Fonds consists of photographs of the Gorge Harbour Lodge and Lodge activities, the Corneille and Ballantyne families, and Gladys Ballantyne's house, Gypsy Hill.
Bobby (Elizabeth) Corneille Ballantyne (1914-2009) was born in Vancouver and moved to Cortes Island as a young child. She was 4 years old when her father died suddenly on Marina Island in 1919; she remembers that they had to wait 3 days for a Union Steamship to get the body. Her mother Tena (Sarah Christena) Corneille (1877-1949) bought a tourist lodge at the east end of Gorge Harbour in 1929, and ran it until 1936 with the help of her two teen-age daughters. Gorge Harbour Lodge offered accommodations in the main building or in tents, tennis and badminton courts, and excellent boating, bathing and fishing. Vacationers came up from Vancouver on the Union Steamships for a round-trip ticket price of $6.65. The annual Regatta was the main social event of the season, with people arriving by boat from Cortes and the surrounding islands. It featured boat and swimming races, and a dance in the evening.
Gladys Georgeson Ballantyne (1882-1964), first came to Cortes in about 1910. In about 1920 she bought a property in Whaletown (now 640 Whaletown Rd.) that she called "Gypsy Hill". She was one of the original members of the Whaletown Friendly Circle, later the Whaletown Women's Institute. Gladys, her son Bill, daughter Valerie and her fiance were all on Cortes building a summer cottage when the Depression suddenly hit. Their off-island jobs fell through, and they remained at "Gypsy Hill" for the duration.
Bill Ballantyne (1908-1993) was in the Merchant Marine from 1924-1929. When he was unable to find work on ships during the Depression, he took whatever jobs he could find hand-logging and fishing. Bill and Bobby Corneille were married in 1937. They and other young Whaletown residents formed the Gorge Harbour Dramatic Society to help raise funds to build a community hall, and Bill was the work boss of the building crew for the Gorge Hall. In 1941 they moved to Victoria, and after the war settled in Courtenay with their two sons Peter and Ross. In the late 1950s they returned to Whaletown on Cortes Island where they fished for many years on the gulf troller “Viking”. During that time many young “deckhands” spent time aboard during summer vacations. On retirement, Campbell River became their home.
Custodial History
Electronic records were downloaded in 2012 from an internet address provided by Peter Ballantyne. One photograph was scanned from a photograph temporarily loaned by John and De Clarke.
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of photographs of the Gorge Harbour Lodge and Lodge activities, the Corneille and Ballantyne families, and Gladys Ballantyne's house, Gypsy Hill.
Fonds consists of sixteen photographs depicting people and scenes, primarily of the Manson's Landing area. Identification was provided by Fred Brooks Jr. in an interview with Cathy Jenks.
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.
Custodial History
Fred Brooks Jr. gave the photographs to Cathy Brooks of Pender Harbour Living Heritage Society, who facilitated the donation by collecting the photographs, donation form and information from Brooks and sending the materials to CIMAS.
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of sixteen photographs depicting people and scenes, primarily of the Manson's Landing area. Identification was provided by Fred Brooks Jr. in an interview with Cathy Jenks.
Pender Harbour Living Heritage holds related material from the Brooks family: https://penderharbourheritage.pastperfectonline.com/bysearchterm?keyword=Brooks+family
Fonds consists of ten photographs (nine black and white; 1 coloured) depicting members of the extended Byers/ Manson families, logging at Seaford and Von Donop Inlet, and the Union Steamship Chelohsin.
Henry and Ruth Byers, Ervin and Florence (Manson) McKay, Clarence and Etta (McKay) Byers, Ken and Hazel (McKay) Hansen, Scotty and Amy (Byers) McKenzie moved to Von Donop Inlet in 1939, where they ran a logging operation.
Custodial History
Found in Information Files folder (Byers family), August 1, 2020 and transferred to Archives.
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of ten photographs (nine black and white; 1 coloured) depicting members of the extended Byers/ Manson families, logging at Seaford and Von Donop Inlet, and the Union Steamship Chelohsin.
DVD of a short film directed and shot by George Sirk at the Cortes Recycling Center and footage shot by Sirk of a performance by the Cortes Theatre Group.
Copyright George Sirk; to be used for display and research purposes only.
Copied from George Sirk's VHS tapes with his permission to use the contents for display and research purposes.
Scope and Content
DVD of a short film directed and shot by George Sirk at the Cortes Recycling Center and footage shot by Sirk of a performance by the Cortes Theatre Group.
Copyright George Sirk; to be used for display and research purposes only.
Series consists of family trees of Cortes Island settler families, with notes on related people and events. These trees are intended to help identify links between families on Cortes. Sources include online databases (e.g. Family Search.org, Ancestry.com and Canada Archives), CIMAS Archives and Information files, interviews and correspondence with family members.
Families researched include: Aldrich; Barrett; Borden; Byers; Cafferata; Froud; Hawkins; Hayes, Ashford and Griffin; Heay; Manson; Marquette; Middleton; Nichols; Percival and Saunders; Petznick; Pickles; Smith; (Carr) Smith& Marflett; Tiber; Tooker; Valley.The family trees and notes are kept in a binder labelled "Cortes Family Trees Project", located above the public access computer in the May Ellingsen Archives Room. Files are not available online due to privacy concerns.
We acknowledge that these trees are of white settler families and reflect colonization of ancestral homelands and displacement of the Indigenous Peoples who have thrived here for generations. We would welcome the opportunity to add those families to our records.
Family trees were researched by Bernice McGowan (1387 Bodington Rd, Whaletown, BC) in 2022. The Manson family tree was provided to CIMAS by Greg Johnson (2837 West 6th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V6K 1X2; phone # 604 897 5925) in 2022.
Scope and Content
Series consists of family trees of Cortes Island settler families, with notes on related people and events. These trees are intended to help identify links between families on Cortes. Sources include online databases (e.g. Family Search.org, Ancestry.com and Canada Archives), CIMAS Archives and Information files, interviews and correspondence with family members.
Families researched include: Aldrich; Barrett; Borden; Byers; Cafferata; Froud; Hawkins; Hayes, Ashford and Griffin; Heay; Manson; Marquette; Middleton; Nichols; Percival and Saunders; Petznick; Pickles; Smith; (Carr) Smith& Marflett; Tiber; Tooker; Valley.The family trees and notes are kept in a binder labelled "Cortes Family Trees Project", located above the public access computer in the May Ellingsen Archives Room. Files are not available online due to privacy concerns.
We acknowledge that these trees are of white settler families and reflect colonization of ancestral homelands and displacement of the Indigenous Peoples who have thrived here for generations. We would welcome the opportunity to add those families to our records.
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