This fonds contains textual records, photographs and other archival material relating to the history and functions of the Cortes Island Museum & Archives Society. It includes material created for exhibits and research on Cortes social and natural history.
This fonds contains textual records, photographs and other archival material relating to the history and functions of the Cortes Island Museum & Archives Society. It includes material created for exhibits and research on Cortes social and natural history.
Karl Triller (September 30, 1928 - February 27, 2022) was born in Hungary and immigrated to Canada as a young man in the early 1950s. He worked in northern Ontario for a couple of years before moving to BC, where he worked as a baker and cook in forestry camps.
He married Elizabeth Wolf in 1956 and they had four children: Margaret in 1956, Rudy in 1958,Terry in 1960 and Fred in 1962. Around 1964 they settled in Courtenay,and Karl worked for Safeway for the next 16 years. Karl and Elizabeth divorced in the late 1970s.
Karl took early retirement at the age of 52 and moved to Cortes Island. He had always loved castles, and the granite rock of his property on Manzanita Road was the perfect place to build one. He designed, built and furnished a five-story, eight-bedroom German medieval-style castle of cement blocks over the course of 12 years. The castle featured eight bedrooms, a large dining hall, and a dungeon in the basement. The castle opened for business in the early 1990s, serving as a bed-and-breakfast and a venue for banquets and parties.
Karl took an active part in community life, and was crowned King of Cortes in Dec 2000. His duties included leading the Cortes Island Day parade and presiding at community Christmas dinners.
Fonds contains six oversize photograph albums, CDs, administrative documents, ephemera, newsletters, yearbooks, and articles created by Linnaea School. It is arranged in eight series: Administrative records; Creative projects; Linnaea Learner; Yearbooks; Publicity materials; School photo descriptions; Linnaea School photograph albums; and CDs. Electronic records include an overview of Linnaea; Linnaea philosophy and curriculum, and class and attendance lists.
Linnaea School was a small independent school located on Linnaea Farm, a land trust with 315 acres of forests, fields, organic gardens and lake-front which is governed by The Linnaea Farm Society, a registered non-profit. Linnaea School offered its holistic, community-based approach to education for 23 years, from 1987 until its closing in 2010.
The school was founded by Donna Bracewell in 1987. It expanded from a first-year enrollment of eleven students to take in close to half of the island's school-age children. Linnaea offered a program of creative, nature-based, alternative learning for Kindergarten to Grade 6. Strong academics were enhanced by farm classes, environmental and outdoor education, mentorship programmes, music classes and service projects. A notable project was the annual spring musical play. Bracewell left in June, 2009 to take a teaching position in Vietnam and the school closed a year later.
Custodial History
Records were donated to CIMAS on 22 October 2014 by a representative of Linnaea Education Centre/Linnaea Farm Society. An accrual of electronic records was donated by Donna Bracewell in 2019. A sticky note attached to the CD file box said they were brought to the Museum in 2017 by Miensje Vlaming.
Scope and Content
Fonds contains six oversize photograph albums, CDs, administrative documents, ephemera, newsletters, yearbooks, and articles created by Linnaea School. It is arranged in eight series: Administrative records; Creative projects; Linnaea Learner; Yearbooks; Publicity materials; School photo descriptions; Linnaea School photograph albums; and CDs. Electronic records include an overview of Linnaea; Linnaea philosophy and curriculum, and class and attendance lists.