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 and  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 an in-depth  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 decid­ed  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 inter­est­ed  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, Zoom link  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 con­nect peo­ple  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 Green,  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 when ful­ly  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 and the  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 your choic­es  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