The Islands’ Oil Spill Asso­ci­a­tion (IOSA) is offer­ing free oil spill response train­ing for inter­est­ed islanders in Octo­ber. Ses­sions will be held on Lopez, Orcas, and San Juan Island. This half-day hands-on train­ing is intend­ed to give both new and exist­ing vol­un­teers an intro­duc­tion to basic response strate­gies and pro­vide a gen­er­al overview of the  Con­tin­ue Reading

Hur­ri­cane Lizards and Plas­tic Squid The Fraught and Fas­ci­nat­ing Biol­o­gy of Cli­mate Change by Thor Han­son There is always rea­son to cel­e­brate the release of a new book by San Juan Island biol­o­gist and author, Thor Han­son. If you’ve read Feath­ers, Seeds, and Buzz, and sat enthralled at one of Thor Hanson’s live­ly and infor­ma­tive pre­sen­ta­tions,  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Sal­ish Seeds Project’s pop­u­lar, twice-annu­al wild­flower sale is hap­pen­ing soon. Reserve plants online Sep­tem­ber 10 — 17, and pick them up on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 2 at loca­tions on Lopez, Orcas, and San Juan islands. All plants are pro­duced local­ly by the Sal­ish Seeds Project, a joint pro­gram of the San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank  Con­tin­ue Reading

FRIDAY HARBOR, WA. — Labor Day week­end is approach­ing, the last hur­rah for many sum­mer boaters before buck­ling down for the fall. As scores of ves­sels take to local water­ways over the hol­i­day, it’s an impor­tant time to stay vig­i­lant and keep safe on the water. San Juan County’s Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Stew­ard­ship calls on  Con­tin­ue Reading

Fri­day Har­bor Artist Shan­non Borg — with guest artists Julia Wayne and Wendy Smith — presents an art instal­la­tion of paint­ings, fiber art, jew­el­ry and more, with an out­door recep­tion on Fri­day, August 27, 4:00 — 7:00pm  “Our island beach­es are pow­er­ful, mys­te­ri­ous, and beau­ti­ful places, where we go to reflect, cel­e­brate, and heal,” says  Shan­non.   Con­tin­ue Reading

Signs of wildlife were on high dis­play dur­ing this month’s ease­ment mon­i­tor­ing. Low tide pro­vid­ed a good look at some goose­neck bar­na­cles that remained healthy despite the recent heat. The San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank Com­mis­sion will hold its month­ly meet­ing on August 20, from 8:30am-11:15am via Zoom. The pub­lic is invit­ed to attend. Click  Con­tin­ue Reading

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. As the sum­mer’s heat wanes, here’s a fun easy hike to get you out there. This approx­i­mate­ly mile-and-a-half long east­ern  Con­tin­ue Reading

This Wednes­day, August 18th, you’re invit­ed to join Phil Green at the San Juan Island’s Sculp­ture Park for a morn­ing of bird­watch­ing, from 8:00 to 10:00 am. Dress appro­pri­ate­ly and don’t for­get your binoculars!

Please excuse our dust while your Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank com­pletes main­te­nance on the Zyl­stra Lake Pre­serve dam. Fri­day, August 5th, the Pre­serve will be closed to pub­lic access to com­plete a siphon installation.

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

From SeaD­oc Soci­ety Bot­toms Up will be a vir­tu­al one-hour event at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 9. Join us for an evening of sci­ence, edu­ca­tion, sto­ry­telling and, most of all, fun. We’ll look back on a unique but incred­i­bly pro­duc­tive year for SeaD­oc Soci­ety from the seafloor to the sur­face. Don’t miss the jour­ney! Reg­is­tra­tion is $5 and  Con­tin­ue Reading

From Fri­day Har­bor Labs Fri­day Har­bor Labs is excit­ed to wel­come Dr. Gretchen Hof­mann from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Bar­bara, our 2021 Illg Dis­tin­guished Lec­tur­er at Brick­works at 7 p.m. Aug. 4. The title of the lec­ture is “Marine heat­waves: what are we learn­ing, what we can expect, and some talk about Hot Moms and Cool Dads.”  Con­tin­ue Reading

To all bird watch­ers — Please join us at the San Juan Islands Sculp­ture Park this com­ing Wednes­day, July 21st at 8:00 AM, where Phil Green, will again lead our month­ly Bird Walk.  So far over 30 species have been iden­ti­fied.  Bring binoc­u­lars and mos­qui­to repel­lent.  The park is locat­ed just past the Wel­come Arch on  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Doug McCutchen, Pre­serve Stew­ard, San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank This is the first in a series of arti­cles describ­ing the back­ground of Zyl­stra Lake Pre­serve and the work that is going on to devel­op a long-term stew­ard­ship and man­age­ment plan for the prop­er­ty. This arti­cle focus­es on recre­ation­al access to the reser­voir. Zyl­stra Lake Pre­serve  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the Wash­ing­ton State Recre­ation and Con­ser­va­tion Office The Wash­ing­ton State Recre­ation and Con­ser­va­tion Office is recruit­ing 45 vol­un­teers to fill posi­tions on advi­so­ry com­mit­tees that help deter­mine how the state invests in the out­doors. The 18 com­mit­tees eval­u­ate grant pro­pos­als for parks, trails, boat­ing ameni­ties, firearm and archery ranges and oth­er out­door recre­ation facil­i­ties.  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank The San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank Com­mis­sion will hold its month­ly meet­ing from 8:30–11:15 a.m., July 16 via Zoom. The pub­lic is invit­ed to attend. Click here to down­load the agen­da, Zoom link and meet­ing mate­ri­als. To learn more about the San Juan Coun­ty Land Bank, vis­it sjclandbank.org. If you’re  Con­tin­ue Reading