Bring your fam­i­ly out to rel­ish autumn with nat­u­ral­ist Shona Aitken. Shona will lead an explo­ration into the woods in search of wild crea­tures. Your child will use their sens­es to find clues about which ani­mals live there and where they would go to stay dry and warm when the weath­er becomes cold and wet. Meet  Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Island Gar­den Club will meet at 1 p.m. on Tues­day, Octo­ber 4, at the Mullis Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter locat­ed at 589 Nash Street, Fri­day Har­bor.   The guest speak­er will be Krispi Staude, who will explain/demonstrate how she uses pho­to dyes and nat­ur­al plant mate­r­i­al for “dye print­ing” fab­rics. Come join us for cof­fee,  Con­tin­ue Reading

by There­sa Simendinger On two very hot days of July, Fri­day the 22nd and Tues­day the 26th, the San Juan Island Con­ser­va­tion Corps (SJICC) climbed up Young Hill to take down the this­tle. The first crew of four kids with the CC of Mid­dle School looked like the prover­bial David against Goliath but as you  Con­tin­ue Reading

John Chris­tian­son, of Christianson’s Nurs­ery in Mount Ver­non, often shares his in depth knowl­edge of all things gar­den nurs­ery relat­ed. This time he will share his knowl­edge of alter­na­tives to overused plants/dwarf shrubs and trees. His pre­sen­ta­tions are always filled with com­mon sense and good humor. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty one will not want to miss. Date:  Con­tin­ue Reading

On this leisure­ly 2–3 hour inter­pre­tive walk up Young Hill, dis­cov­er how to ben­e­fi­cial­ly relate to Nature in and around you through your sens­es. Nature’s mav­er­ick genius Mike Cohen will teach us as we walk. Meet at the Eng­lish Camp park­ing lot at 1:00 PM, Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 24th.

Local pho­tog­ra­ph­er John Miller shares this image he cap­tured this week­end… Tim — My wife, Vic­to­ria, called excit­ed­ly to me to come the gar­den and bring my cam­era. What a sur­prise to to see the fol­low­ing insect. John PS — for those who are inter­est­ed: Nikon Df, 105mm man­u­al focus macro, spot meter, f5.6, hand­held  Con­tin­ue Reading

Free Work­shop for Shore­line Prop­er­ty Own­ers and Man­agers Sep­tem­ber 24th Inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about your shore­line prop­er­ty and how it can help feed salmon, seabirds and orca? Join engi­neer­ing geol­o­gist and shore­line ero­sion man­age­ment expert Jim Johan­nessen of Coastal Geo­log­ic Ser­vices and nearshore habi­tat biol­o­gist Tina Whit­man of Friends of the San Juans for guid­ance  Con­tin­ue Reading

All gar­den­ers are invit­ed to this year’s 2016 Annu­al Gar­den­ing Work­shop: Secrets of Gar­den­ing, pre­sent­ed by the San Juan Coun­ty Mas­ter Gar­den­ers at Fri­day Har­bor Mid­dle School on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This year’s keynote speak­er will be author and biol­o­gist Thor Han­son (thorhanson.net), speak­ing about seeds, based on his  Con­tin­ue Reading

Join the Nation­al Park Ser­vice and Island Rec to hon­or the 50th Anniver­sary of San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park. 7:00pm Bat Talk ‘n Walk 8:00pm Cake 8:30pm Owl Prowl ‘n Star Walk. Large tele­scopes will be avail­able for view­ing. Rochelle Kel­ly, (a PhD can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton study­ing our local bats), will have an infrared  Con­tin­ue Reading

Leave No Trace Trav­el­ing Train­ers will vis­it Sep­tem­ber 8–10 The trav­el­ing train­ers are back and they’re bring­ing Big Foot along to share their mes­sage of sus­tain­able min­i­mum impact prac­tices to enjoy the out­doors respon­si­bly. Click here for more infor­ma­tion about Leave No Trace and be sure to check out the fly­er at right to see what’s  Con­tin­ue Reading

Join the UW Pro­gram on Cli­mate Change and Fri­day Har­bor Lab­o­ra­to­ries for this two-part pub­lic lec­ture fol­lowed by refresh­ments and con­ver­sa­tion fea­tur­ing Stephen War­ren and Kyle Armour on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2016 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm at the Fri­day Har­bor Labs Din­ing Hall. Cli­mate of the Antarc­tic Ice Sheet pre­sent­ed by Stephen War­ren, UW Most of Antarc­ti­ca  Con­tin­ue Reading

Extra, Extra! Read All About It! An e‑version of the San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust’s August 2016 Island Dis­patch newslet­ter is now live on the web. Click here to view it. Here’s a pre­view of what you’ll find: Guardians For­ev­er: Mon­i­tor­ing SJP­T’s 226 (and count­ing) con­ser­va­tion ease­ments is a big job that we take very seri­ous­ly. Plus, What Is a Con­ser­va­tion Ease­ment? Views  Con­tin­ue Reading

The NRDC invites you to The Whale Muse­um next Tues­day for this screen­ing of Son­ic Sea… Please join us at The Whale Muse­um on August 30 for a spe­cial kick­off screen­ing of NRD­C’s new doc­u­men­tary film “Son­ic Sea.” Once qui­et, our seas are now filled with a cacoph­o­ny of noise unleashed by oil prospec­tors, freight ships and  Con­tin­ue Reading

Sad news from the Cen­ter for Whale Research… J14, a 42-year old female in J pod, is con­sid­ered miss­ing. Ken Bal­comb of the Cen­ter for Whale Research last saw her on July 31. Cen­ter for Whale Research staff mem­bers have since had three on-the-water encoun­ters with the rest of her matri­line but she was not  Con­tin­ue Reading

Friends of the San Juans is excit­ed to hold a fam­i­­ly-friend­­ly Food Web Pic­nic on Tues­day, August 30, at Jack­son’s Beach on San Juan Island from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. At the event, chil­dren will explore the ani­mal habi­tats at and around Jack­son Beach and will earn their Coastal Food Web Inves­ti­ga­tor badge. Par­tic­i­pants can  Con­tin­ue Reading

Pacif­ic Whale Watch Asso­ci­a­tion and Ace Hard­ware stores in Ana­cortes and Fri­day Har­bor, WA Launch “Orca Friend­ly Prod­ucts” Ace is the place for… sav­ing orcas! In a unique part­ner­ship, Ace Hard­ware is part­ner­ing with the Pacif­ic Whale Watch Asso­ci­a­tion (PWWA) in help­ing its cus­tomers find “Orca Friend­ly” prod­ucts in its stores. The pilot project will begin  Con­tin­ue Reading