Category: A & E

Come witness the historic raising of two Welcome Poles in downtown Courtenay. The Comox Valley Art Gallery (CVAG), in partnership with the K’ómoks First Nation and the City of Courtenay, invite you to a Welcome Pole Raising Ceremony on Saturday, October 27th. The project is seen as a step toward reconciliation and recognition of the historic relationship the K’ómoks peoples have had with this Valley for thousands of years.

Pop Up Free Print Making Workshops will be facilitated by Nadine Bariteau in collaboration with NIC Fine Arts Students.
This all age event offers the opportunity to make spontaneous mono-prints that you can take away. The printing will take place using a mobile printing press situated in a white school bus that will be parked in front of the Comox valley Art Gallery.

Comox United Church will show the film, Finding Joe, on Friday, October 26th, at 7 pm. Finding Joe explores the ideas of Joseph Campbell, who studied world mythology for decades. Campbell discovered a pattern hidden in almost every story, which he called “the hero’s journey”. The archetype or pattern of the “hero’s journey” is present in most popular stories today, from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings to The Matrix. It provides a narrative for how to live a fully realized life, or as Campbell would state, how to “follow your bliss”.

Sunday, October 14th, the Sid Williams Theatre will rock to the high energy string music of The Fretless, the Canadian fiddle foursome that is leading the way in the movement that’s mainstreaming traditional Irish folk music. Starting with its debut album in 2012, the band has steadily pushed further into the public eye, winning Instrumental Album of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards and Instrumental Group of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. Its 2014 tune “Waving To Ryan” has topped a million Spotify plays, and in 2017, The Fretless took home a Juno™ award for Instrumental Album of The Year for its full-length CD, Bird’s Nest.

The Youth Media Project provides intensive hands-on training in video production and more to young people between 16 and 30 who face barriers to employment. We recruit nine participants per 13-week session. They are paid to attend workshops, make videos, and take job placements where they work with an employer.

After the extraordinary success of Gumboot Girls comes the sequel anthology, Dancing in Gumboots. Having relocated to Comox, Jane encountered a new group of women who travelled to the Comox Valley in the 1970s. Fascinated by their stories, Lou Allison and Jane Wilde return to their dynamic partnership to bring us an anthology that shines a light on these trailblazing women and their unique stories.

Is it possible to move away from fossil fuels and live a more joyful life? That is the question NASA atmospheric scientist Peter Kalmus explores in the film, Being the Change: A New Kind of Climate Documentary, presented by World Community on Tuesday October 9th at 7 pm in the Stan Hagen Theatre at North Island College, Courtenay.