Orcas Island – Cantwell's Reef

Cypress Island as seen from our Mount Pickett hike on Thanksgiving morning.

I’M LOVING THESE ISLANDS ever more as I get to know each from the land side rather than just from the water. And as I get to know more of the people.

For decades, my family and I toured on our sailboat every summer throughout the San Juans. We had a rule that every year we must discover at least one new scenic anchorage or hidden cove.

We saw a lot of the islands. But we didn’t meet a lot of the locals that way.

Two things have changed: (1) I live here full-time now and naturally have more chances to hop a ferry with my pickup or bicycle to visit other islands , and (2) My new gig as a tour leader with Road Scholar has rapidly introduced me to more people and places all over the archipelago. For example, while I’d visited the Sunnyfield Farm goat farm on Lopez Island several times before, this past summer I accompanied a Road Scholar group there for a guided tour by Andre, the farm owner and head cheesemaker, whom I’d previously only said hello to in passing. When I took a friend there later in the summer, Andre remembered me. Likewise, I’m now on a first-name basis with Kevin Loftus, the San Juan Historical Museum’s jovial director, a fount of knowledge about these islands. And so on.

I’ve also made a bunch of new local friends who work as guides for Road Scholar.

Orcas Island’s Odd Fellows Hall dates to 1891.

This Thanksgiving reinforced my feelings for other islands, each with their own character, when I spent the holiday with my friend Tom on Orcas Island.

At his suggestion, we joined the free community potluck at the 134-year-old Odd Fellows Hall overlooking the water in Eastsound. Organized by the Odd Fellows and with donated turkey and trimmings, it was open to all islanders as well as visitors, and they got a capacity crowd. I’d guess 200 people shared in the camaraderie and good food. Supplementing the usual fare, everybody brought their favorite holiday dish, from quinoa with salmon to old-fashioned mac ‘n cheese. Pumpkin pies, apple pies and flans! We shared a table with a local mom, Allison, her two teenage sons, and a friendly couple visiting from Tacoma. One of the best-organized volunteer events I’ve ever attended, it further warmed me to Orcas Island and its residents.

Before the feast, Tom and I started our visit with a luxuriant soak in the communal waterfront hot tubs at venerable Doe Bay Resort, about a mile from the cabin he shares with an orange cat named Boxer. We shared the tubs with a local man’s birthday party! We also stopped for coffee at the beautifully renovated Olga Store and toured the Orcas Island Artworks cooperative, housed in a historical strawberry-packing plant at the Olga crossroads. The island nurtures artists working in every medium.

My friend’s Orcas Island cabin, which he has dubbed Belly Acres.

On drizzly Thanksgiving morning, we set out on foot to explore the side of 1,750-foot Mount Pickett in a far-flung corner of Moran State Park. Our trail meandered past more than one monumental old-growth Douglas fir. Not another human to be seen.

Friday afternoon I boarded a homeward-bound water taxi from Obstruction Pass Public Dock for a 20-minute ride back to Center Island.

You may have read previously of my plans to exit these islands. Now, feeling more and more like an at-home San Juanderer, I’m in no hurry to go.

After Christmas with my daughter and her partner on Center Island, I have plans to spend New Years with friends in Friday Harbor, tentatively to include the annual New Year’s Morning bike ride, another fun community event organized by friendly islanders.

Happy holidays, friends near and far.

A February squall brings surf in to Orcas Island’s Crescent Beach. A squall of political resistance might come to these islands as well.

IN THESE CHAOTIC POLITICAL TIMES, change is to be expected. It looks like the change for me on my little island means, ironically, no change. For now.

Following November’s presidential election, I announced that I would relocate to Olympia to become an activist in support of the United States Constitution in a power-center of Blue America.

That was then. Now, with the red-hatted D.C. wrecking crew carelessly trashing our federal government with shocking speed, and with their brazen talk about gutting Social Security, Medicare and other social programs upon which retirees like me depend, I can’t see my way to relocate.

I’m not inclined to move to low-rent Arkansas or Mississippi. And as long as I stay in the high-rent Pacific Northwest of my birth, any move would mean more costs. If the economy remained as robust as it was under Joe Biden, I might have made that work. But with the new guard on a bender to destroy the world’s faith in the United States, our promises and our dollar, I suspect they will trigger the second Great Depression before all is said and done. I’m putting my head down, sheltering in place and hoping to ride it out on my remote island.

I may be down, but I’m not out. My new mantra: Support my local community — my island and all of the San Juans — like never before. We all must stick together to weather the political storm of our lifetime.

I’ve started preaching that gospel. On a just-completed five-day visit with friends in Friday Harbor and on Orcas Island, I chatted it up with people I met along the way. Simply talking to strangers and newly minted friends about the national tensions we face together and the need to unite in our own towns formed an immediate bond. Such bonds can help build stronger communities, with citizens who can stand up to this attack on the traditional American values of equality, democracy and the rule of law. I’m sure of it.

As federal support vanishes, supporting local arts can be an important part of community bonding. I had a happy taste of that in Friday Harbor when I accompanied my chum Barbara Marrett and two of her friends to a performance of the play “Art” at San Juan Community Theatre. The San Juan Islands Museum of Art, the production’s co-sponsor, hosted an after-theater reception with wine and platters of fresh Westcott Bay oysters.

San Juan Island artist Aimee Dieterle’s acrylic painting of Mount Rainier is part of the current exhibition, concluding this weekend, at San Juan Islands Museum of Art.

The director and actors from the play were at the reception to answer questions, and those in attendance got a free viewing of the museum’s current exhibition of the works of more than 100 San Juan Islands artists. One of my favorites was a wall-mounted sculpture of an octopus, its suckers represented by the caps of real acorns, with outer skin constructed of thousands of tiny seed leaflets from Douglas fir cones. The unique media lent an unmatchable texture and natural color to an artwork representative of the rich vein of local talent.

At the art museum, as I made new island friends, I talked up the need for community unity. I felt like a socio-political Johnny Appleseed, sowing resistance one person at a time. The next day, about 75 islanders gathered outside the Friday Harbor Courthouse to join in the national “Not My Presidents Day” protest. I’d have joined in, but didn’t hear about it in time. Maybe we’ll all find each other eventually!

My new whim didn’t end there. On Orcas Island, my friend Tom Willard and I scrapped our Tuesday plans to lunch at a fancy restaurant in Eastsound. In the spirit of community-boosting, we instead went to the Orcas Island Community Foundation’s weekly free lunch, cooked and served by volunteers in the basement of Orcas Island Community Church.

The recently renovated and reopened Olga Store, a project of dedicated Orcas Island residents, is an example of what a strong community can accomplish.

Just revived after a COVID-related hiatus, the community lunch on Orcas has long been promoted as open to all, not just for senior citizens or the needy. A Facebook promo describes it as “an opportunity to build connections and nurture the feeling of community and belonging.” Perfect for these times. We ate hearty split-pea soup, salad and the best whole-grain crusty bread I’ve chewed in a long time. At a shared table, we made a lovely new friend, Sadie, who agreed that we all need to stick together. Simply lunching with other islanders of every ilk in a church hall felt like an act of resistance and unity. A year ago I’d have gone to that fancy restaurant. Maybe I can volunteer to cook and serve next time.

When the time comes for a Twenty-Million-Person March on Washington, D.C., I’ll get my plane ticket. Until then, I’m taking small steps, working on local connections.