The Port of Friday Harbor would like to thank the many local businesses and community members who helped get the 2018 summer season kicked off with a BANG during the Port’s Pirate Festival over June 22-24 and Rock the Dock on the 4^th of July!

During Pirate Fest, Friday night’s Movie Night in Fairweather Park had us munching on tasty popcorn graciously provided by Ace Hardware while watching Popeye and Pirates of the Caribbean on Island Rec’s projector with the marina in the background. On Saturday we were gobbling up Clam Chowder in the Cook-Off between Downriggers and Cheesecake Café! Friday Harbor Cruises gave free harbor tours with stories of Rum Runners in the islands, and Schooners North offered onboard tours of the beautiful wooden schooner Spike Africa.  On Sunday Vic’s Drive In put on a scrumptious pancake breakfast at the San Juan Island Yacht Club.

On the 4^th we Rocked the Dock hard with local band D.A.M.N. Duke & Mojo Nation. While they were rocking out, guests gobbled up delicious burgers and fries from Vic’s Drive In, and shared beers poured by our brand new tenants at Spring Street Landing, Friday Harbor Beerhouse. A huge thanks also goes out to Lopez Community Fireworks and all their supporters for putting on an amazing show at Friday Harbor immediately afterward.

Events like these would not be possible without local business and community participation as well as all the other agencies that help make it all happen; San Juan Lions Club, San Juan County Fairgrounds, Starr Excavation and the Town of Friday Harbor.

With lots of summer days left, we wish everyone a great rest of the 2018 season!!

Photo Credit: Justin Cox, SeaDoc Society, taken under NMFS Permit #18786-02

This story is shared with you from the Whale Museum…

It’s July, which means harbor seal pupping season is underway in the San Juan Islands and much of the Salish Sea! Keep an eye out for pups on beaches and around harbors. Recently, San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network interns responded to the pup pictured above, who was discovered resting inside a large boat’s exhaust pipe in Roche Harbor. The interns were able to distract the curious pup with a fender, luring it away from the pipe while the boat took off. This is a healthy, full-term pup, so we are hopeful that its mom is nearby!

If you see a lone, uninjured harbor seal pup on land, it is possible that the mother is out foraging or that some type of disturbance scared her away. Either way, the mother will not come back if there is activity around the pup. Remember to keep a safe distance of 100 yards and keep pets on a leash and far away. The best way to ensure a pup’s survival is to not disturb it.

If you see a harbor seal pup or stranded marine animal in the San Juans, please leave a message for the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network at 1-800-562-8832. If possible, let us know the exact location of the animal, its species, approximate size, when you saw it, and whether it is dead or injured.

For more information about the San Juan County Marine Mammal Stranding Network, click here.

For more Whale Museum News, click here.

Free Childcare and Free Food—A Festival to Give Back

This year San Juan Community Theatre has set aside July 20^th and 21^st to give back to the community and visitors during the 2018 Summer Festival. Throughout the year, SJCT receives wide support from volunteers, members and donors, businesses, the Town of Friday Harbor, and San Juan County. And the truth is SJCT needs all that support to offer the wide range of shows, classes, musical acts, films, workshops, and arts opportunities that fill up the calendar year-round.

San Juan Community Theatre expresses gratitude and appreciation in many ways, from thank-you letters and members-only events, to prizes and ticket discounts. While individual appreciation is great, we wanted to take time this year to thank Friday Harbor and San Juan Island as a whole. So, with the help of some generous sponsors, SJCT’s 2018 Summer Festival is free to the public and looks a bit like this: Continue Reading

Are you looking for a way to serve your community? San Juan County Elections is looking for persons with disabilities, and providers of services to persons with disabilities, to serve on the Disability Advisory Committee. 

Washington State Law requires every county to have a Disability Advisory Committee. The committee must include persons with disabilities, and may include any interested person. One purpose of the Disability Advisory Committee is to provide input to the county elections department regarding accommodations to ensure equal access to voters with disabilities. The objective is to ensure that all voters are able to vote independently and privately.

San Juan County’s Disability Advisory Committee has assisted in the past by testing access for wheelchairs and making recommendations for improvement. It has also tested the County’s Accessible Voting Unit (AVU) and reviewed the County’s accessibility plan.

If you are interested, please contact the San Juan County Elections office at (360) 378-3357 or [email protected].

On Friday, July 20, tribal members from British Columbia will arrive on San Juan Island in ocean going canoes as part of the Tribal Canoe Journey “Power Paddle to Puyallup.” This inter-tribal Canoe Journey will end in the territory of the Medicine Creek Nation, which Puyallup Tribe will be hosting July 28 – August 4, 2018.

Our island community will host 2 nights of camping, meals, and ceremonial space for the Tribal Canoe families. All are welcome and invited to the community dinners at 6:30 p.m.

Landing dates and locations in the San Juans:       

• Friday, July 20 – Pe’pi’ ow’elh (English Camp, San Juan Island National Historical Park)
• Saturday, July 21 – Sxw’alech (Odlin County Park, Lopez Island)

Volunteers are needed to help with meals.  Support boats (sail or power boats) are needed to escort canoes crossing from Sidney to San Juan on July 20, San Juan to Lopez on July 21, and Lopez through Rosario Strait on July 22. Please contact Friends of the San Juans at 360-378-2319 for more information or to volunteer.

The Canoe Journey reinvigorates Coast Salish culture and builds relationships with the communities they visit in their traditional homeland. This year’s Canoe Journey is generously supported by Friends of the San Juans, Roche Harbor Resort, National Park Service, San Juan County, San Juan County Parks, and community members of Lopez and San Juan Island.

Wolf Hollow shares this with you…

There is no doubt about it, baby wild mammals are cute, and bring out the nurturing instinct in people, who then feel the need to get closer to them and feed and “care” for them.

Why is that a problem? It’s all to do with what they learn when they are youngsters. At this juvenile stage their parents are teaching them skills that will enable them to survive on their own in the wild for the rest of their lives, and they only have a few months to do it in.

If they are consistently and regularly fed by people, what do young animals learn? Continue Reading

Want to Identify an individual whale?
You’re in luck, there’s now an app for that!

Hundreds of thousands of people come to the Pacific Northwest every year to take in our natural beauty, and with hopes of seeing our most popular marine life resident: Orcas (killer whales).

The Center for Whale Research (CWR) has been studying these magnificent creatures for 43 years, and we know each of these 75 whales expertly. And now, for the first time, there is an app available for the rest of the world to get to know them, too. So, for the 500,000 people who venture out on a whale watching trip each year and the thousands of others who choose to view the whales from shore, or for those who would simply like to learn more about our local Orcas, this app’s for you.

What’s so special about this app? Let us take you on a quick tour: Continue Reading

L-R: Brad Creesy, Steve Alluise and Humberto Orozco – Contributed photo

San Juan Island EMS would like to recognize our team responders for the month of July.

Brad Creesy (Team Foxtrot), Steve Alluise (Team Bravo) and Humberto Orozco (Team Delta) are reliable, efficient and dedicated volunteers each having been with the agency 10+ years.

Thank you gentlemen. We hope to continue to see your expertise and smiling faces when needed most.

Click to enlarge

The San Juan County Fair and Fairgrounds is undergoing a Master Plan update and we are looking to our Island’s communities for vision and future direction. 

There will be pop-ups this week on the ferry served islands and on the interisland ferry, during travel times. There is also an online survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SJCFMasterPlan and a booth will be at the San Juan County Fair, August 15^th-18^th .

Please take the time to participate in one of the provided avenues as your opinions on the Fair and Fairgrounds will help navigate the future.

The Schedule:

• Market Place: Friday Harbor, Friday, July 13^th 11am-1pm
• Island Market: Orcas Island, Friday, July 13^th 5pm-7pm
• Lopez Village Market: Lopez Island, Saturday, July 14^th 10:30am-12:30am

Here’s another in a series of opinion articles on the SJC Fair…

We are one community here in the San Juans. Sure, we have Orcas, San Juan, Waldron, Lopez, Shaw, Stuart and 122 other islands that have names, but we are still ONE community with many personalities. We all come together at the San Juan County Fair in August, to show off our critters and products, to instruct, to learn, to buy, to sell, to see and be seen (if you’re a teen), eat Fair food and be entertained. But, most of all we come together to share our small communities with the whole.

One of the most important things to watch for is the inter-connecting of the 4-H kids in the barns. From day one, when they are checking in their projects and animals, they work together, they help one another and forge bonds with the greater community. They are all one, with a little friendly competition thrown in. All those kids want their buddies to win the blue ribbon right along with themselves. Continue Reading

Lavendera invites you to meet their new featured artist…

Lavendera Massage new art is the paintings of Jennifer Elise, Come meet her on Friday Night July 20th from 7 pm to 9 pm.

Jennifer moved to Friday Harbor seven years ago after living in Nevada, Texas and Arkansas.  Her passion for art is rooted in an understanding of the beauty in people and their stories. In her words “A portrait is a biography of the person captured in one moment.  Every line, brush stroke, item of clothing or object included in the work has a meaning in the individual’s story.”

Becoming a professional artist was an unexpected journey for Jennifer.  Beginning with a degree in Accounting, a career as an Internal Auditor for a bank; then becoming a “bored housewife” buying a set of paints and reading as much about art and it’s beautifully intricate history. Soon neighbors were asking her to do portraits for them.  Some even brought up the idea of her putting them up for auction. Eventually taking action on her neighbor’s encouragements, Jennifer put her artwork up for auction. Continue Reading

Daniel Mayes as Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest – Tim Dustrude photo

Shakespeare’s Tempest on San Juan Island

Shakespeare Under the Stars is back! Island Stage Left’s new production of The Tempest plays on San Juan Island July 19-August 12.

This is Shakespeare’s fantasy about a magical island populated by spirits, monsters, a duke-turned-magician, and a group of corrupt castaways including two vicious courtiers and a pair of inebriated underlings.

The plot centers on Prospero, a deposed duke marooned on a remote island with his beautiful daughter. He has studied magic and gained frightening powers. After twelve years, his enemies are washed up on the same shore, in a tempest that Prospero conjured up. Now they’re in his grip. Will he be fair? Can he forgive?

“Prospero is the director of The Tempest, he’s the one that brings forth the spirits, that makes everything happen,” says ISL co-founder Helen Machin-Smith, the show’s director. “Many people think of Prospero as Shakespeare himself, though I don’t go quite that far. It’s never that simple with Shakespeare.” But The Tempest was his last major play, and it has added weight: “The Tempest to me is a culmination of all the things that he’s learnt, in his life and on the stage.” Continue Reading

Five Washington cities awarded for excellence at AWC’s Annual Conference

OLYMPIA – Representatives from 138 cities and towns across Washington convened in Yakima in June for the Association of Washington Cities (AWC) Annual Conference. During the conference, AWC honored five Washington cities with a Municipal Excellence Award.

“Hard work and creative thinking were evident in the projects of this year’s Municipal Excellence Award winners,” said Don Britain, AWC President and Mayor of Kennewick. “These cities brought innovative solutions to address familiar city issues in their communities.”

Chosen from 25 applications, the 2018 AWC Municipal Excellence Award winners are:

Small city success: Friday Harbor, Breezeway Pocket Park
Growing concerns about pedestrian safety at a congested downtown intersection, coupled with increasing tourism in Friday Harbor, prompted the Breezeway Pocket Park idea. An average narrow sidewalk was transformed into an open, inviting space. The sidewalk area was expanded into the street, reducing crosswalk lengths and improving sight lines. The pocket park includes custom wood and stone seating, public art, landscaping, decorative concrete pavers, and an unobstructed view of the surrounding streetscape. Continue Reading

Since early Spring, St. Francis Catholic Church parishioners have been developing a Marian Garden in the fenced property behind Heffernan Hall and the church office located at 425 Price Street in Friday Harbor, WA. On June 27, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was placed in the garden among the newly constructed terraces of flowering annuals and perennials, roses, planters, walkways, patio and pergola.

The statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary is made of pale beige plastic resin, is 4 ½’ tall and weighs 35lbs.

On Sunday, July 8, before the 9am Mass, a few parishioners noticed that the statue was missing and reported this to Rev. Watson Paramasivam, the pastor and celebrant, at the conclusion of the service. Rev. Watson stated that he had last visited the Marian Garden on Saturday evening following the 5:30pm Mass, between 6:30pm and 7:00 pm. He specifically went into the garden to admire the pergola which had been completed earlier that day.

After the discovery of the missing statue on Sunday morning, a report was filed at the San Juan County Sherriff’s office in Friday Harbor.

Rev. Watson and his associate priest, Rev. Rajasekar Savarimuthu, join with members of the parish to entreat the San Juan Island community to come forward with any knowledge of this incident and/or information about the whereabouts of the missing statue.

Please contact Rev. Watson directly using his cellular phone (313) 800-1335 or email address [email protected]. The church office (360) 378-2910 is open from 9am to Noon & 1pm to 4pm on Tuesday through Friday.

In the SJ Update mailbag this morning we have this letter from Katie Fleming…

Dear Editor,

Alex Ramel would be a fantastic representative for the 40th district in Washington. He is a progressive democrat who will champion climate action, affordable housing, healthcare for all, fully funded schools, equal pay for women, and gun violence prevention. Alex is also a listener and strong collaborate leader. I have never been this inspired by a political candidate. I highly endorse and trust him. 

I have known Alex for 12 years and have been waiting for him to run for office that entire time. He and I have worked together on many programs in the region, ranging from the Community Energy Challenge that he helped develop, to more recently stopping the Canadian Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. If you care about climate action and our environment, value social justice, are a parent or grandparent who wants a good future for the children you love, and a person who wants a true, honest progressive in our state government – vote for Alex. 

Learn more about Alex here: www.alexramel.com.

Sincerely,
Katie Fleming
San Juan Island

On Saturday, July 14 from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm San Juan County Land Bank invites you to an intertidal walk at Deadman Bay Preserve…

Intertidal Exploration – Contributed photo

There’s more to the West Side of San Juan Island than orcas! Dr. Erika Iyengar, of Muhlenberg College and long-time researcher at the Friday Harbor Laboratories, returns to lead her annual exploration of the intertidal zone at the Land Bank’s Deadman Bay Preserve.

Spend the morning among an amazing diversity of spineless animals (invertebrates) and learn how they feed, reproduce, and interact with each other.  Wear some old sneakers or come prepared to get wet up to your knees. If you have a plastic magnifying glass, bring it!  Kids welcome with adult supervision.

Meet and park at the Lime Kiln Point State Park main lot – Discover Pass or parking fee required – participants will walk to the preserve. 

This event is presented by San Juan County Land Bank and is free to the public.  For more information please contact Tanja at 360-378-4402 or [email protected].