Trail Times is a con­tin­u­ing series of arti­cles intro­duc­ing the Old Mil­i­tary Road Trail (OMRT), a pro­posed 18–21 mile cross-island non-motor­ized mul­ti-use trail link­ing Eng­lish Camp and Amer­i­can Camp and hon­or­ing the orig­i­nal Old Mil­i­tary Road. The King Sis­ters Pre­serve is an often over­looked lit­tle gem in our San Juan Island Trail Sys­tem. Strate­gi­cal­ly locat­ed in  Con­tin­ue Reading

Wel­come Karl! The Town of Fri­day Har­bor His­toric Preser­va­tion Review Board recent­ly filled one of the two recent vacan­cies. Our newest mem­ber is Karl Eber­hard who has a wealth of expe­ri­ence in archi­tec­ture and munic­i­pal his­toric preser­va­tion pro­grams and cit­i­zen preser­va­tion advi­so­ry boards. Just one more…. The good news is that there is one more vacant  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Board of Trustees and staff of the San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Muse­um thank the San Juan Island Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion and gen­er­ous donors for their finan­cial sup­port. Dur­ing this year’s Coun­ty Fair through a match­ing grant pro­gram, we were able to secure funds to help pre­serve island trea­sur­ers. The dona­tions received have made it  Con­tin­ue Reading

Fri­day Har­bor, WA – On Sep­tem­ber 4, 2021 unknown indi­vid­u­als dam­aged pub­lic lands and destroyed pub­lic prop­er­ty at the Amer­i­can Camp Unit of San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park. The park needs your help to iden­ti­fy and appre­hend these law­break­ers. Any tips will be treat­ed as con­fi­den­tial. The dam­age to the park was exten­sive includ­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

Greet­ings! I am writ­ing to keep you informed about the acces­si­bil­i­ty plan­ning process at San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park. Our Self-Eval­u­a­­tion Tran­si­tion Plan is still avail­able for com­ment until the end of Sep­tem­ber 2021 at this link. We also will be host­ing an open house to explain the plan­ning process and answer ques­tions from  Con­tin­ue Reading

Change is inevitable. But some things are worth pre­serv­ing because they tell a sto­ry. Our sto­ry. The Town of Fri­day Har­bor is look­ing for islanders who appre­ci­ate Fri­day Harbor’s his­to­ry and his­toric sites, who val­ue Fri­day Harbor’s unique sense of place, and who enjoy archi­tec­ture and pub­lic ser­vice. The His­toric Preser­va­tion Review Board (HPRB) cur­rent­ly has  Con­tin­ue Reading

The mis­sion of the San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Muse­um for the past 60 years has been to share and inter­pret the sto­ry of the peo­ples of San Juan Island. One way of doing that is through preser­va­tion of his­tor­i­cal pho­tographs of the island com­mu­ni­ty. In recent years over 4,000 pho­tographs have been researched, dig­i­tal­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

Change is inevitable, but some things are worth pre­serv­ing because they tell a sto­ry, our sto­ry. The Town of Fri­day Har­bor is look­ing for an islander who appre­ci­ates Fri­day Harbor’s his­to­ry and his­toric sites, val­ues Fri­day Harbor’s unique sense of place, has expe­ri­ence and skills relat­ed to preser­va­tion, and who enjoys pub­lic ser­vice. Five cit­i­zen  Con­tin­ue Reading

From San Juan Coun­ty Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship Depart­ment San Juan County’s Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship Depart­ment wants to hear and share your fish­ing sto­ries. We are col­lab­o­rat­ing with an orga­ni­za­tion called Salmon Nation that rec­og­nizes the fight for wild salmon is about much more than fish — it’s about cul­ture, liveli­hoods and the via­bil­i­ty of our nat­ur­al and  Con­tin­ue Reading

“Island Senior” is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Peg­gy Sue McRae. When I refer to myself as a hip­py, I am not brag­ging. It is aspi­ra­tional. To this day I aspire to live up to the promise of my love beads and peace signs.  That is why it caught my atten­tion that  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Muse­um Father’s Day this year will be on June 20. When think­ing about a his­tor­i­cal pho­to­graph to go with a June his­to­ry col­umn, this four-gen­er­a­­tion por­trait, seen above and shared by the Guard fam­i­ly, came to mind as a great exam­ple of the pas­sage of time in a fam­i­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the Town of Fri­day Har­bor The Town of Fri­day Har­bor presents “A Kepi in the Tide: Writ­ing His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion” 10:30 a.m., Thurs­day, May 27. Author and geneal­o­gist John Ick­es is a dis­tant rel­a­tive of ear­ly San Juan Island artist Mar­jorie Walk­er (1906–1992). His his­tor­i­cal research con­tributed to the under­stand­ing of Marjorie’s life and the online pub­li­ca­tion  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the Town of Fri­day Har­bor The Town of Fri­day Har­bor presents the online dis­cus­sion “Archi­tec­ture of the Recent Past: What Park Street is Telling Us” at 5 p.m. Thurs­day, May 20. Recent Past archi­tec­ture (1940–80) is ubiq­ui­tous, typ­i­cal­ly under-appre­­ci­at­ed, and typ­i­cal­ly not con­sid­ered his­toric by most observers. From mod­est FHA cot­tages and icon­ic Ranch Ram­blers,  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Stephanie Buf­fum, coor­di­na­tor, San Juan Islands Stop-over Many thanks to over 300 islanders, stu­dents, and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who attend­ed May 10–11 House of Tears Carvers’ totem pole bless­ings on San Juan Island/Whelalq, Shaw Island/Sqemenen, Orcas Island/Swalex and Lopez Island/Swaletch. Lum­mi Nation mem­bers from the House of Tears Carvers Se Sealth (Jew­ell Pray­ing Wolf James),  Con­tin­ue Reading

Join His­to­ri­an Mike Vouri and mem­bers of the Old Mil­i­tary Road Trail com­mit­tee at 10:30 a.m., Sat­ur­day May 15 as they explore the south­ern start­ing point of the Mil­i­tary Road that once ran between Amer­i­can and Eng­lish Camps. Learn how the old road was ini­tial­ly cut by labor­ers employed by the Hudson’s Bay Com­pa­ny to seek  Con­tin­ue Reading

Attend eight local his­tor­i­cal events through May   From the San Juan His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Muse­um The Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence is com­posed of many local his­to­ries, com­mon or unique. When we say “His­to­ry Lives Here,” it is to bring atten­tion to our island community’s often some­what hid­den, or at least not broad­ly remem­bered, rich local his­to­ry.  Con­tin­ue Reading