Con­gress­man Rick Larsen and his staffers vis­it­ed Fri­day Har­bor on Sat­ur­day to meet with local gov­ern­ment and non­prof­it lead­ers and hold the first San Juan Coun­ty event for the 2022 cam­paign cycle.

After arriv­ing late due to a delayed fer­ry sail­ing, Larsen first met with Fri­day Har­bor town offi­cials to learn about the impacts of last mon­th’s arson on down­town. He lat­er dis­cussed afford­able hous­ing issues with the Oppor­tu­ni­ty Coun­cil, San Juan Coun­ty’s Depart­ment of Health & Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices, and the San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty Home Trust. Larsen then met with con­stituents at a 2022 cam­paign kick-off event held at Fri­day Har­bor House.

The San Juan Update caught up with Larsen to dis­cuss a hand­ful of issues of con­cern to island con­stituents, includ­ing marine infra­struc­ture, the future of the expand­ed child tax cred­it, leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties for the rest of 2022, infla­tion, the war in Ukraine, and the state of bipar­ti­san­ship in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Con­tin­ue Reading

• The Spring Flea & Craft Mar­ket is look­ing for ven­dors — food ven­dors, crafters and artists, com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions look­ing to fundraise, fam­i­ly and friends clean­ing house. The event takes place on Sat­ur­day, May 14 at the Fair­grounds. Learn more at the Fair web­site.
• Pick­up ulti­mate fris­bee hap­pens tonight at 5:30 p.m. at Linde Park.
• Tomor­row night is fam­i­ly bin­go night at the library. It starts at 6:30 p.m., no reg­is­tra­tion required. The event is spon­sored by the library, the Fam­i­ly Resource Cen­ter, and Sorop­ti­mist Inter­na­tion­al of Fri­day Har­bor as part of Nation­al Screen Free Week.
• This mon­th’s bird walk at the San Juan Island Sculp­ture Park takes place on Wednes­day from 8 to 10 a.m.
• Blue Water Bar & Grill is now open for break­fast every day from 9 a.m. to noon.
• The Amer­i­can Legion is host­ing a spaghet­ti feed and dessert auc­tion on Fri­day from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. They’re rais­ing funds in sup­port of sum­mer tour­na­ments for the Babe Ruth base­ball team they spon­sor. It’s $25 per plate or $45 for two. Food and treats are pro­vid­ed by Stacey’s Cater­ing. You can pur­chase tick­ets in advance or at the door, and curb­side pick-up is available.

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

Pho­to cred­it: Brad Pillow

The San Juan Islands Vis­i­tors Bureau pro­vides an update about mes­sag­ing efforts being planned in response to feed­back they received dur­ing pub­lic meet­ings ear­li­er this year.

The San Juan Islands Vis­i­tors Bureau host­ed three pub­lic Tourism Talk meet­ings ear­li­er this spring as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for res­i­dents to share con­cerns and ideas about tourism in 2022 and beyond as we con­tin­ue to recov­er from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Com­mon themes emerged from all three meet­ings: traf­fic, water, trash, and crowd­ing in parks. After con­sid­er­a­tion and con­ver­sa­tions with addi­tion­al stake­hold­ers, the fol­low­ing are our first vis­i­tor man­age­ment mes­sag­ing priorities:

• Coor­di­nate with San Juan Coun­ty for the annu­al dis­tri­b­u­tion of the Stew­ard­ship Guide to island accom­mo­da­tions, includ­ing Airbnb/VRBO, and explore place­ment on Wash­ing­ton State Fer­ries and Ken­more Air.
• Expand pro­mo­tion of car-free trav­el options (i.e., shut­tles, bike rentals, etc.) to help reduce traf­fic and park­ing issues.
• Col­lab­o­rate with Parks, the Land Bank, and Preser­va­tion Trust to cre­ate an all-islands parks map with trails, bike racks, park­ing, acces­si­bil­i­ty, etc., and con­tent about best vis­i­ta­tion prac­tices (i.e., leave no trace).
• Col­lab­o­rate with the Coun­ty, Plas­tic Free Sal­ish Sea, and island recy­cling ser­vices to cre­ate effec­tive mes­sag­ing about reduc­ing waste, plas­tics, ‘wish­ful’ recy­cling, etc.

The Sus­tain­able Tourism Man­age­ment Plan com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings process will address these and oth­er issues raised like hous­ing, vaca­tion rentals, and labor. This process, now under­way, will out­line the shared com­mu­ni­ty vision, goals, and imple­men­ta­tion mea­sures to dri­ve sus­tain­able tourism in the San Juan Islands.

Com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion is essen­tial for a robust dia­logue regard­ing ways to thought­ful­ly guide tourism as we bal­ance our dynam­ic tourism econ­o­my with the qual­i­ty of our envi­ron­ment, qual­i­ty of res­i­dent life, and qual­i­ty vis­i­tor edu­ca­tion and expe­ri­ences. Vis­i­tors Bureau board and staff have advo­cat­ed for this plan for ten years and applied for the lodg­ing tax grant that is fund­ing the con­sul­tants and plan­ning process. Find out more and RSVP for pub­lic Zoom meet­ings dur­ing the weeks of May 9 and 16 at www.sjctourism.com

Wolf Hol­low Wildlife Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter shares some advice about how to help fawns on the island this spring.

There may be few­er deer in the San Juans than last year, but quite a few fawns will still be born in the next few weeks. You may come across a tiny fawn curled up in the grass in your yard or hid­den under a bush when you walk in the woods. It will prob­a­bly be all on its own with no mom in sight, but that’s per­fect­ly normal.

If you find a fawn, the best thing to do is qui­et­ly move away and leave it in peace so its mom can return lat­er. Please don’t get close or touch the fawn.

For the first cou­ple of weeks, a fawn’s legs are too weak to fol­low mom through the woods, so its job is to lie still and qui­et, cam­ou­flaged by its spot­ted coat. Mom may leave for six to eight hours before return­ing to feed her fawn and per­haps move it to a dif­fer­ent spot near­by. By the time they are about three weeks old, their legs are stronger, and they can trav­el longer dis­tances, but fawns are still not as fast as mom. This means they are vul­ner­a­ble, not only to nat­ur­al preda­tors but also to our dogs, so this is an espe­cial­ly good time to keep your dog under con­trol and not let it run loose.

You may occa­sion­al­ly find a tiny fawn lying curled up in the mid­dle of the road. This usu­al­ly hap­pens when a new fawn is slow­ly fol­low­ing mom across the hard sur­face and a car sud­den­ly appears. Mom leaps off into the bush­es and the fawn instinc­tive­ly drops to the ground and freezes. If the fawn is unhurt, slide your hand under its bel­ly, gen­tly car­ry it a few feet off the side of the road and leave it in a safe, shel­tered spot. Mom is prob­a­bly near­by, wait­ing for you to leave so she can return for her baby.

If you are con­cerned that a fawn may be injured or sep­a­rat­ed from mom, please call Wolf Hol­low Wildlife Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter at 360–378-5000. We’d be hap­py to help you work out what’s going on or bring the young­ster in for care if it tru­ly needs help.

• Some time today M/V Yaki­ma will be towed to the Dako­ta Creek ship­yard in Ana­cortes, where crews will work to repair dam­age sus­tained when the Yaki­ma’s anchor unex­pect­ed­ly deployed ear­li­er this week. The ves­sel is expect­ed to be replaced some time this after­noon by M/V Kalee­tan, which must first be repo­si­tioned from the Edmonds-Kingston route.
• The peak sea­son sur­charge for sin­gle vehi­cle fares starts on Sun­day and runs through Sept. 30. Pas­sen­ger fares and mul­ti-ride tick­ets are not sub­ject to peak sea­son charges.
• High school base­ball cruised to an easy win at Con­crete on Fri­day, knock­ing off the Lions 16–1. The Wolver­ines close out their reg­u­lar sea­son with three games next week, includ­ing a dou­ble­head­er at home against LaCon­ner on Tues­day and a road game at Orcas Island on Thursday.
• Here’s the line­up for today’s farm­ers mar­ket, which runs from 9:30 a.m to 1 p.m.
• Camas Designs is hold­ing a Flow­ers for Fire Relief flo­ral sale to ben­e­fit Crows Nest Cof­fee’s fire relief fund. It takes place today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Mike’s Cafe and Wine Bar.
• Core Fit­ness is host­ing an open house today from noon to 2 p.m. at 777 Mullis Street, across the park­ing lot from Bak­ery San Juan and the Food Co-op. You can enter to win a 30-day unlim­it­ed group class membership.
• St. David’s Epis­co­pal Church is host­ing a free con­cert tomor­row fea­tur­ing works from C.P.E. Bach, Gio­van­ni Per­golisi and Richard Lind. Any pro­ceeds from dona­tions at the door will be giv­en to the Fri­day Har­bor Food Bank and the Fam­i­ly Resource Center.
• The San Juan Island Gar­den Club meets on Tues­day at the Mullis Cen­ter at 1 p.m. This mon­th’s fea­tured speak­er is Kari Kos­ki of Kar­i’s Island Elixirs.

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

On Sun­day, May 8, the San Juan Island Yacht Club will ring in the new boat­ing sea­son by host­ing an open­ing day boat parade and Moth­er’s Day brunch. Both events are open to the community.

“Our theme is Back to the Future and we see the event as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to come togeth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty as in days past,” says SJIYC Fleet Cap­tain Glen Margolis.

The event kicks off with brunch from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the San Juan Island Yacht Club, locat­ed just above the mari­na. Ves­sels will gath­er for the parade around 2 p.m. at Ship­yard Cove. The parade itself will kick off some time around 2:30 p.m., fol­low­ing the fer­ry departure.

Brunch tick­ets are $20 and can be pur­chased online or at the club. There’s no cost to take part in the parade, but advance reg­is­tra­tion is required.