2023 Courtenay Annual Report

Arts, Culture and Heritage

Courtenay and District Museum and Paleontology Centre

Comox Valley Art Gallery

The Courtenay and District Museum and Paleontology Centre was established in 1961 as a non-profit organization with the mandate to collect, preserve, and interpret natural and cultural heritage of the Comox Valley region. Throughout the year, the museum offers on-site and outdoor programming suitable for all age groups. Program subjects include fossils, geology, First Nations history, pioneer settlement history, social history of the Comox Valley, logging and lumber history, river way study, as well as a series of changing exhibitions spanning over 80 million years. In the fall of 2023, the Museum's Elasmosaur was officially adopted in the Provincial Symbols and Honours Act as British Columbia's official fossil emblem. The Elasmosaur is a large marine reptile dating back to the Cretaceous period, approximately 80 million years ago.

The Comox Valley Art Gallery (CVAG), was established in 1974. Since 2005 CVAG has occupied the main and lower level of the Comox Valley Centre for the Arts located at 580 Duncan Avenue through a partnership with the City. CVAG offers public events, performances, all-ages make art projects, youth training and mentorship programs, as well as a gift shop that sells the work of hundreds of local artists. The art gallery took an innovative approach to creating community awareness of the illicit drug toxicity deaths in the province and also affecting our local community through Walk With Me. “Walk With Me convenes bold conversations between diverse interest holders to re-examine the crisis and imagine new ways forward.”

Comox Valley Art Gallery Total visits School tour participants Community make-art workshop participants Youth Media Project new films

Courtenay and District Museum Total visits (includes field trips, special events)

25,115 2,300

27,853

2,500

Volunteer hours

650

20

Volunteer hours

1,100

53

City of Courtenay | 2023 Annual Report