The Fri­day Har­bor Arts Com­mis­sion shares an update about its newest commissioner.

The Town is pleased to announce the appoint­ment of Adri­an Kil­patrick to the Fri­day Har­bor Arts Com­mis­sion. He will serve on the eight-per­son com­mis­sion through Decem­ber 2024 advis­ing the Town Coun­cil on the cul­ti­va­tion, selec­tion, acqui­si­tion, and place­ment of pub­lic art with­in Fri­day Harbor. 

In his new posi­tion, Kil­patrick says he sees an oppor­tu­ni­ty to main­tain the Island’s uni­ty of art and nature while hon­or­ing the Island’s indige­nous roots and inspir­ing imag­i­na­tion and inno­va­tion in future gen­er­a­tions of artists. He added, “By inte­grat­ing these val­ues with broad and diverse tal­ent, we can play a part in bring­ing our island com­mu­ni­ty even clos­er together.”

Kil­patrick was raised on San Juan Island and is an active artist whose work has been includ­ed in the SJI Artists’ Stu­dio Tour and oth­er local exhibits. He earned a degree in graph­ic arts from the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia and is cur­rent­ly a home design and build spe­cial­ist. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he act­ed as con­ser­va­tor of arts and antiques with Rus­sell Bryant Designs and was a tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion assis­tant. He is also a for­mer San Juan EMS EMT.

Peace Island Vol­un­teers are hold­ing their annu­al East­er Bas­ket Sale on Sat­ur­day, April 2 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Mullis Cen­ter. Pro­ceeds will ben­e­fit the Vol­un­teers’ can­cer care projects.

The sale includes a wide range of East­er bas­kets, includ­ing bas­kets for chil­dren, gar­den­ers, cooks, tea drinkers, pet lovers, and wine lovers.

• Rip­tide Cafe, locat­ed below Down­rig­gers, has new and improved pas­tries. They’re open Fri­day through Mon­day, start­ing at 7 a.m. You’ll prob­a­bly want to get there early.
• The Fri­day Har­bor High School Ocean Sci­ence Bowl team placed third in their state tour­na­ment this week­end, behind only teams from Tes­la STEM High School in Red­mond (a mag­net school with twice as many stu­dents as Fri­day Har­bor) and New­port High School in Belle­vue (a sub­ur­ban high school with five times as many students).
• The high school fast­pitch team lost 15–0 to Nook­sack Val­ley High School. They head back to the dia­mond on Mon­day for a road dou­ble­head­er against con­fer­ence rival Dar­ring­ton High School.
• The Pur­ple and Gold Club are try­ing to raise $800 for a hand-oper­at­ed score­board for the base­ball field at Linde Com­mu­ni­ty Park.
• Haley’s is run­ning a high school grad­u­a­tion night fundrais­er. Order by Sun­day, April 3 for pick­up on Tues­day, April 5. There are four meal options — $25 each, but you’re wel­come to donate more.
• San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre will offer half-day sum­mer camps for kids inter­est­ed in an intro­duc­tion to musi­cal the­atre. There’s one camp for ages four to six and anoth­er for ages sev­en to eleven; both run for four days, from June 27 to 30.
• Find the hid­den Sasquatch at the San Juan Island Food Co-op today and save 25 per­cent on your entire pur­chase if you’re a member.

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

The San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank will hold its Spring Com­mu­ni­ty Con­ver­sa­tion with San Juan Island res­i­dents on Wednes­day, April 6 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. over Zoom.

The meet­ing will start with an update from Land Bank Direc­tor Lin­coln Bor­mann, to be fol­lowed by a stew­ard­ship overview from the stew­ards who work in Land Bank Dis­trict 1, which includes San Juan, Brown, Stu­art, Hen­ry, Pearl, Johns, and Spieden Islands. The remain­der of the meet­ing is open for ques­tions from the public.

Advance reg­is­tra­tion is required, and is open now.

For more infor­ma­tion, or to sub­mit ques­tions in advance, email Land Bank Outreach/Volunteer Coor­di­na­tor Tan­ja Williamson.

The meet­ing will be record­ed and will be avail­able to view online the fol­low­ing Monday.

On Sacred Ground shares an update about the work they’re doing on San Juan Island and beyond — and they’re look­ing for vol­un­teers to join their Island Mar­ble But­ter­fly program.

In 2012 On Sacred Ground, a 501c3, was estab­lished to heal, edu­cate, stew­ard and pro­vide a Gar­den of Eden for gen­er­a­tions to come. We use the three per­ma­cul­ture ethics to deter­mine our vision, involve­ment, and action plan – care of earth, care of peo­ple and fair share (or share the sur­plus). We look for inno­v­a­tive ways to raise the bar on envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship best man­age­ment prac­tices, and we pur­sue mean­ing­ful inter­sec­tions of social, eco­log­i­cal and finan­cial jus­tice. We real­ize the envi­ron­men­tal com­mon­wealth we share in the San Juan Islands is pre­cious, worth fight­ing for, and rep­re­sents a bet­ter bal­ance with the nat­ur­al world than many are lucky enough to experience.

Our unique approach through a per­ma­cul­ture lens allows us to focus on con­ser­va­tion through restora­tion and design, with­out min­i­miz­ing the poten­tial for resource har­vest. Our aim is to help re-inte­grate humans back into the ecosys­tem as stew­ards, instead of resource extrac­tors through the rest­less dri­ve of cap­i­tal­ism. We help advance the lead­er­ship role that San Juan Coun­ty often plays for the rest of the state as pio­neer­ing, pro­gres­sive and out­spo­ken eco­log­i­cal activists and con­ser­va­tion­ists. Con­tin­ue Reading

• Fer­ry puz­zles are start­ing to make their way back onto the boats.
• Fri­day Har­bor High School base­ball knocked off con­fer­ence rival Mount Ver­non Chris­t­ian 13–3 at Linde Com­mu­ni­ty Fields.
• The high school fast­pitch team takes on Nook­sack Val­ley High School at Linde today at 12:30 p.m.
• There’s a beach cleanup at Jack­son’s tomor­row at 10 a.m. Trash bags and gloves will be provided.
• Van Go’s Piz­za has date nut ched­dar bread tonight. They open at 4 p.m.
• Coho is run­ning a bak­ery pop-up tomor­row from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with crois­sants, scones and cookies.
• Melo­di­ous Notes Over the Har­bor’s spring con­cert takes place a week from today at San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre. Tick­ets are still avail­able.
• Jeri Rieger is hold­ing a pothold­er fundrais­er to raise mon­ey for the peo­ple of Ukraine and their pets. The intri­cate­ly pat­terned pothold­ers are made of recy­cled cot­ton and come with wood­en rings. Get one for $15 or two for $25. All prof­its will be split even­ly between Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders and Vet­eri­nar­i­ans With­out Bor­ders. They’re avail­able at the Lit­tle Store until 2 p.m. on both Sat­ur­day and Sunday.

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

San Juan Island Fire & Res­cue sends along an impor­tant note about live fire train­ing tak­ing place in town on Saturday.

On Sat­ur­day, March 26, Guard Street in the town of Fri­day Har­bor will be closed to all traf­fic (except for adja­cent res­i­dents) between Tuck­er Avenue and Mar­guerite Street from 8:30 am until 5:30 p.m. for a live fire train­ing for fire and res­cue crews from San Juan, Orcas and Lopez Islands.

The live fire train­ing will be con­duct­ed at a res­i­den­tial struc­ture in a con­trolled safe­ty burn. This burn will be used for the islands’ fire acad­e­my, host­ed by San Juan Island Fire & Res­cue. Addi­tion­al­ly, the res­i­den­tial struc­ture will be used for trained fire­fight­ers from the three depart­ments to accom­plish state man­dat­ed live fire training.

Dur­ing the week­end, smoke will be clear­ly vis­i­ble at dif­fer­ent times. The struc­ture has had all haz­ardous mate­ri­als removed, and has been exam­ined and cleared through onsite safe­ty inspec­tions, allow­ing the sched­uled train­ing to proceed.

Please respect the estab­lished safe­ty zones around the fire train­ing area and do not attempt to walk onto the site. All fire scenes are dan­ger­ous due to loud noise, mov­ing vehi­cles and equip­ment, as well as smoke. One side­walk on Guard Street will be open, but sub­ject to tem­po­rary clo­sures depend­ing on weath­er con­di­tions impact­ing smoke drift.

We appre­ci­ate everyone’s patience and coop­er­a­tion dur­ing this impor­tant train­ing. Live fire train­ing at this struc­ture saves all three agen­cies sig­nif­i­cant mon­ey by allow­ing crews to accom­plish state man­dat­ed train­ing and skills with­out trav­el to the state fire train­ing facil­i­ty in North Bend.

The San Juan Coun­ty Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment reports just two con­firmed or prob­a­ble new COVID cas­es on San Juan Island since March 18. Orcas Island had just one new case in the last week; Lopez Island had none. The three new cas­es bring the total case count to 1,265.

In their media release, the Coun­ty dis­cussed the Islands’ near-zero COVID case count:

Cas­es have final­ly dwin­dled in the islands, and the ongo­ing surge on San Juan Island seems to have final­ly wrapped up. This is iden­ti­cal to the dra­mat­ic drop off that has been seen in most oth­er juris­dic­tions over the last month; San Juan Island was just slow to get there.

Pub­lic Health experts are expect­ing anoth­er surge of cas­es begin­ning in maybe two or more weeks from now, but hope­ful­ly the surge will be far less than what was seen over the last few months, and hope­ful­ly there will not be any need for return­ing to require­ments around mask­ing or social distancing.

Those who are high risk or who are inter­act­ing close­ly with those who are high risk should con­tin­ue to be thought­ful and work to min­i­mize expo­sure, espe­cial­ly if case counts begin ris­ing again.

Next week will be the final writ­ten week­ly update for cas­es. Those who wish to keep up with case num­bers may do so at the San Juan Coun­ty COVID Data Dash­board. The Health Depart­ment will cer­tain­ly release future writ­ten updates if the sit­u­a­tion changes dra­mat­i­cal­ly and there is crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion that needs to be shared with the community.

Heather Chris­tensen shares an impor­tant update about the sta­tus of the new Fri­day Har­bor Fam­i­ly Clin­ic at 235 Blair Avenue.

Our doors will open on Mon­day, April 11 for reg­is­tra­tion for indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies. Please be sure to have all your insur­ance infor­ma­tion and get releas­es of infor­ma­tion from your cur­rent med­ical office. We will begin sched­ul­ing appoint­ments as well. Heather Chris­tensen will have office hours Mon­day through Fri­day and Dr. Fishaut will see chil­dren and young adults on Tues­days and Thursdays.

Please be aware that we are a small, new office with lim­it­ed staff. Please be patient with the intake process. It will also take us some time to set up sys­tems for call back and med­ica­tion refills. We will get there.

We are thrilled to offer tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly-cen­tered care to our community!

• Make time to catch the spring exhibits at the San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art, includ­ing FIAT LUX, a sculp­tur­al instal­la­tion of fab­ric, paint, ink, cloth, inter­fac­ing and paper by Gail Grin­nell. SJIMA is open Fri­day through Mon­day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• SJI­MA’s take-home fam­i­ly art pack for this week is a splash-and-pour land­scape. Reg­is­ter now for pick-up on Sat­ur­day between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Museum.
• The Fri­day Har­bor High School base­ball team has their first con­fer­ence game of the sea­son this after­noon at 4:30 p.m. at the Linde Com­mu­ni­ty Fields against Mount Ver­non Chris­t­ian. It looks like great base­ball weath­er with tem­per­a­tures in the low 50s, light winds, and almost no chance of rain.
• San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre’s 2022 spring musi­cal will be Rodgers and Ham­mer­stein’s Cin­derel­la. It’ll run from May 13 to May 29.
• The Fri­day Har­bor Car Show is com­ing to the Fair­grounds on Sat­ur­day, April 23 from 1 to 4 p.m. You can sign up now to show your car.
• Final­ly, some good news you’ll have to wait for: Yo Fri­day Har­bor is adding more fla­vors from Lopez Island Cream­ery. The addi­tion­al freez­er is already in place, but new fla­vors won’t start rolling out until we get clos­er to summer.

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

The Ag Guild shares some details about the orga­ni­za­tion’s new leader.

The San Juan Islands Agri­cul­tur­al Guild is excit­ed to intro­duce its new Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Emma Rastatter.

The Ag Guild is grow­ing, with new pro­grams and new staff. Fol­low­ing the award of sev­er­al USDA grants to sup­port Ag Guild projects, for­mer direc­tor Steph Cof­fey will move to the posi­tion of Finance Man­ag­er, to meet increased grant report­ing require­ments. “This is an excel­lent time to bring along our next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers, as we expand pro­gram­ming,” said Coffey.

Ras­tat­ter comes to the Ag Guild with a pas­sion for health, study­ing Human Biol­o­gy and pre-med at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, fol­lowed by a stint in health tech­nol­o­gy. She then pur­sued health “upstream” to its well­spring of agri­cul­ture and food sys­tems, tak­ing a job at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restau­rant and edu­ca­tion­al farm in the Hud­son Val­ley of New York, help­ing chef Dan Bar­ber launch ini­tia­tives to build a more resilient region­al food econ­o­my. Ras­tat­ter left Blue Hill in 2020 to con­tin­ue her edu­ca­tion in small-scale ag by work­ing on a regen­er­a­tive farm in a dif­fer­ent ecol­o­gy each sea­son for a year. She start­ed at Auro­ra Farms on San Juan Island. Ras­tat­ter and her hus­band, Wiley, fell in love with the islands’ agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty and deep inter­gen­er­a­tional wis­dom. After time on farms in Hawaii, Mass­a­chu­setts, and New York, they moved full-time to Lopez Island.

“I’m hon­ored to become the next Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Ag Guild, work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to stoke a sov­er­eign, equi­table, and deli­cious food sys­tem in the San Juan Islands,” said Ras­tat­ter. She will join Ag Guild staff and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners in projects to sup­port local pro­duc­ers with access to resources, tech­ni­cal assis­tance, mar­kets, farm­land, and education.

The San Juan Islands Sculp­ture Park sends along a brief update.

Please join us for our Sec­ond Annu­al Daf­fodil Frol­ic — over 5,000 daf­fodils with hun­dreds of iris­es to fol­low. Also enjoy 15 new sculp­tures, new West­cott Bay trails, and our starfish exhib­it for kids, all in a beau­ti­ful set­ting to wel­come spring.

The park is is locat­ed at 9083 Roche Har­bor Road and is open from dawn to dusk. All are wel­come, includ­ing chil­dren and dogs. There is no admis­sion fee, but dona­tions are great­ly appreciated.

The San Juan Island Library Dis­trict is seek­ing a tech-savvy, col­lab­o­ra­tive, com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven indi­vid­ual to be their Out­reach and Tech­nol­o­gy Librar­i­an. Learn more in the Island Jobs sec­tion of the San Juan Update.