Cortes Island's new Makerspace

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Cortes Island’s dream of having a makerspace has become a reality. The Cortes Wood Makerspace is being set up in the Orchard Village Shop, 671 Sutil Point Rd, Mansons Landing.

“This idea has been around for a long time. I have heard people talking about it for at least 15 years and some old timers apparently remember even longer. We have lots of people who are woodworkers  or building their own homes and not everyone has to build a shop for themselves and equip it with machinery,” explained Hannu Huuskonen, the Shop Master. 

“We had our first meeting here on Saturday and there were at least 21 of us.  That's how many names I have, but there may have been one or two who didn't write their name down. There were quite a few professionals,  a few total newbies and a few people who were working on their houses.”

“People who don't have experience will have to go through an orientation workshop, where you learn the ‘one on one’ of using shop tools safely and doing a small project.  The people who have extensive shop experience will be mentors in this process.”

Huuskonen mentioned the Cortes Community Forest Co-op partnering with the Cortes Housing Society on this project:

“Cortes Community Forest Co-op has a mandate to  increase ‘value added’ products. They had the consultation where one of the things that was recommended was a makerspace.” 

Mark Lombard, General Manager of the Cortes Forestry General Partnership, added. “The question for the community forest, in terms of  the bigger picture roadmap, is how do we get to where we want to be in the future? A woodworking maker space is a big, big next step. So this is really exciting. The community forest is putting in $15,000 towards some of the tools and the housing society is putting in $15,000 - $20,000 to upgrade the electrical service and then a little bit towards tools. It's a really great collaborative community project.”