From Skagit Valley College Skagit Valley College is enrolling now for a unique Sea Kayak Exploration class in the Salish Sea and the San Juan Islands. If you love the salt air and exploring the beautiful Salish Sea and the San Juan Islands, you’ll want to enroll now in this unique Skagit Valley College summer  Continue Reading

From Transition San Juan Island  Join Transition San Juan Island, Plastic Free Salish Sea and millions of other people worldwide in reducing your plastic waste in July. Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans  Continue Reading

From The Whale Museum We’ve been training marine naturalists since 1994. Our marine naturalist training course is an intensive six-day overview of the natural history of the San Juan Islands and the marine waters of Washington and Southern British Columbia, known as the Salish Sea. Summer’s session will be online July 19-24. This course includes  Continue Reading

From San Juan County Land Bank If you frequent Roche Harbor Road, passing by the Land Bank’s Beaverton Marsh Preserve, you’ve probably noticed some different agricultural activities happening in the roadside fields lately. That’s because these pastures are transitioning from annual hay harvest to a seasonal grazing operation. San Juan Island rancher Mike Sundstrom has  Continue Reading

Hello Friday Harbor and San Juan Island! As many of you know, Shannon and I have been traveling in our homemade camper van, exploring the United States. The San Juan Update has been mostly in the capable hands of Hayley Day who has been doing the heavy lifting daily maintenance in our absence. (Thank you  Continue Reading

From San Juan County Land Bank The San Juan County Land Bank Commission will hold its monthly meeting 8:30-11:15 a.m. June 18 via Zoom. The public is invited to attend. Click here to download the agenda, including the Zoom link, and meeting materials. To learn more about your Conservation Land Bank, visit sjclandbank.org. If you’re  Continue Reading

From the San Juan County Land Bank The San Juan County Land Bank Commission will hold its monthly meeting at 11:30 a.m. Friday, May 21 via Zoom. This meeting will include a discussion of the Conservation Agriculture Resource Team’s Coffelt Farm final report. The public is invited to attend. Click here to download the agenda,  Continue Reading

By Angela Anderson, executive director, and Keith Wentworth, board president, San Juan Preservation Trust San Juan Preservation Trust’s 42nd annual meeting will be held 5-6:15 p.m., Thursday, May 20. We are excited to share our past year’s accomplishments in pursuit of our mission to conserve island land, care for the land under our protection, and  Continue Reading

From Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office The Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office has named Olympia resident and long-time environmental advocate Tara Galuska to coordinate the state’s orca recovery efforts. As orca recovery coordinator, Galuska will be working with partners to help implement recommendations of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force and tracking  Continue Reading

From the San Juan Island Sculpture Park Join us from 8-10 a.m. Wednesday, May 19 to watch for our fine feathered friends at the San Juan Island Sculpture Park located next to Roche Harbor Resort. The event occurs every third Wednesday of the month through September. Last month, attendees spotted more than 28 bird species.  Phil  Continue Reading

A Sunflower Star is Born By Jason Hodin, senior research scientist, Friday Harbor Labs.  Among the world’s hundreds of types of known starfish (or seastars as I’ll call them), our Pacific coast sunflower stars are true record breakers. They are the largest seastar in the world, with an arm-tip-to-arm-tip “wingspan” of more than two feet  Continue Reading

From the San Juan Islands Agricultural Guild It seems like only a few years ago that the San Juan Islands Agricultural Guild threw a grand opening party for our community’s beloved Brickworks building and plaza, but in fact, the original historic building is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. May is “History Lives Here” month  Continue Reading

From the San Juan County Master Gardeners Healthy veggie starts and locally grown perennial landscaping plants need new homes. Like last year, the San Juan County Master Gardeners’ sale is online at SpringSale.org, with curbside pickup at the Mullis Center. The sale begins 9 a.m., Wednesday, May 5 and closes 5 p.m., May 12. Make  Continue Reading

From San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau Since May 2-8 is National Travel and Tourism Week, this is the perfect opportunity to restart the dialogue about the future of the San Juan Islands’ experience economy: tourism. Nobody in the world anticipated this vast, COVID-19 health crisis and resulting economic crisis. Industry after industry ground to a  Continue Reading

In 2019 Congress designated the area, which includes the San Juan Islands   By Caroline C. Grauman-Boss, executive director, Salish Sea Sciences Let the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation know what being part of the new Maritime Washington National Heritage Area means for you here in San Juan County.  The Maritime Washington National Heritage Area  Continue Reading

What Happened with the Group’s Recommendations?   From The Whale Museum The Whale Museum will host a lecture on orca policy updates and the new commercial whale-watching licensing program at 6 p.m., April 28 online.  Julie Watson from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife will discuss progress since the governor’s Orca Task Force delivered  Continue Reading