San Juan Island

September 18, 2021
Owl Feather Farm, San Juan Island

Where is San Juan Island?

    San Juan Island is the main island in its eponymous chain. San Juan holds the county seat, Friday Harbor, and is just 5 miles from Canada’s Vancouver Island and is a pastoral landscape with hay meadows, cattle farms, small mountains, numerous lakes and ponds, and many miles of the rare (and endangered) Garry oak savanna habitat.

    The island has about 7,000 full-time residents, grocery stores, gas, and a small hospital. Travel to the island is by Washington State Ferry service, with 6-10 sailings a day, depending on the season; or by scheduled service from Seattle’s Boeing Field to Friday Harbor Airport on Kenmore Air; or by floatplane service from downtown Seattle, also on Kenmore. For more information: visitsanjuans.com.

Picture from above of San Juan Island with the forest and the mountains behind it

What is the history of San Juan Island and the Pig War?

    San Juan Island National Historical Park has two large scenic parcels on the island that comprise a park devoted to the 19th century “Pig War”. This was the first time in history that an international conflict was settled by arbitration rather than gunfire. When a settler’s pig was shot in 1859, American and British troops occupied separate ends of the island. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany adjudicated the ownership dispute in 1872, awarding the island to the US. Visit nps.gov/sajh for more information.

What is the Salish Sea?

    Though most maps call it “Puget Sound,” the waters surrounding San Juan Island—and just a few hundred yards from Owl Feather Farm—actually comprise a large and complicated marine waterway whose name, the Salish Sea, honors the area’s original inhabitants. Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Georgia Strait are the major geographic divisions. The Salish people have made this their homeland for 10,000 years. 

    The Salish Sea is populated by dozens of marine animals including seals, sea lions, porpoises, octopus, salmon, and our famous whales. The Southern resident orcas, which are among the best-known cetaceans on Earth, are often seen from San Juan Island’s southwest shore—and are critically endangered because of human degradation of their habitat and the salmon runs they need to survive. Humpbacks, gray and fin whales are occasionally seen as well.

-Eric Lucas

San Juan Island

more articles