Seth Bundy shares news about the ulti­mate fris­bee scene on San Juan Island.

Right here in town, at Linde Com­mu­ni­ty Park, some­thing is hap­pen­ing. A new sport is blos­som­ing on the Island — ulti­mate fris­bee. Played in more than 40 coun­tries by hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple, ulti­mate com­bines the move­ment skills of soc­cer, bas­ket­ball, and foot­ball in a non-con­tact field team sport involv­ing a fly­ing plas­tic disc.

Ulti­mate is unique among com­pet­i­tive sports in that games are gov­erned by the Spir­it of the Game, a tra­di­tion of sportsper­son­ship that places the respon­si­bil­i­ty for fair play on the play­ers rather than ref­er­ees. This requires team­work, open com­mu­ni­ca­tion, respect for oppo­nents, and coop­er­a­tion – all impor­tant social and emo­tion­al learn­ing skills.

Ulti­mate gained pop­u­lar­i­ty as a com­pet­i­tive sport at col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in the ear­ly 1980s and has steadi­ly grown ever since. Now, kids as young as fourth grade play on school teams and par­tic­i­pate in ulti­mate camps. If you live on the island, enjoy team sports, and have nev­er tried ulti­mate, you need to check it out.

At Linde we have pick-up ulti­mate for all ages and gen­ders on Mon­day evenings, and Spring Street Inter­na­tion­al School has been play­ing on Fri­day after­noons. This sum­mer, dur­ing the week of June 27 to July 1, Seth Bundy is run­ning an ulti­mate fris­bee camp for youth aged 10–15. The camp is from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Mon­day through Fri­day. Advance reg­is­tra­tion is required. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get some exer­cise, meet friends, and learn a new sport.

Pho­to cred­it — Cen­ter for Whale Research

The Cen­ter for Whale Research recent­ly pub­lished a report about their May 22 encounter with tran­sient killer whales in Haro Strait. You can read the full report at their web­site.

• The street strip­ing work that was sup­posed to take place in town yes­ter­day has been post­poned to some time in June due to weather.
• There’s a fundrais­er hap­pen­ing now to help out Rick Wal­dron.
• The Coun­ty Plan­ning Com­mis­sion will hold a pub­lic hear­ing at 9 a.m. on Fri­day, June 17 to receive pub­lic com­ments about its 2022 Annu­al Dock­et, which is the process through which mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty request changes to the County’s Com­pre­hen­sive Plan and Uni­fied Devel­op­ment Code.
• The library is hold­ing a triv­ia night (with prizes) for stu­dents in grades five through eight on Fri­day from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the library meet­ing room. No reg­is­tra­tion is required.
• An exhi­bi­tion by mixed media painter Karen Ben­son takes place at Water­Works Gallery next Fri­day, June 3 from 4 to 7 p.m.
• Here are the week’s gro­cery spe­cials at Mar­ket Place and Kings.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

Freez­er Burned is an ongo­ing series for the San Juan Update, writ­ten by Steve Ulvi. Read the pre­vi­ous sto­ry in this series.

A Yukon Riv­er Maverick

(This sto­ry is cre­ative non-fic­tion; respect­ful­ly embell­ished where fact and anec­dote blur, an informed yet spec­u­la­tive tale. No one knows just what hap­pened dur­ing the last days and hours of the active, inten­tion­al life of Richard O. Cook. He was a mav­er­ick, seam­less­ly at home on the low­er Taton­duk Riv­er, and a friend. He was mas­ter­ful­ly depict­ed as an Alas­ka bush-dwelling char­ac­ter in the 1977 clas­sic, Com­ing into the Coun­try by John McPhee).

Stooped some, slight of frame with cord­ed mus­cles, Dick Cook hard­ly appeared to be 70 years along the path of life. His thin­ning dark curly hair bloomed at the edge of his sweat­shirt hood; eyes steady, wheels turn­ing in his head as always. Cook sipped black tea from a tan­nin-shel­lacked cup near the river’s ris­ing edge. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, his teeth also showed his love of strong tea. Brush­ing away hov­er­ing mos­qui­tos, star­ing upriv­er, he pushed his hood back to bet­ter assess the clear­ing sky; his untamed beard and hair looked to be trimmed by a sharp knife, his worn clothes and a hood­ed sweat­shirt always the same.

Cook’s unre­mark­able log shack tucked on a small forest­ed island at Pass Creek, piled with decades of stuff, had burned and col­lapsed a cou­ple of years back.  A stone’s throw behind where Cook stood, close to the charred pile was his mold-freck­led wall tent, ele­vat­ed cache and strewn camp. A year before, he had loaded his old 4x4 truck with build­ing mate­ri­als, put it on a raft in Eagle, guid­ed it 27 miles with his canoe, land­ed at his cab­in and motored up the Taton­duk Riv­er grav­el bars (in vio­la­tion of many laws, con­ser­va­tion ethics and com­mon sense) for a cou­ple of miles. It still sat on a high bar 4 miles down; unmov­ing. Cab­in rebuild­ing stalled out. One of his cher­ished sled dogs, inbred for decades in a pride­ful Cookian selec­tion process, roamed and barked at red squir­rels who chat­tered teas­ing­ly in the grey-green spruce canopy. Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty shares news about COVID boost­er avail­abil­i­ty for chil­dren on San Juan Island.

Boost­er dos­es of the Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech vac­cine are now avail­able for chil­dren ages 5–11 years. The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health expand­ed boost­er dose eli­gi­bil­i­ty to fol­low­ing guid­ance and rec­om­men­da­tions from the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA), the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Prevention’s (CDC) Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Immu­niza­tion Prac­tices (ACIP), and the West­ern States Sci­en­tif­ic Safe­ty Review Workgroup.

An addi­tion­al mRNA dose will help fur­ther pro­tect chil­dren and slow dis­ease spread across Wash­ing­ton and in San Juan County. 

This expan­sion of boost­er eli­gi­bil­i­ty comes as COVID cas­es are con­tin­u­ing to steadi­ly rise across the coun­try, state, and with­in our own com­mu­ni­ty. The myth that COVID is always a mild dis­ease in chil­dren needs to be dis­pelled. The updat­ed boost­er dose rec­om­men­da­tions are:

• Chil­dren ages 5–11 years should receive a boost­er dose five months after com­plet­ing their pri­ma­ry vac­cine series of Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech vaccine.
• Immuno­com­pro­mised chil­dren should receive their boost­er dose at least three months after their pri­ma­ry series

The next vac­ci­na­tion clin­ic on San Juan Island takes place on Tues­day, May 31. This clin­ic is for chil­dren ages 5–11 only.

• That’s the new hand-oper­at­ed score­board locat­ed beyond the cen­ter field wall of the base­ball field at Linde Com­mu­ni­ty Park. The Pur­ple and Gold Club raised mon­ey for the project ear­li­er this year.
• Active and report­ed COVID cas­es on San Juan Island are trend­ing down, from 82 on Fri­day to 55 yesterday.
• The Fam­i­ly Resource Cen­ter shared the good news that their util­i­ty assis­tance pro­grams helped 322 island house­holds with $82,300 in fund­ing last year.
• There’s a Fri­day Har­bor High School grad night fundrais­er tak­ing place tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Mason­ic Lodge at 15 Sec­ond Street N. It’s all-you-can-eat spaghet­ti, sal­ad, and gar­lic bread with a dessert auc­tion at 8 p.m. It’s $20 per per­son and take­out is available.
• Due to the high num­ber of COVID cas­es in the com­mu­ni­ty, San Juan Island Fire & Res­cue is post­pon­ing their open house, which was sched­uled to take place on Saturday.
• Madrone Cel­lars & Cider is now open six days a week — Fri­day through Monday.
• Des­o­la­tion Sound is per­form­ing on Sat­ur­day from 6 to 8 p.m. at San Juan Vineyard.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!