
A curtain flutters through broken glass as fiery flakes litter the snow-covered ground. Despite the cold, ...

It was late summer when my husband and I first rolled into Cumberland in our old Ford pickup. The year was 1996 ...

Twin Islands, tucked against Cortes Island’s southeast shore, has been a haven for a fascinating cast of ...

It is a universal truth, I think, that the further you move through adulthood, the more you’re aware that life is ...

At Cumberland Chinatown’s peak in the years just after the end of World War I, around 1500 residents bustled down ...
Words by
Erica Keen
Photos courtesy of
The Keen Family

It was April 1912 when Hilda Mary Slayter packed her travel trunk with an elegant trousseau in preparation for her ...
Words by
Claire King
Opening photo by
Alan Hustak

“Deputy Minister Department of Mines offers services of H. M. Laing of Comox [to] accompany Expedition … to act as ...

The merry month of May is highly anticipated in the Village of Cumberland. Since 1888, Villagers have gathered on ...

The legend of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship doomed to never enter port, has been told and retold since the ...

Some of my dearest early memories involve water. My dad would tie a rope on my sister’s and my life jackets as we ...
Words & featured photo by
Erica Keen

One of the most iconic locations in the Comox Valley is Goose Spit, a long finger of land that shields Comox ...

Everyone remembers the first time they met Thomas Dunn. He was a rare individual who made an impression—mostly ...

If you take a moment to reflect upon the immense amount of organization, dedication, and perseverance required to ...
Words by
Kevin Flesher
Featured photo by
Jim Whyte

A few years ago, there was a local kerfuffle because a new sign on the Inland Island Highway proclaimed: “Welcome ...

I enjoy the practice of traditional karate for many reasons, including what it teaches me about Japanese and ...

Editor’s note: Rick Zyvitski, now retired, used to fly fighter jets out of Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Comox. We ...
Words by
Rick Zyvitski
Featured photo by
Sara Kerr

Most Campbell Riverites know the iconic blue cottage, nestled by the beach in Willow Point. For Sybil and Walter ...

When you drive west along the winding road that skirts Lower and Upper Campbell Lakes, as it hugs the rock face of ...

By all accounts, Johnny Bannerman is a very nice young man. He’s a member of the Cumberland Volunteer Fire ...

The third in our series imagining how the Comox Valley’s communities could look 20 years from now. ...

We got together in the living rooms of cabins, converted barns, half-finished homemade houses. We ate date ...

The second in our series imagining how the Comox Valley’s communities could look 20 years from ...

When my kids were younger, I logged long hours at the Rotary Skypark, going half-dizzy as they performed endless ...

This year, we’ll be exploring possible futures for the communities of the Comox Valley based on current community ...

While looking at a 1931 photo of a crew of men seated on a logging raft, long-time Cumberland resident Karl ...

The idea that the dead remain with us in spirit is ancient. Cultures the world over document the presence of ...

In 1927, it was a day like any other for Peter Bardesonno as he clocked in alongside his father Jossepi for ...

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, thriving mining, logging, and fishing industries in the Comox Valley led to ...

It was the 1880s and “The Great Salmon Industry” was in its golden years on the British Columbia coast. Entire ...
Words & Photos by
Oriana Smy

Under the steady gaze of the Comox Glacier, looking east to the Strait of Georgia, the airfield at Canadian Forces ...

Have you ever wondered about parked cars at the side of Highway 19, near the bridge about three kilometres south ...
Words & Photo by
Pat Trask

Jane Wilde and Monika Terfloth are waiting for me at a patio on 5th Street. Not far from here, Terfloth once ...
Words by
Allie Jenkinson
Photos courtesy of
Jane Wilde

If you could divide people into two categories, there would be those who spend their lives taking from the planet, ...

Near the end of July 1918, the blackberries were just starting to ripen, a welcome development for the hungry ...

I grew up in a cheaply thrown together subdivision in Fort McMurray, erected during Alberta’s oil boom. Surrounded ...

The Purple Martins swirl and swoop in the air above my head, their bright chirping punctuating the sound of the ...

It's 5:30 a.m., April 15, 1942. The full dark of night is just lifting. Suitcases are packed and weighed and ...

You know the expression, "Never trust a man with a moustache?" Well the same goes for a wealthy man in a top hat. ...

When I was a Merville-raised teenager turning 19, my father wanted to take me for a beer on my birthday. Becoming ...

As a tour guide for the Cumberland Museum, I am drawn to stories of people within our local history—I read family ...

If you’ve been in the valley for a while, you’ve most likely heard of Bronco Moncrief. He grew up in the Village ...

Floating lazily in the glassy, calm waters of Shearwater Passage, our boat tied off to the mooring buoy, we get ...
Words & Photos by
Eiko Jones

There may be no finer view in the Comox Valley than the one from the top of Mount Becher in mid-winter. On a ...
Words by
Ryan Stuart
Illustration by
Ian Adams

Roaming north along Royston’s Union Colliery Line, the air is damp and heavy with the scent of smoke wafting from ...
Words & Photos by
Bevin Clempson

Trail building in Cumberland dates back to the 1980s, when a freewheeling group of tree planters and mountain ...

Walking along the old Wellington Railway trail where alder, hard hack and osier dogwood create a bower of ...
Words by
Dawn Copeman
Featured photos by
Ed Brooks

If you’re rattling down the back roads of Merville on your way to Mount Washington or searching the Tsolum River ...
Words & Photos by
Ross Bodenmann