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Spring’s Renewal — and the Overwhelm Farmers Carry

Spring is often painted as a season of renewal: buds appear, soil warms, and hope blooms with the first lettuce seedlings. But for many farmers and growers, this time of year also brings deep pressure. Between unpredictable weather swings and the push to prepare for another demanding season, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Growing can also be isolating and stressful, with mental health challenges woven into the rhythm of sowing and harvest. Recognizing this reality, three supportive offerings — each rooted in community, care, and connection — are helping farmers tend to their well-being as much as their fields. Forest Bathing — Nature as Therapy Stephanie Karlovits invites growers to slow down and reconnect with the natural world in a restorative way. Inspired by the practice of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), these guided forest and nature therapy walks gently lead participants through peaceful forest settings, encouraging mindful engagement with the living landsca…
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Real Solutions for Affordable Housing

There seems to be consensus that we need more affordable worker housing on Salt Spring. There are good reasons for this. We want to live in a diverse-income community, we want businesses to be able to hire employees and our hospital and government services to be staffed. So why all the fuss? We agree on the problem. But some of the discourse fails to discuss actual solutions. Some seem to believe—without data to back it up—that allowing suites and cottages on most properties across the island will do the job. But they fail to mention that approximately 2,000 properties are already zoned for this and have not made an impact. (See the Positively Forward website—for a longer discussion of why we don’t support this strategy.) Getting the housing we need will only come from turning away from the free market that has caused the problem in the first place. Discussing new affordable housing strategies requires accepting real-world constraints. Dreaming of an alternate reality …
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The Islands Trust Area is Uniquely Beautiful, but Perhaps not Ecologically Unique

Last week Charles Kahn responded to a George Gram article on the unique language contained in the object of the Islands Trust with broad claims of ecological uniqueness in the Trust area. Unfortunately, many of the statements made in that response were in error. The science-based, definitive resources that expose those errors are easily accessed and readily available. Mr. Kahn may have based some of his assertions on erroneous information that was unfortunately presented in some older Islands Trust publications. Note that Islands Trust staff conducted extensive corrective edits to Trust materials in 2023 on these subjects. Their diligence was captured in item 8.4 Coastal Douglas-fir Biogeoclimatic zone language and potential education session – Briefing of the May 2023 Trust Programs Committee meeting. "Mr. Kahn’s response to George Grams could be dismissed as personal opinion, save one important fact. That fact is that Charles Kahn had recently been serving a second term…
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Honest and Complex Conversations About Housing with MLA Rob Botterell

March 6 Seventeen gathered at this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MLA Rob Botterell. The afternoon timing (2:30-4:30) was intended to make it possible for those who cannot attend the 11-1 time slot to join the conversation, a change acknowledged by one participant as very helpful. The timing also allows Rob to get home to Pender this evening, a welcome benefit after his busy week in the Legislature and his plentiful constituent activities. Rob began by acknowledging that we are meeting in the traditional territory of Coast Salish nations and that any discussion about land, housing, and wealth must be grounded in reconciliation and respect for Indigenous leadership. Rob reflected on his years working alongside First Nations and how their wisdom has shaped his approach to the hard choices now facing the province. We agreed that this time together would be an opportunity to speak honestly about a crisis that has been with us for far too long: housing on Salt Spri…
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Salt Spring Island Improvement Districts - Referendums - A Dark Art?

March 7, 2026 Part 3 Example 1 SSFID - Salt Spring Island Fire Improvement District On June 30, 2022 - Engaged Fire District Ratepayers went to the Polls and Voted on the following question: "Should the Salt Spring Island Fire Protection District be given authority to borrow a maximum of $9.7 million dollars over a period not longer than 25 years to fund the construction of a new fire hall?" In the lead up to the Vote the Chair engaged the services of a local 3rd Party Marketing Firm. The New Fire Hall was marketed as a No Frills, Modest 2 Bay Fire Hall at 11,500 Sq Ft in size. The overall cost $13.7 Million or $1191/Sq Ft. We were told when the cost per sq ft was questioned as being excessive – “This is what these things cost” in May of 2022 at an ASK Session, with the Chair and Marketing Team present. The Campaign Slogan was - “No New Taxes”. Since then a lot of water under the bridge and lot of other stuff too, over the last 45 months since the June 2022 R…
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Meet Local Filmmaker Piet Suess, Editor of Between the Mountain and the Sky

The Circle Education and the Salt Spring Film Festival celebrate International Women’s Day 2026 with the showing of Between the Mountain and the Sky at Art Spring. Local filmmaker Piet Suess, who volunteered for The Circle Education in the past, worked as one of the film editors on this documentary. He will be in attendance on Friday, March 6th, to answer questions about his involvement with this heart-touching film about Maggie Doyne, who started an orphanage in Nepal at age nineteen and became a guardian to over 50 Nepalese children. Get your tickets here Piet Suess has been a filmmaker since he was young. At age fourteen, he started experimenting with filmmaking. “I was introduced to a lot of cinema as a kid, and at my dad’s co-op, there was a media/editing room in the basement with two VCR’s and some simple analog editing tools. I was tirelessly compiling short films and school projects with my friends - from Kung-Fu movies to sci-fi epics and documentaries about m…
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A Response to George Grams' Article on the Object of the Islands Trust

George Grams’ article explores the interpretation of the wording in the Islands Trust Act: ”The object of the Trust is to preserve and protect the Trust area and its unique amenities and environment....” I can’t understand why “interpretation” is required as the people who drafted the Act were very clear. It was all about the environment. George has glossed over the word “unique,” which is key to the whole act. According to most dictionaries “unique” means “being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.” Houses and stores are not unique, nor is development or even our amazing Saturday market. George has decided not to apply “unique” to “environment.” It’s obvious that the Act intends this adjective to apply to both “amenities” and “environment.” Thus, the unique amenities in the Gulf Islands are those provided by the area’s unique natural environment. In fact, when the Islands Trust Act was created in 1974, there had been so much concern about protecting our fragil…
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What the Island Trust Mandate Actually Says

Last week I wrote about Salt Spring's crisis: hollowing services, collapsing infrastructure, and a community that is slowly losing the very people who make it worth living in. The response has been encouraging. Many of you reached out privately to thank me for speaking up. Then came the legal opinion. Frants Attorp's summary of Don Lidstone KC's letter to Trust Council has been circulating as a kind of closing argument: the mandate is clear, the Trust's job is to protect the environment, and any Policy Statement that ventures beyond that is legally indefensible. Case closed. I have respect for Mr. Lidstone's expertise. But I think this argument rests on a misreading of what the mandate actually says. The Islands Trust Act states that the mandate of the Trust is to "preserve and protect the Trust Area and its unique amenities and environment for the benefit of the residents of the Trust Area and of British Columbia." There are four parts to this sentence. And th…
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Will Salt Spring become a Housing NOW Success Story?

Ten jointed this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome Adam Evanik of Housing NOW. After our Land Acknowledgement, we all introduced ourselves. While a few of us were relative newcomers (like 20 years), most in the room had lived on Salt Spring for many decades one even claiming an extra nine months, having been conceived, born, and raised here. Most in this seasoned group, however, knew very little, if anything, about Housing NOW. That was soon to change. . . . Like so many, Adam, a Salt Springer for about eight years, works a variety of jobs, including as a Paid on Call Firefighter, landscaper, filmmaker, and as Salt Spring’s Housing NOW coordinator. While each of these jobs brings their own delight, Adam finds his Housing NOW role to be his most satisfying, “exciting and delighting” him with its possibilities and challenges. Committed to building connections throughout our community, this relationship-fostering role is perfect for him. Busy connecting with community memb…
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Obituary: Mark Meredith

Mark Mitchell Meredith  April 8, 1943 - February 28, 2026 Mark was born in Vancouver April 8, 1943, and was raised on the waterfront in Caulfield, West Vancouver. His life was shaped by a fall from a cliff when he was 8, leaving him unconscious for 6 weeks and giving him brain damage that left him with challenges throughout his life. After earning a diploma in business at BCIT, he worked in various capacities around Vancouver including promoting Gastown in the early 70’s. He decided he wanted a product that he could make, market, and sell himself. He moved to Victoria and took up pottery, which he mastered. Salt Spring Island became his home in 1978. He was very active in promoting the arts and crafts scene on Salt Spring and was involved in making the Market in the Park the success that it is today. He loved making pots and having people come to his studio. Mark loved talking to people and kept in touch with many he’d known throughout his life. He loved helping …
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