• It’s pri­ma­ry elec­tion day. If you haven’t already returned your bal­lot, place it in the drop box at the Elec­tions Office (55 Sec­ond St.) or across the street in front of the Cour­t­house by 8 p.m.
• Alche­my Art Cen­ter still has a few spaces left for its begin­ner wheel throw­ing class, which starts this Thurs­day at 6 p.m. and runs for four weeks.
• The month­ly bird walk at the San Juan Islands Sculp­ture Park takes place tomor­row from 8 to 10 a.m. All are wel­come and dona­tions are appre­ci­at­ed but not required.
• Tomor­row at 7 p.m. at Brick­works, Fri­day Har­bor Labs presents a lec­ture from Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty’s Dr. Man­si Sri­vas­ta­va titled Body Builders: How Ani­mals Regen­er­ate New Parts.
• The Fri­day Har­bor Ele­men­tary School PTO’s biggest fundrais­er — the pie booth — is return­ing to the Coun­ty Fair this year. They’re still look­ing for a few more vol­un­teers to staff the booth and could use more dona­tions of fruit pies.
• The all-islands Sum­mer Mak­ers Fair is com­ing to Pelind­a­ba Laven­der Farm on Sat­ur­day, Aug. 27. They’re still accept­ing reg­is­tra­tions from prospec­tive ven­dors through this Fri­day.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

The orga­niz­ers of the Sum­mer Film Series at San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre send along a pre­view of this week’s film. The show­ing starts at 7 p.m. Admis­sion is pay-what-you-can. For this sea­son only, fresh pop­corn is avail­able for free.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

Doc­u­men­tary, biog­ra­phy — rat­ed R
Run time: 2 hours

Mor­gan Neville is the most well known and admired film biog­ra­ph­er work­ing today. His movies include 20 Feet From Star­dom (win­ner of Acad­e­my award for best doc­u­men­tary), Won’t You Be My Neigh­bor (the Fred Rogers Sto­ry), and Best of Ene­mies (chron­i­cling the debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buck­ley). In addi­tion, he has direct­ed mul­ti­ple films hon­or­ing pop­u­lar musi­cians, includ­ing Bri­an Wil­son, Mud­dy Waters, and John­ny Cash.

In Road­run­ner he turns to Antho­ny Bour­dain, a food crit­ic and explor­er, who shared his love of trav­el and food with all of us while at the same giv­ing us inti­mate glimpses into the lives of peo­ple all over the world. Neville shows us how Bour­dain became this per­son, his own com­pli­cat­ed life sto­ry, and its trag­ic end. It is a touch­ing trib­ute to a man whom we invit­ed into our homes. We still and will always miss him.

The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil will hold a reg­u­lar meet­ing on Tues­day, Aug. 2 at 9 a.m. The meet­ing includes a pub­lic hear­ing accept­ing tes­ti­mo­ny about the Coun­ty’s Annu­al Dock­et process and requests. Items up for dis­cus­sion or action include:

• Approve a res­o­lu­tion pro­vid­ing for the sub­mis­sion to the vot­ers of San Juan Coun­ty a propo­si­tion autho­riz­ing the Coun­ty to increase the Road Levy above the reg­u­lar tax lim­i­ta­tions of RCW 84.55.010
• Sec­ond 2022 bud­get amend­ments, sched­ul­ing a pub­lic hear­ing for Sept. 13
• First and sec­ond quar­ter finan­cial reviews
• Marine pro­gram update
• Sus­tain­able Tourism Man­age­ment Plan update
• Overview of cur­rent use and des­ig­nat­ed for­est land spe­cial tax programs
• Coun­cil field­trip to Prune Alley con­struc­tion project
• Approve a res­o­lu­tion relat­ing to the Glen­wood Inn property

The meet­ing also includes three exec­u­tive or closed ses­sions to:

• Dis­cuss with legal coun­sel lit­i­ga­tion or poten­tial litigation
• Eval­u­ate the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of an appli­cant for pub­lic employ­ment or to review the per­for­mance of a pub­lic employee
• Dis­cuss mat­ters per­tain­ing to col­lec­tive bargaining

You can view the live stream of the meet­ing online or attend in per­son at the Coun­cil Leg­isla­tive Hear­ing Room. To make a pub­lic com­ment, sign up pri­or to 9 a.m. on Aug. 2.

Fire & Res­cue shares news about anoth­er rur­al fire that occurred over the weekend.

San Juan Island Fire & Res­cue respond­ed on an inter­face fire on Mt. Dal­las late Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Crews arrived to find a res­i­dent attempt­ing to extin­guish a fire in grass­es and scrub on the hill­side. The ear­ly noti­fi­ca­tion and quick response by career and vol­un­teer fire­fight­ers allowed quick con­tain­ment of the fire to approx­i­mate­ly one acre. No struc­tures were threat­ened. The cause of the fire is under inves­ti­ga­tion, but it may have been caused by a spark from oper­at­ing equipment.

Hav­ing respond­ed to two inter­faces fire in just a few days, SJIF&R wants to remind res­i­dents and vis­i­tors that the dry weath­er and high­er than nor­mal tem­per­a­tures cre­ate an envi­ron­ment for faster igni­tion and the poten­tial for larg­er fires. The fire dan­ger is cur­rent­ly list­ed as medi­um. How­ev­er, if high tem­per­a­tures con­tin­ue, it is like­ly to be raised to high.

San Juan Island Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict No. 1 is accept­ing State­ments of Qual­i­fi­ca­tions and Pro­pos­als for pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, includ­ing archi­tec­tur­al and engi­neer­ing, asso­ci­at­ed with cap­i­tal improve­ments and con­struc­tion involv­ing the Vil­lage at the Har­bor, the Frank Wil­son Memo­r­i­al EMS Build­ing, and a poten­tial hous­ing project for health­care workers.

Requests for Qual­i­fi­ca­tions pack­ets are avail­able online, or in per­son on week­days between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Hos­pi­tal District’s Admin­is­tra­tive Offices at 849 Spring Street Unit B5. State­ments of Qual­i­fi­ca­tions and Pro­pos­als shall be returned to the Hos­pi­tal District’s head­quar­ters no lat­er than 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 11.

Minor­i­ty- and women-owned firms are encour­aged to apply and will be giv­en equal con­sid­er­a­tion with all oth­er firms sub­mit­ting a State­ment of Qual­i­fi­ca­tions and Proposal.

Here’s the adopt­able ani­mal of the week from the Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor — Petu­nia, a three-year-old domes­tic medi­um hair.

Petu­nia is like the cool aunt you want to spend half the sum­mer with. She will order piz­za and all the junk food, let you have a sip of her wine cool­er by the pool, and tell you all sorts of wild sto­ries that start with “You should have met me before I had kit­tens!” Petu­nia is the mom of the rough and tum­ble Looney Tunes lit­ter and now that they have all found homes, this care­free cat is ready for anoth­er adven­ture. She is a fun-lov­ing girl who is always down for a good time. Petu­nia is very play­ful and out­go­ing, loves peo­ple and could live with anoth­er cat but would purr-fer to have your undi­vid­ed atten­tion all to her­self. If you are ready to add a lit­tle spon­tane­ity to your life, Petu­nia is the cat for you.

Learn more about Petu­nia here.

• Here’s the line­up for today’s farm­ers mar­ket.
• The Jesus Chords are play­ing at the Port of Fri­day Har­bor this after­noon from 2 to 4 p.m.
• In hon­or of five years in busi­ness, San Juan Island Brew­ing Co. has released their new Five Year Anniver­sary His­tor­i­cal IPA.
• Des­o­la­tion Sound released a new record this week, titled Sal­ish Rock. You can find it on Spo­ti­fy and Apple Music.
• Orca Behav­ior Insti­tute shares a won­der­ful video of J pod and their activ­i­ties in the islands over the last week or so.
• The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety has three new dogs avail­able for adop­tion — Hux­ley (a Great Pyre­nees & Ana­to­lian Shep­herd mix), Miyu­ki (a Great Pyre­nees mix), and Pepi­ta (a Grey­hound mix).

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

SJIMA shares a look at their Look­ing Inside Afghanistan dis­cus­sion series.

The San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art announces a dis­cus­sion series begin­ning on August 3. The talks will pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn about the cul­ture of Afghanistan, Islam, advo­ca­cy for women and chil­dren, and James Longley’s per­son­al sto­ries of every­day life — all lead­ing to a bet­ter under­stand­ing of this ancient and trou­bled region.

Join us this com­ing week on Wednes­day, Aug. 3, for Call of the Minaret: Islam in Afghanistan, fea­tur­ing a dis­cus­sion with Rebec­ca Moore, Ph.D., of how Islam­ic faith has shaped and influ­enced the cul­ture of Afghanistan. Moore is an Emeri­ta Pro­fes­sor of Reli­gious Stud­ies at San Diego State Uni­ver­si­ty. She has lec­tured and pub­lished on Jew­ish and Chris­t­ian rela­tions in a vari­ety of venues. Her book Jews and Chris­tians in the Life and Thought of Hugh of St. Vic­tor focused on the medieval Chris­t­ian debt to Jew­ish bib­li­cal com­men­taries. Her body of work con­sists of a myr­i­ad of pro­fes­sion­al pre­sen­ta­tions, books, arti­cles and a mul­ti­tude of com­mu­ni­ty lec­tures and talks.

Moore’s talk will take place at SJIMA, 540 Spring Street, at 7 p.m. Light refresh­ments will be served and admis­sion is pay-what-you-can. This event is gra­cious­ly spon­sored by RaVae Luck­hart and Jack Rice, Rob Ray, and the Town of Fri­day Harbor.

All of the events sup­ple­ment and expand our under­stand­ing of Afghanistan life viewed in the James Lon­g­ley exhi­bi­tion Look­ing Into Kab­ul, at SJIMA until Sept. 12. Oth­er dis­cus­sions in the series include: Con­tin­ue Reading

The State Depart­ment of Health sends along news about biotox­in lev­els found in oys­ters and clams on Orcas Island.

The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health is urg­ing peo­ple to avoid eat­ing oys­ters and clams har­vest­ed from Buck Bay on Orcas Island in San Juan Coun­ty on July 26–27, fol­low­ing the detec­tion of high lev­els of Par­a­lyt­ic Shell­fish Poi­son in the shell­fish. The shell­fish were sold direct­ly to con­sumers from Buck Bay Shell­fish Farm retail mar­ket and restau­rant on the island.

DOH detect­ed the PSP through biotox­in mon­i­tor­ing – the shell­fish test­ed had PSP lev­els near­ly four times the allow­able lev­el for har­vest. As of July 27, there have been no reports of ill­ness asso­ci­at­ed with the recalled shell­fish. Buck Bay Grow­ing Area is closed until fur­ther notice.

PSP is a nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring marine biotox­in that is pro­duced by some species of micro­scop­ic algae. Shell­fish eat these algae and can retain the tox­in. The tox­in is not destroyed by cook­ing or freezing.

PSP symp­toms can occur with­in min­utes to a few hours of con­sum­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed shell­fish. Death from PSP has occurred in less than 30 min­utes. Symp­toms can include:

• Tin­gling and numb­ness of the lips, tongue, fin­gers, and toes.
• Nau­sea, vom­it­ing, and diarrhea.
• Loss of coor­di­na­tion, dif­fi­cul­ty speak­ing and swal­low­ing, and total mus­cu­lar paral­y­sis with res­pi­ra­to­ry arrest (in severe cases).

If you have mild symp­toms, call your health care provider right away. If symp­toms are severe, call 911 or go to the emer­gency room immediately.

Cur­rent biotox­in clo­sures are list­ed on DOH’s Shell­fish Safe­ty Map. For a record­ed list of areas closed for biotox­ins, call the biotoxin/red tide hot­line at 1–800-562‑5632.

• This arti­cle from the Pew Char­i­ta­ble Trusts looks at how a coali­tion of sci­en­tists, Trib­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives, con­ser­va­tion­ists, nat­ur­al resource man­agers, and con­cerned cit­i­zens joined have joined forces to pro­tect and restore thou­sands of acres of eel­grass in the San Juan Islands.
• The Young Adult Asso­ci­a­tion of San Juan Island shares a sto­ry about their recent adven­ture to Orcas Island.
• The library is show­ing Spi­der-Man: No Way Home for stu­dents in grades six through 12 from 6:30 to 9:15 p.m. tonight. It’s a free event with snacks and craft mate­ri­als provided.
• Gui­tarist and singer Alpha Yaya Dial­lo per­forms at 7:30 p.m. tonight at San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre. Tick­ets are still avail­able.
• The San Juan Island Pride Foun­da­tion — which recent­ly received its 501(c)(3) sta­tus — announced that the inau­gur­al San Juan Island Pride Fes­ti­val will take place on Sat­ur­day, Aug. 13 from 3 to 8 p.m. at Jack­son Beach. Learn more about the event or sign up to vol­un­teer.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

Contributed photo

The San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art shares a look at one of their cur­rent installations.

Artists have a his­to­ry of mak­ing us think about the world around us. Lat­tice II chal­lenges our per­cep­tions and beliefs about the nature of sculp­ture. Hen­ry Jack­son-Spiek­er encour­ages vis­i­tors to use their hands to explore his instal­la­tion at the San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art.

Jack­son-Spiek­er incor­po­rates glass, wood, wire, and dis­parate mate­ri­als to form a blend of trans­par­ent light and shad­ow. He asks the view­er to “reflect on pre­con­ceived notions” of space and the “con­no­ta­tions these spaces can have” in our lives.

Lat­tice II is a soar­ing instal­la­tion in the museum’s light-filled atri­um. It merges dis­tinct­ly con­trast­ing mate­ri­als into a work that explores ten­sion, bal­ance, and reflec­tion. With repeat­ing forms and pat­terns and the use of pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive space, Jackson-Spieker’s ephemer­al instal­la­tions seek to height­en the view­er’s aware­ness of the sur­round­ing environment.

Jack­son-Spiek­er recent­ly com­plet­ed his MFA at New York’s Alfred Uni­ver­si­ty and received his BFA from West­ern Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in 2013. In addi­tion to the cur­rent sculp­ture at SJIMA, his work is on dis­play at Mid­town Com­mons in Seat­tle and the Belle­vue Art Muse­um. He has had exhi­bi­tions at The Seat­tle Cen­ter, Method Gallery, and Wa Na Wari Gallery. He teach­es glass blow­ing and bronze cast­ing at Pratt Fine Arts Cen­ter in Seat­tle, where he first start­ed work­ing with glass.

In 2021, Jack­son-Spiek­er served as a selec­tion pan­elist for pub­lic art at the Inter­na­tion­al Arrivals Facil­i­ty at SeaT­ac and a juror for the 2022 City Artist program.

Hen­ry Jackson-Spieker’s Lat­tice II, on dis­play until Sept. 12, is spon­sored by the Hon­ey­well Char­i­ta­ble Fund, the Town of Fri­day Har­bor, the Wash­ing­ton State Arts Com­mis­sion, the Nation­al Endow­ment for the Arts, San Juan Coun­ty, KCTS Chan­nel 9, anony­mous, Har­bor Rental, Print­onyx, and Browne’s Home Center.

The Fri­day Har­bor Film Fes­ti­val shares news about their ongo­ing Direc­tor Series.

The Babushkas of Cher­nobyl is the Fri­day Har­bor Film Festival’s next offer­ing in The Direc­tor Series.

This film is a por­trait of a defi­ant com­mu­ni­ty of women who scratch out an exis­tence on some of the most tox­ic land on earth, the radioac­tive “exclu­sion zone” sur­round­ing Chernobyl’s Reac­tor No. 4. While most of their neigh­bors have long since fled, and their hus­bands have grad­u­al­ly died off, this stub­born sis­ter­hood is cling­ing to their ances­tral home­land despite its tox­i­c­i­ty. They share this haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful but lethal land­scape with an assort­ment of inter­lop­ers — sci­en­tists, sol­diers, and even ‘stalk­ers’, young thrill-seek­ers who sneak in to pur­sue post-apoc­a­lyp­tic video game-inspired fantasies.

Why the film’s cen­tral char­ac­ters — Han­na Zavoroty­na, Maria Shovku­ta, and Valen­ty­na Ivaniv­na — chose to return after the dis­as­ter, defy­ing the author­i­ties and endan­ger­ing their health, is a remark­able tale about the pull of home, the heal­ing pow­er of shap­ing one’s des­tiny and the sub­jec­tive nature of risk.

Fol­low­ing a free online show­ing tonight from 6:30 to 9 p.m., stream the film on demand from July 29 through Aug. 10 for $1.95.