in Powell River in 1959.
George Hawkins, son of Fred and Doris Hawkins, was born in 1928. He had two brothers, Bill and Bob. George and Bob Hawkins both moved to Powell River, in 1947 and 1955 respectively; Bill was killed in a logging accident in 1972.
Eleanor (Christensen) Milne is a third generation Cortes Islander. Her parents are Mabel (Lowe) and Buster Christensen; her grandparents are Henry and Lydia (Heay) Hague. The Christensen/Hague/Milne family homes are in the Manson's Lagoon area.
James (Jimmy) George Layton (1897-1990) was born in Camberwell, England. He fought in World War I, was severely wounded when he flung himself on a grenade which had landed in his foxhole, and received a medal for his bravery. In 1920, Layton emigrated to Canada, where he found work in coastal logging camps. Other members of the family, including his parents and seven of his ten siblings, also moved to Canada. At the time of his father's death in 1939, Layton, his parents and three of his brothers were living on Thurlow Island. In the 1940s he moved to the head of Von Donop Inlet on Cortes Island. His float house was drawn up on the beach next to a little islet that was joined to the shore at high tide, where he cultivated a garden and orchard. Layton found work logging and caretaking for local camps active in Von Donop, and helping his brother on his oyster lease. He moved to Powell River in 1973, where he passed away at the age of 92.
Alethea and Frederick (Fred) James Brooks Sr. and their two sons, Frederick (Fred) Earl, Jr. and Bob, lived on Cortes Island from ca. 1941 to 1944, near Manson's Landing. Fred Sr. logged in Cortes Bay and employed two of the Hawkins boys, Bill and George.
Fred Jr. attended grades three to six at Cortes Island school before the family moved to Pender Harbour. Some of the names he recalls are: the Christiansen kids (Robert, Jim, and a sister), the Tibers on the west side of Cortes Island, and the Jefferys of Smelt Bay.
The Maclean family (parents Don and Doris, and children Janice, Heather and Ian) lived in Whaletown from 1961 to 1973. Don Maclean acted as a lay reader for the Columbia Coast Mission in the 1960s. Doris Maclean led the Vacation Bible School in the early 1950s, and was a Brownie leader in the 1960s.
Don Maclain's parents, John and Edna Maclean, lived for many years in Edmonton, Alberta. After their son came home from World War II, they bought property near Coulter Bay and moved to Cortes Island. Don Maclean became a fisherman, eventually living on his fishing boat.
Doris Lancaster Maclean was born and raised in Victoria, B.C. In the late 1940s she volunteered with the Anglican Church to run a Vacation Bible School for the Columbia Coast Mission on Cortes and nearby islands. Doris and Don married in 1954. They moved to Cortes Island in 1961 when Don was hired to operate the Columbia Coast Mission boat, the "Alan Greene", and lived in the Mission house in Whaletown, next to the church. Don Maclean acted as a Lay Reader for the Columbia Coast Mission in the 1960s when no clergymen were available, holding services in the three Anglican churches on the island.
In 1967 the Diocese sold the "Alan Greene". Don Maclean was hired as the Industrial First Aid man on site for the building of the Whaletown Ferry dock and after that worked as a clam digger. The Maclean family left Cortes in 1973 and moved to Regina, SK.
The Regional Director of Electoral Area I (Cortes Island) was the elected representative to the Regional District of Comox-Strathcona (RDCS), one of 28 regional districts in British Columbia. The RDCS covered an area of North Vancouver Island and surrounding islands which included the municipalities of Campbell River, Comox, Courtenay, Cumberland, Gold River, Sayward, Tahsis and Zeballos, and 10 rural Electoral Areas. Initially enabled by the Municipal Act of 1965, Regional Districts act as a regional government over issues affecting their entire region. In the absence of incorporated municipalities, they function as the "local" government for rural areas by providing planning and land use regulations, and facilitating the delivery of services such as garbage disposal, fire protection and house numbering. Cortes Island was designated Electoral Area I when the RDCS was formed in 1968, and was the smallest electoral area in both population and size. In 2008 the RDCS was split, and Cortes Island became Area B in the newly-formed Strathcona Regional District.
Cortes was represented on the RDCS by one Director, elected for a three year term, who appointed an Alternate Director and an Advisory Planning Commission (APC). From 1968 until 1984, the Cortes Island APC was formed by the elected executive of the Cortes Island Ratepayers Association. The first Director of Area I was George Griffin (1968-1973), followed by Gilean Douglas (1973-1978), Irv Reedel (1978-1981), David Hansen (1981-1984), Bruce Ellingsen (1984-1987), Linda Gagnon (1987-1990), Ralph Nursall (1990-1996), George Sirk (1996-2005) and Jeanette (Jenny) Hiebert (2005-2008).
Gilean Douglas (christened Gillian Joan Coldham Douglas) was born in Toronto, Ont. In 1900. Orphaned at the age of 16, she began to work as a free-lance writer and photographer. Over her lifetime her work appeared in more than 200 publications, often published under pseudonyms (Grant Madison, Armoral Kent and Jill MacLean). Douglas published eight books of poetry and three books of non-fiction, and, from 1961 to 1992, wrote a regular column, "Nature Rambles", for the Victoria Colonist (later Times-Colonist). In 1939, following the collapse of her third marriage, Douglas moved from Ontario to an isolated cabin in the mountains near Hope, B.C. Her first two books of nature writing (one published under the name Grant Madison) document her life there. Her cabin was destroyed by fire in 1947 and two years later she moved to a 138-acre waterfront homestead on Cortes Island with her fourth husband, Philip Douglas, (ne Major). Her marriage ended in 1953 but she remained there until her death in 1993. Her home, Channel Rock, had no road access and no electricity. Douglas had a large garden and supplemented her writing income by selling produce and plants. Douglas took a leading role in community affairs and local politics. She held office in several community organizations and acted as a school trustee. As a member of the Women's Institute, she held local, district, provincial and national office, edited a book on its history, and was awarded a Life Membership in 1989. Douglas was a member of the first Cortes Island Advisory Planning Commission and represented Cortes on the Regional Board of Comox-Strathcona as Alternate Director from 1968 to 1973 and as Director from 1973 until 1977. List of Book Publications: 1952, Now the Green Word (Wings Press, Mill Valley, Ca.); 1953, Poetic Plush (The Story Book Press, Dallas, Texas); 1953, River For My Sidewalk by "Grant Madison"; J. M. Dent & Sons, Toronto, Ont.); 1954, The Pattern Set (Quality Press, Montreal, Quebec); 1959, Modern Pioneers (a history of the Women's Institute, ed. by Douglas; Evergreen Press); 1967, Seascape With Figures (Prairie Press, Iowa City, Iowa); 1973, Now In This Night (Harlo Press, Detroit, Mi.); 1978, Silence Is My Homeland (Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, Pa.); 1979, The Protected Place (Grays Publishing, Sidney, B.C.); 1982, Prodigal (Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, B.C.); 1984, River For My Sidewalk (by Gilean Douglas; Sono Nis Press); 1985, Kodachromes at Midday (Sono Nis Press); 1992, Seascape With Figures - Poems Selected and New (Sono Nis Press).
The Cortes Island Ratepayers Association (CIRA) was an association of property owners and residents formed in 1963 in order to "further the development of the island and to have a representative body in dealing with the Provincial government." It successfully lobbied for the provision of electrical and ferry service to the island and became a forum for the discussion of other issues such as roads, fire protection, garbage disposal, water quality, rural mail delivery and library services. From the time that Cortes Island was designated Electoral Area I of the Comox-Strathcona Regional District in 1968, the Advisory Planning Commission (usually appointed by the Regional Director) was formed of the elected executive of CIRA. CIRA declared itself inactive in 1984 following a protracted court case it had pursued in defense of the Official Settlement Plan and zoning by-law.
Florence Manson McKay was born Jan. 21, 1900 to Michael and Jane Manson. Michael Manson was the first person to pre-empt land on Cortes Island, a quarter section on Gunflint Lake (present-day Linnaea Farm). Florence married Ervin McKay in 1918. They moved to Hernando Island in 1921 and Ervin worked with extended family members logging there and on Cortes Island. Florence and Ervin had two children: Etta (b. 1918) and Hazel (b. 1920). In 1929 the McKays took over Michael Manson's original pre-emption on Gunflint Lake, where they farmed until retiring in 1950. They moved to Courtenay, turning the farm over to daughter Hazel and her husband Ken Hansen. Florence was widowed in 1978 and returned to Cortes to live with Ken and Hazel, who had sold the farm but kept 16 acres to live on. Florence passed away in 1995.
Dorothy Mary Huck Whalley (June 30, 1904 - November 17, 1983) was the oldest of five children born to Mabel Wells Huck and William Edward Huck. Her siblings were Wilfred Harold (Harry), John Edward (Jack), Margaret Ethel and William Frances (Billie). Shortly after the Huck family arrived on Cortes in 1915 William E. Huck enlisted in the Army. He was killed in France in 1916, leaving Mabel with five children to bring up on her own. Her brother, Harold John (Jack) Wells was invalided home from World War I in 1917 and moved to Cortes, where he boarded with Mabel.
The Huck homestead, referred to as Hell's Half Acre or Billy Goat Hill, was in the NE 1/4 of Section 40, in Green Valley, the area around what is now known as Blue Jay Lake. Neighbours included the Barrett, Middleton, Tait and Tiber families. Dorothy was sent to Vancouver for schooling, and then returned to Cortes to attend the new Squirrel Cove school in 1916. In 1920 the Huck family moved to the Robertson property, Burnside, in Whaletown. Dorothy, having outgrown the local school system, went to Moose Jaw, Sk. where she finished high school and then attended a secretarial school run by her aunt and uncle. She married Joe Whalley and lived in Saskatchewan for many years before returning to live in Vancouver and White Rock. Dorothy died in White Rock on November 17, 1983.
May Ellingsen was born on March 13, 1914 to George and Robina Freeman. Her maternal grandfather, Michael Manson, was the first person to pre-empt land on Cortes Island, claiming a quarter section on Gunflint Lake in 1886. May spent her childhood on Hernando Island, where her family homesteaded and logged, and on Cortes Island, where she attended the log school at Manson's Landing.
In 1936 May married Elmer Ellingsen. They spent the next ten years in the Loughborough Inlet/Phillips Arm area while Elmer worked for his father's logging operations. During those years their children, Shirley, Bruce and Andy, were born. In 1946 the family moved to Von Donop Creek, where Elmer was logging. In 1950 they moved their float house, built at the time of their marriage, to Manson's Landing Lagoon and two years later, to its present permanent location on Hague Lake.
May and Elmer devoted much time and energy to building their community. Amongst her many community activities, May ran the library at Manson's Hall. She had a strong interest in local history, researching the history of land pre-emptions on the island, collecting and annotating photographs from pioneer families and recording interviews with old timers. She was a founder of the Cortes Island Museum and Archives Society; the archives reading room is named in her honor. Historical materials and artifacts gathered by May formed the kernel of the museum's collections and archives.