A hermit priest from Black Creek has won a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Father Charles Brandt, who is 97 and living a rustic life of solitude in a small cedar hermitage at the end of a logging road near the Oyster River, is being honoured for his work to restore salmon populations in a river polluted by toxic mine runoff.
Brandt was cited for galvanizing volunteers and spearheading a campaign to clean up the Tsolum River, declared dead due to pollution from an abandoned copper mine that operated briefly in the 1960s on the north side of Mount Washington.
Brandt pressured provincial and local politicians to clean up the mine and inspired locals to help him restore the salmon-bearing Tsolum, which went from producing a handful of fish in 1983 to counts of more than 100,000 today, including pink salmon and steelhead.
Brandt, who is considered the first ordained Catholic priest-hermit in 200 years, has been living and studying nature in the area since 1965. He continues lending his wisdom and assistance to other environmental causes involving the surrounding forests, streams, rivers and ocean.
Brandt’s 27-acre hermitage, acquired with the help of donations in 1970, will be permanently protected after a deal was struck with the Comox Valley Land Trust in early 2019.
Brandt plans to donate the land to the Comox Valley Regional District as parkland. The plan for after his death is for a society to lease back his spartan hermitage building for use by someone to carry on in the priest-hermit tradition.
The Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa said this year’s Nature Inspiration Awards, including Brandt’s lifetime achievement honour, will be announced Nov. 25. The usual in-person gala will be replaced by a virtual affair because of the pandemic.
The seventh-annual awards celebrate projects by individuals, groups and organizations whose leadership and innovation connect Canadians with the natural world.
The projects led by this year’s finalists, selected from among 85 nominations, address topics that include biodiversity and conservation, environmental education and sustainable practices.
Among the nominees are two Vancouver Islanders.
Elin Kelsey, an environmental activist and author from Victoria, is up for an individual award. Kelsey, who has taught at Royal Roads since 2003 and runs a consultancy business, conducts research into emotional responses to the culture of “doom and gloom” that permeates environmental issues. She is also an award-winning author of more than a dozen environment and science-based books for children and adults — Kelsey’s picture book You Are Stardust won the 2013 Canadian Library Association and 2012 YABC Choice awards.
Parksville-based ULAT Dryer Balls is nominated in the small-to-medium business category. The company, founded by Jennifer LeBrun, invented and patented wool dryer balls that use sustainable products, reduce the time it takes to dry clothing and eliminate the need for chemical-based dryer sheets.
