San Juan Islands
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San Juan Islands
 

 

  
Nestled between the US mainland and Canada's Vancouver Island, the San Juans are a world apart. This archipelago — most of which lies in Washington's San Juan County — was sculpted during the last Ice Age.
The chain contains anywhere from 428 to 743 islands (depending on the tide), of which only 172 are named, perhaps 30 are inhabited, and only four are accessible via the Washington State Ferry.
As the first Europeans to "discover" the islands — already inhabited by various Coast Salish tribes — the Spanish earned the naming rights to the San Juans in 1791.
 

 

  
Captain George Vancouver arrived in the area the following year, applying English appellations to much of what he found. Not to be outdone, Charles Wilkes led an American naval expedition to explore (and rename) the islands in 1841.
It wasn't until 1846 that the western border between the US and Canada was established. Still, the fate of the San Juan archipelago remained unclear. Competing British and American claims nearly boiled over into war in 1859.

This standoff held for the next dozen years, until the dispute was turned over for arbitration to Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, who ruled for the US in 1872.
 

 

  
Nowadays, the San Juans are home to fewer than 15,000 full-time residents, plus boatloads of tourists during the summer.  Among the seasonal residents are several celebrities — including Bill Gates, Gene Hackman, Jewell, Steve Miller, and Gary Larson — who own vacation homes or, in some cases, entire islands.
  However, the most famous Salish Sea residents are the Orcas, popularly known as "killer" whales.  

Whale-Watching Charters

Orcas Island
Ironically, the name of the largest of the San Juan Islands has nothing to do with killer whales. The names of many features on the island are reminders of the Native Americans who once resided here.
Francisco de Eliza, who led the 1791 expedition to the Pacific Northwest, named the archipelago in honor of his patron, Juan Vicente de Gόemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, Viceroy of New Spain.  Orcas Island and Guemes Island were also named for the Mexican viceroy. Massacre Bay, Skull Island, Victim Island, and Haida Point commemorate a devastating 1856 raid by the northern Haida tribe against the local Indians.  In 1989, the Lummi Nation regained ownership of their ancient burial grounds on Madrona Point, near Eastsound.
   
The British Hudson's Bay Company introduced the first white settlers to Orcas Island in 1859.  They initially operated a deer-hunting camp on West Sound — an area ever since known as Deer Harbor.
 

 

  
   
Cultivation and canning of apples, pears and plums became profitable in the 1880s. Competition from the mainland put many island orchards out of business in the 1930s.
Despite these early commercial successes, Orcas has always been better known as a vacation destination than a center of industry or agriculture.
   
     
The inauguration of regular ferry service to Orcas Island at the turn of the 20th century launched the local tourist industry.
   
Inns sprang up at Orcas Landing, Deer Harbor, and Eastsound.  Shipbuilder and former Seattle mayor Robert Moran began construction of Rosario mansion — now the centerpiece of a popular resort — in 1906.
 

 

  
Our friend, Cathy, had been visiting Orcas Island for years before she talked us into joining her in the summer of 2007.   We were joined there that week by Gary and two of his friends from Minnesota, Mel and Dawn.

 

 

  
  We all chipped in for a vacation rental on the island's northwest coast, with access to the water and an unobstructed view of the sunset over Waldron Island.  
   
     

Orcas Island Attractions

Moran State Park
In 1911, Robert Moran offered to set aside several thousand acres of land on Orcas Island to form a state-run nature preserve.
Washington State did not take him up on his offer until 1920, establishing Moran State Park the following year. Altogether, Moran donated over two-thirds of the land in the 5,252-acre park, the largest in the San Juan Islands.
The centerpiece of the park is Mt. Constitution, the highest point in the archipelago (2,409 ft) — and one of the few features renamed by the 1841 Wilkes expedition whose American designation actually stuck.
In 1936, the Civilian Conservation Corps crowned the summit with a 52-foot observation tower, modeled after medieval fortifications in Russia's Caucasus Mountains.
 

 

  
 

 

  
The Civilian Conservation Corps — a popular Depression-era work relief program — also developed an extensive network of trails throughout the park, building numerous bridges and shelters along the way.  These trails extend for over 30 miles through the park's old-growth forests, past several picturesque lakes and along numerous fast-running streams.
 

 

  

 

 

   
We had ulterior motives for tackling the park's trails during our June 2007 visit.
We were eager to try out our new Nikon D80 camera on the park's spectacular flora and fauna. We were also training with Cathy and Gary for our upcoming trek along Peru's Inca Trail.

 

 

  

San Juan Island
Called Bellevue by the British, the archipelago's namesake isle is the most populous, economically active, and historically significant of the San Juan Islands.
The island attracted both British and American settlers in the mid-19th century.
An American farmer sparked an international incident when he shot a British pig rooting in his garden in 1859. US Army troops and Royal Navy warships were quickly dispatched to the island, facing off through the summer.
Cooler heads soon prevailed, and the abortive "Pig War" settled into an extended joint occupation. The military camps at either end of the island are now preserved as a national historical park.
Friday Harbor, the archipelago's only incorporated settlement (and San Juan County seat), was named for Joe Friday, a Hawaiian immigrant who tended sheep for the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1850s.
 

 

  

San Juan Island Attractions

This page was first published 3 September 2007, and last updated 17 August 2008.