Envision the Cape – A community conversation

Envision the Cape

Can we create a more inclusive future at Cape Roger?

More below

Maybe we can't rewrite the first chapter,

But we can choose how the story continues

Envision the Cape

Can we create a more inclusive future at Cape Roger Curtis together?

Shelving the draft plan

Over many months we’ve been consulting islanders on their hopes & fears for the future at Cape Roger. We are united in wanting to see as little development there as possible, and to protect the coast and forests. No consensus emerged on how to achieve this.

This and the recent Ethelo survey indicate that not enough people support the draft plan to pursue it. We’ll share the report when it’s done. It can help us learn how we think as a community, and how to cultivate new ideas in a positive spirit.

Understanding the stress it would cause everyone if we applied for a rezoning, we’ll retire the draft plan and leave the current zoning in place.

My aspiration now is to find a way to preserve as much of the remaining coastline as possible. We’ll sketch out some ideas in future – and welcome help.

I want to thank everyone who participated in our surveys, meetings & walkabouts in these challenging times. I give special thanks to the Modus team and other dedicated professionals who did their best to find a viable alternative, to the owners for their support and flexibility, and to our advisory group of community members who weighed, in detail, the paradoxes we face as an island.

In service,

Candy Ho

Video: aerial footage of the section of southern coastline that would have become public parks, conservancies and a small eco-spiritual retreat. We are trying to find an eco-buyer or willing new investors to preserve as much of the remaining coast as possible.

The footage starts at the eastern end, travels over several lots that are still in the study area, and continues over the coast encompassed by the new conservancy being created by Bowen Island Conservancy and their generous donor.

Read the report describing the results of the Ethelo survey held in February 2021.

Play around with the Ethelo survey – results will not change but you can navigate the pages and try the controls.

A powerful, inspiring poem by Ben Weaver

The Earth is deeper than they are tall.

Two birds flew out from a cloud,

I looked up as they went overhead

feeling a tug between their bodies and mind

a triangle formed between us,

my heart the centre point.

Hope is a form of poverty,

a thief of the present moment

creating debt by nurturing dissatisfaction,

promising something or someone or sometime

other than this, us and now.

As the two birds

flew into the distance

the strings between our bodies

stretched out like a slingshot.

I could no longer see them when it happened

but when the birds let go,

my eyes turned into the bottoms

of stones and I awoke

in the centre of a glacier.

History depends on forms of repetition

repeating themselves and

the present moment

offers endless opportunity to

reorganize and disrupt that repetition.

This is what the wind does with seeds,

the fox with their tracks

and the ocean with its rolling white teeth.

Eventually the glacier began to melt

and as my eyes softened a story emerged

that went something like this.

Collectively we overthrew

the cultural hierarchy

that had embedded our lives

in the destructive patterns and beliefs

that insisted on putting an addiction

for convenience and comfort

over the needs of rivers and butterflies,

viewing Mississippi and Walleye

as resources rather than relatives,

and asserting the word of adults was somehow

superior to the laughter of children.

Soon I was engulfed in cold singing water,

pools of it ran in the hollows of my shoulder,

all that remained of the glacier.

I could smell an ending,

like rain seeding the horizon,

but from here it didn’t go

how you’d think it might go.

Endings are a linear construct

and this story is a spiral.

Two runaway horses

came up out of the river

and my breath filled with giant wings,

I could blow holes in the rain

and the rain also blew inside of me,

it washed out the poverty and sorrow

that had accumulated from so much hope.

I was not the only one that this happened to,

it was happening to all of us,

We built fires in the shadow spaces where ice had

been,

called back by roses,

we planted trees into the uncertainty and loss,

we healed through our capacity to cooperate.

As we unbound ourselves from hope

our wills became feral and regrew tails,

The two birds turned around

and flew back and forth crossing in the sky

above where the horses stood,

their hooves dripping

the edge of the river

back into the river.

Though this is as far into the spiral as I am able to

write,

the inherent wisdom of the surrounding land

stands strongly in their truth

and will speak, as much as one is willing to listen.

When I have placed my ear to their heart, I have

heard them say,

“Lead with curiosity, the stories support the systems

and in turn the systems support the stories,

be aware which system and which story you support.

It is a trick of capitalism to shift shape

because its extractive nature

is happy to appear as a different form of energy

enabling itself to remain in control

managing the pace and direction of change

ensuring that anything actually changes,

if in doubt return to your breath

it serves as a constant reminder of cooperation

if you give too much you die

if you take too much you die,

endings are a linear construct,

this story is a spiral.”

Shelving the draft plan

The Earth is deeper than they are tall.

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