The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor shares a look at the adopt­able ani­mal of the week — Hol­li, a 40-pound mys­tery mix.

This coun­try girl is fix­in’ for the qui­et life. Give her sun­shine, green grass, and blue seas, please. Just no noisy neigh­bors, ’cause all that com­mo­tion puts a damper on her get­tin’ some good shut eye.

Don’t let this bump­kin’ fool you, Hol­li can be the life of the par­ty — a pool par­ty that is. This girl loves the water — splash­ing, dig­ging, slurp­ing buck­et fulls, you get the idea. If she had her druthers, she would have her very own pond on her new farmstead. 

In all hon­esty though, Holli’s not all sun­shine, rain­bows, and water. It’s not to say that Hol­li isn’t friend­ly — she can dip her toes in with new peo­ple, but jumps into the deep end with new dogs. Holli’s got a whole lot­ta love to give, once she’s test­ed the waters.

Now, as y’all can imag­ine, the shel­ter is no place for a farm gal like Miss Hol­li. This black and tan beau­ty needs fresh air, free­dom and a qui­et place for her to live out all her sweet coun­try dreams. So dust off your boots and come on down to the shel­ter and res­cue this cowgirl.

Learn more about Hol­li here.

Contributed photo

The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil and the San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank are pleased to announce the pur­chase of the Glen­wood Inn/North Shore prop­er­ty on Orcas Island and the for­ward progress on the con­ser­va­tion ease­ment with our part­ners at San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust. Dur­ing the Aug. 2 Coun­cil meet­ing, Coun­cil made clear its sup­port of the con­tin­ued part­ner­ship between the Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank and the Preser­va­tion Trust.

Coun­cil clar­i­fied the pur­chase of the prop­er­ty and the extent of the future con­ser­va­tion ease­ment by approv­ing Res­o­lu­tion 21–2022. The res­o­lu­tion states their sup­port of the San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust’s inten­tion to pur­chase a con­ser­va­tion ease­ment. It also rescinds a por­tion of Res­o­lu­tion 13–2022 that direct­ed the Land Bank direc­tor to nego­ti­ate the ease­ment by the end of the year, thus pro­vid­ing more time for the com­plex work required to com­plete the negotiations.

These actions strength­en the County’s rela­tion­ship with the Preser­va­tion Trust and sup­port the facil­i­ta­tion of valu­able shore­line con­ser­va­tion. The Coun­ty is delight­ed that future pub­lic access to the prop­er­ty will con­tin­ue to increase aware­ness and sup­port of salmon recov­ery and pub­lic lands.

The San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank and Coun­cil thank the ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who sup­port con­tin­ued con­ser­va­tion efforts through­out the islands. Togeth­er, we look for­ward to more suc­cess­ful acquisitions.

• The San Juan Coun­ty Fire Mar­shal’s Office announced yes­ter­day that the coun­ty’s fire dan­ger rat­ing has been increased from mod­er­ate to high. Recre­ation­al camp­fires 3′ x 3′ in size, in a con­tained fire pit or ring, are still allowed — but it’s now espe­cial­ly impor­tant to ful­ly extin­guish your camp­fire when fin­ished. The Fire Mar­shal also urges cau­tion when oper­at­ing mow­ers, saws, and oth­er equipment.
• After a three-year hia­tus, Encamp­ment, San Juan Island Nation­al His­toric Park’s pop­u­lar liv­ing his­to­ry week­end, is back today and tomor­row at Eng­lish Camp.
• Just a hand­ful of per­for­mances remain for Island Stage Left­’s The Com­e­dy of Errors. Shows will take place this week­end on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, then fin­ish up next week Thurs­day through Sun­day. All shows start at 8 p.m. and are free, although dona­tions are accepted.
• St. David’s Day School will be run­ning an after­noon preschool pro­gram for ten stu­dents start­ing this fall. It runs four days per week — Mon­day and Tues­day, Thurs­day and Fri­day — from 12:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. Tuition is $300 per month. Sub­mit reg­is­tra­tion forms to sddayschool@rockisland.com.
• The San Juan Con­cours takes place next Sat­ur­day and Sun­day at San Juan Vine­yard from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Vehi­cle reg­is­tra­tion is $10 and there will be music, food, and bev­er­ages. Pro­ceeds ben­e­fit the Fam­i­ly Resource Cen­ter, the Fam­i­ly Umbrel­la Group, and Rotary Inter­na­tion­al’s Mobile Den­tal Van and Polio Plus programs.
• San Juan Island Brew­ing Co. announced that their Okto­ber­fest event will return this year, tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day, Oct. 1.

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

At 5 p.m. this evening, sev­en mem­bers of the San Juan Canoe & Kayak Club shoved off from the beach at Ship­yard Cove in Hawai­ian-style out­rig­ger canoes full of camp­ing gear, bound for Shaw Island Coun­ty Park – the start­ing point for tomorrow’s Round Shaw Race.

“It’s a race for human-pow­ered craft,” says David Halpern, the club’s founder. “Canoes, kayaks, row­ing shells, ped­al boats – any­thing peo­ple are mov­ing with their own force.”

David says the race typ­i­cal­ly draws between 30 and 50 boats from through­out the Pacif­ic North­west. All of the boats start from the coun­ty park on Shaw, but every par­tic­i­pant choos­es the direc­tion they want to travel.

“You’ve got to look at the tides, the cur­rents, and then the winds, and you make a cal­cu­la­tion – is the wind against you here, and for you there, and so forth – then you try to fig­ure out which direc­tion is going to be most advan­ta­geous. Typ­i­cal­ly, half the peo­ple go one way and about half the peo­ple go the oth­er. And the first one back wins.”

David says the fast boats gen­er­al­ly com­plete the 14.2‑mile loop in about two hours. For slow­er boats it’s clos­er to three.

“The oth­er great thing about this race,” David explains, “Is that it’s the longest-stand­ing human-pow­ered boat race in the state of Wash­ing­ton. It’s quite a tra­di­tion and it’s a cool race.”

Six of the pad­dlers – David, Wendy Zap­pel­li, Yubi Schollmey­er, Eric Swer­gold, Kaitlin Komin­sky, and Kris­ten Arn­im – will race in the 44-foot out­rig­ger canoe pic­tured above. John Pachuta will pad­dle in a sin­gle-per­son outrigger.

The EDC shares news about their activ­i­ties relat­ed to this year’s Coun­ty Fair.

The Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil of San Juan Coun­ty is launch­ing a Coun­ty Fair fundrais­ing cam­paign in order to raise $6,250 to sup­port trades and tech train­ing pro­grams in the islands, dur­ing Fair week, Aug. 17–20.

Pri­vate dona­tions are a cru­cial com­po­nent of fund­ing EDC pro­grams, which aim to address local issues of under­em­ploy­ment and work­force short­ages with cours­es in plumb­ing, car­pen­try, sur­vey­ing, com­put­er pro­gram­ming, and more.

EDC trades and tech train­ing pro­grams are offered for both adults and youth, specif­i­cal­ly in high-wage, high-demand skills. The EDC has trained over 100 local work­ers in 2021–2022, and over 400 over the past five years. Dona­tions will allow these crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant pro­grams to continue.

The San Juan Island Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion is help­ing the EDC to raise funds through their Coun­ty Fair Giv­ing Cam­paign. Through this pro­gram, the first $1,000 in dona­tions will be matched dol­lar-for-dol­lar by the Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion. The EDC is also eli­gi­ble for up to $2,500 in bonus grants award­ed through­out the Fair.

Donors can con­tribute in-per­son at the Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion fair booth, on the SJICF web­site, by phone to SJICF at 360–378-1001, or by mail­ing a check payable to SJICF (dat­ed between Aug. 17–20) with Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil in the memo line to P.O. Box 1352, Fri­day Har­bor, WA 98250. The Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion will grant the raised funds to the EDC fol­low­ing the Coun­ty Fair. To be eli­gi­ble for match­ing funds, dona­tions to the EDC must be made dur­ing the four days of the 2022 Coun­ty Fair – Aug. 17–20.

The EDC will also have their own booth at the Coun­ty Fair this year, for the first time ever, with hands-on trades and tech activ­i­ties for kids, as well as infor­ma­tion­al hand­outs about their many pro­grams and resources. They are look­ing for­ward to mak­ing more con­nec­tions with­in the com­mu­ni­ty and hope islanders will stop by to say hel­lo and learn more.

An aerial view of the 2018 San Juan County Fair

Coun­ty Parks & Fair shares a look at the upcom­ing Coun­ty Fair, which kicks off in less than two weeks.

The San Juan Coun­ty Fair is back in per­son for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. With new food ven­dors, thou­sands of entries, a car­ni­val, and an esti­mat­ed 8,000 atten­dees, the event — which runs from Aug. 17–20 — is a cel­e­bra­tion of our county’s tal­ents, inter­ests, and unique qualities.

“Every sec­tor of our com­mu­ni­ty has come togeth­er to share inter­est­ing agri­cul­tur­al and still life exhibits, deli­cious fair food, and incred­i­ble enter­tain­ment all week long,” said Parks and Fair Direc­tor Bran­don Cadwell.

This year’s theme is a bin­go ref­er­ence — Two Lit­tle Ducks; Quack, Quack! – which refers to when I‑22 is called dur­ing a bin­go game. In hon­or of the theme, night­ly bin­go games will be held every evening at the Com­mu­ni­ty Stage. It’s free to play and prizes await.

The fair show­cas­es near­ly 30 open class and 4‑H depart­ments includ­ing bak­ing, food preser­va­tion, cat­tle, fiber and tex­tile arts, and pho­tog­ra­phy. The Car­ni­val opens around noon dai­ly and the food court is stocked with some­thing for everyone.

Local favorites includ­ing high noon games, the Trash­ion Fash­ion show, Fair Feud, and the Zuc­chi­ni 500, are com­ing back to the fair. Atten­dees can meet Matt Hen­ry, a world cham­pi­on jug­gler — also known as The Bub­ble Man — at the Com­mu­ni­ty Stage every day, or sit in on dozens of edu­ca­tion­al talks at the Agri­cul­tur­al Awning and the Green Village.

“The music line-up this year incor­po­rates great region­al bands from San Fran­cis­co, Reno, and Seat­tle to name a few,” said Caleb Turn­er, the orga­niz­er of this year’s musi­cal acts. “We have world class musi­cians play­ing along­side local talent.”

Jam out to the var­i­ous musi­cal acts every evening at the Main Stage. On Wednes­day, dis­cov­er the Coun­ty Fair House Band and Seat­tle-based band Whalien – an eclec­tic, high-ener­gy rock-fusion band. Thurs­day fea­tures psy­che­del­ic rock band For­est Ray and Fri­day gives atten­dees a chance to get funky with the True Loves. On Sat­ur­day, folk band Bolero! takes the Main Stage. The four days also fea­ture local acts like Riv­er Rye, San Juan Island All Star Band, and Mudbath.

Thanks to San Juan Tran­sit, fair­go­ers from oth­er islands can ride a free shut­tle to the fair­grounds. The shut­tle is timed with every inter­is­land boat and helps make the event acces­si­ble to walk-ons.

“The Fair is the biggest and bright­est event that show­cas­es the best of the islands,” said Cad­well. “I hope every­one can come out to cel­e­brate the community.”