In Washington State's San Juan Islands, Time Stands Still and Nature Reigns Supreme
On a still summer morning on Washington State’s Orcas Island, I rented a pair of tandem kayaks from a sleepy-eyed, flaxen-haired attendant barely out of her teens, who quickly returned to painting watercolors in the tall grass beside the weather-beaten sales kiosk. A gentle wind went shhh through tall hemlocks as my family paddled, two by two, to a rocky islet at the center of Mountain Lake, on the flank of Mount Constitution. There we clambered ashore, and the kids, Agnes and Rex, immediately began darting among the lodgepole pines, collecting sticks and pine cones to build fairy houses. Aside from the faint smell of a forest fire burning in the Cascades and a smudge of smoke on the eastern sky, it could have been a scene from my own childhood.
Aboard the ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor
The Sugar Shack, an ice cream shop beside Cascade Lake on Orcas Island
When I was eight years old, my mother moved my three younger brothers and me to Anacortes, a small island town about two hours north of Seattle. It is the gateway to the San Juan Islands, an archipelago within the Puget Sound and the broader Salish Sea, which divides Washington State from Canada. As an underemployed single mom to four young boys, she needed inexpensive outlets for our considerable energy. Taking our bikes onto the ferry and spending the day in the San Juans was an ideal solution. Certain activities here—huddling inside beach forts assembled out of bleached driftwood, waving at cars while cycling along the agricultural back roads of Lopez Island, watching from the second deck for the underwater “burp” of the ferry as it departs a port—are woven into the helices of my DNA. But I hadn’t been in more than two decades. So I booked a trip, to show the islands to my kids, to reconnect with them as an adult, and perhaps to have a few experiences that were out of reach for me as a child. As an added bonus, my mom came along too.
We posted up in a cozy log cabin at Lakedale lodge, a rustic mini kingdom on the island of San Juan, about 10 minutes from the main town of Friday Harbor. To enter, you cross a small causeway—the compound is an island within the island. Karl Bruno, Lakedale’s well-seasoned general manager, told me that its founders were pond builders, who in the late ’60s convinced the county to raise the road so that they could create the three lakes around which the resort is now arranged. For a generation it was a campground only, but today there are yurts and canvas cottages in addition to the cabins and tranquil main lodge. Families come back every summer to play life-size checkers and chess, construct birdhouses, and fish in the lakes for cutthroat trout. Sometimes the kids return as grown-ups to have weddings here.
Morning on the sound with Western Prince Whale Watching Adventures
A guest at Lakedale lodge ready to go fishing
Friday Harbor, a charming village that spills up a steep hill from the ferry terminal, looked just as it had 35 years ago, though I suspect that when I was little, the cafés were less chic and the sandwich shops not quite so artisanal. Certainly, the San Juans today have more private islands owned by tech billionaires and more boho big-city refugees, many of whom arrived during the pandemic, than they once did, but this is a place whose residents like things to stay as they are. At Vic’s Drive-In, a classic diner on the outskirts of Friday Harbor that claims to be the island’s longest continuously operating restaurant, co-owner Brian Carlson, a predecessor of Karl Bruno at Lakedale, tells me about the outrage when a previous owner tried to change the name to Vic’s Driftwood Drive-in. Why? “Because it’s Vic’s, and people in Friday Harbor hate change.” Driving through the woods of Orcas, I kept noticing signage that felt as if it could have been there 50 years ago: “American Legion Sunday Morning Pancake Breakfast”; “Orcas Island Jazz Festival”; “Indralaya, a Theosophical Society.” And, nailed to a telephone pole by a driftwood-strewn beach near the charming town of Eastsound: “Be Kind.”
But what most teleported me back to childhood was the San Juans’ eternal landscape, especially its shorelines. On the other side of San Juan Island at Lime Kiln Point, one of the area’s best places to spot whales, the kids and I clambered around the igneous rock formations splayed beneath the quaint 106-year-old Lime Kiln Lighthouse, marveling at the tenacity of the madrones that clung to them. Across the Strait of Juan de Fuca we could see the Olympic Peninsula, indistinct in the haze of the wildfires. If the day had been clear, I knew from memory, we would have been able to see Mount Rainier seeming to float on the southern horizon. On the Shark Reef Sanctuary Trail on sleepy Lopez, we emerged from old-growth fir trees to traipse along the bluffs, looking for crabs in tide pools, marveling at the countless barnacles, and observing a colony of sea lions sunning themselves on a rocky outcropping a few hundred feet offshore.
A canvas cottage at Lakedale on San Juan Island
Alpacas at Krystal Acres Alpaca Farm on San Juan Island
Later that day we went to Spencer Spit, where a sandy beach separates a quiet saltwater lagoon from the sound. Well-fed clouds, almost too substantial to be believed, floated above islands carpeted with evergreens, cheerful sailboats, and a poky ferry slowly gliding along the navy blue waters. My kids found a driftwood fort taller than me, with a plank you could move aside affixed with a sheet of paper that was labeled “Door.” They quickly joined forces with siblings from Oregon and embarked on an ambitious series of home improvements: patching up holes, putting in furniture, erecting a seaweed flag. There was already a lump rising in my throat when my mother turned to me and asked, “Does this remind you a lot of childhood afternoons?”
* * *
Something I never got to do as a kid was eat at nice restaurants, and there are so many on these islands that make ingenious use of the region’s beautiful ingredients. Perhaps our favorite meal was at Buck Bay Shellfish Farm on Orcas, where we ate oysters on the half shell and seafood rolls artfully adorned with edible flowers at a picnic table steps from the bay where the restaurant grows its own crustaceans. Chi, my wife, trapped the persistent yellow jackets under spent oyster shells until a waiter arrived with lavender oil and instructed us to apply it to our wrists to ward off the insects.
I definitely never got to go on a whale-watching tour, so I booked one with Western Prince Whale Watching Adventures. Ivan Reiff, its owner and captain, bought the business more than two decades ago, motivated by a desire to escape the rat race and make a living on the water. Our guide was Katie Jones, a veteran naturalist who also works at the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor. “I’m going to stick my neck out and say orcas are some of the most social animals on the planet,” she said. “More social even than we are.” Before long, we found a pair: Sprinter, a 20-year-old adult male, and Esperanza, born in the 1960s and presumed to be Sprinter’s grandmother. We followed them for 45 minutes as they cruised along, hunting harbor seals near a rocky outcropping covered with cormorants and other nesting birds. The sharp black triangles of their dorsal fins felt like the yin to the yang of the white sails dotting the sound.
The porch of the Outlook Inn in the village of Eastsound, on Orcas Island
Inside a log cabin at Lakedale
We ventured briefly into Canadian waters, then passed Turn Point Light Station, atop the striated sandstone walls of Stuart Island. The depth of the sound here reaches 1,300 feet. These islands, Katie observed, are just the tops of the mountains; their southern sides are often barren because of the movement of the glaciers which carved out the Salish Sea 10,000 years ago. In the place where our boat was, there once would have been a mile of ice above our heads. I realized right then that even if I’d had no childhood connection to the San Juans, I still would have found visiting them as an adult to be astonishing.
The feeling of wonder continued that evening, when Chi and I left the kids with my mom and ventured out onto the water at dusk with Discovery Sea Kayaks to experience the bioluminescent wonders of the noctiluca. This millimeter-long single-celled organism thrives in the deep, cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Salish Sea, especially during the long days of summer, which give it time to recharge. It operates according to circadian rhythms, growing brighter as the night goes on. Our guide was Kelly Yelverton, a Colorado native who’d been in the San Juans since 2010. She was assisted by Caleb Johnson, a native of Beaumont, Texas, who’d been traveling with his wife in a van for the past five years, doing seasonal work and hiking. They’d just been in Colorado for the wildflower season and planned to go next to North Dakota to work a beet harvest. “We just work different gigs and try to spend as much time outside as we can,” he told me.
As the sky darkened, the water began to glitter. There are many things you can do with a paddle to create different patterns, but my favorite was plunging it in vertically and watching plumes of dense sparkles emanate from the shaft. I felt like Poseidon. We paddled to dark waters near the privately owned Dinner Island, where two gorgeous modernist homes sat. There the water was so full of light it was as if we’d entered another world. We saw flashes as fish passed beneath our kayaks, then a bright column that rose to the surface. It was a harbor seal cavorting around us. Rain fell for a few minutes; each drop transformed into light as it hit the water.
A view of the inlet from the village of Eastsound
Buck Bay Shellfish Company, on Orcas Island
The scent of rain lingered as we paddled back. Kelly told us about being out with guests during the Perseid meteor shower, the drama downstairs matched by the fireworks above. “There were a lot of sore necks,” she recalled. Before we wrapped up, she took us to a secluded cove and pointed out the house where Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics legend, had once lived. “I like to think,” she said, “that walking this land gave him the inspiration for some of the superheroes he created.”
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Besides the summer wildfires and ubiquitous burn bans, the biggest change I observed in the San Juans was to the ferry system. Actually, the ferries themselves—battered, hulking brutes, some dating to the Johnson administration, that glide ploddingly along the Puget Sound, their white masses contrasting with the blues and greens of the landscape—have scarcely changed at all. But the system, the largest in America, has grown increasingly decrepit and unreliable. “I’ve exhausted myself reaching out to our senators and congresspeople, telling them, ‘We have a problem here,’ ” Karl Bruno told me. “But it’s hard to get noticed.”
The system had been strained for years due to defunding of the Washington Department of Transportation and mandatory ship retirements, but worker attrition during the pandemic made things worse. And yet one could argue that there is a silver lining in all of this. The islands’ inaccessibility has always been central to their charm, and a reason for their relative imperviousness to change. If you made the fleet bigger and faster, would the San Juans still be the San Juans? This is a place that is made for slowing down, getting away from it all, savoring the simple pleasures, having nowhere to be anytime soon. And we need these kinds of places more than ever these days.
After our last ferry ride, my family spent a few hours on Fidalgo Island, where my childhood hometown of Anacortes is located. We walked across Deception Pass Bridge, the magnificent set of cantilevered spans that soars over the strait separating Fidalgo from Whidbey Island, before heading down to Bowman Bay, where my mom said I’d kayaked for the first time, to stroll along one more rocky beach before driving to Seattle. My children swung pieces of bullwhip kelp that had washed ashore and discovered another driftwood assemblage, for which they began constructing an addition. You can find the best, perfectly round, flat skipping stones on these beaches, so we collected a bunch and I schooled them on technique. The sun was setting as I maneuvered the car out of the parking lot, feeling grateful that this northwestern corner of Washington is still a place that fresh generations of children come to, instantly make new best friends, and set about the important work of building forts and fairy houses.
A driftwood fort on South Beach, on San Juan Island, looking out at the Strait of Juan de Fuca
Goods for sale at the Market Chef
Where to stay
San Juan Island
Lakedale, 10 minutes from Friday Harbor, has grown up from its ’60s roots as a hippie campground. Families love the log cabins, canvas cottages, and yurts with Scandi-style interiors; the tranquil main lodge is adults-only. From playing life-size chess and tie-dyeing T-shirts in the activity tent to pop-up concerts at the edge of the lake, there is no shortage of fun things to do on-site.
Orcas Island
The Outlook Inn with 40 bright guest rooms has lived many lives since it was a general store in the 1890s, but one thing that has never changed is its great location. A prime address on Main Street in Eastsound puts it about 15 minutes from both the ferry landing and Moran State Park and a short walk from the town’s finest shops and restaurants, with amazing views of Fishing Bay.
Multiple islands
For large groups, travelers seeking extra space (bikes and kayaks take up lots of room), or gourmands wanting to prepare their own alfresco feasts using the area’s amazing summer bounty, a rental house is a great way to go. Northwest Island Escapes, a locally owned and staffed management company, has the San Juans’ largest selection, with marvelous properties on Orcas, San Juan, and Lopez.
The house salad at Coho, a restaurant in Friday Harbor
A server at the Market Chef, an artisanal sandwich shop and provisions store in Friday Harbor
Where to eat
San Juan Island
Start your day at Bakery San Juan with a cheese claw, a cinnamon roll, or a pain au levain batard that will bring a tear to your eye. It’s one of the finest bakeries you will ever patronize. No joke. Since 2019, chef Ryan Lockhart has helmed the kitchen of historic Craftsman Coho Restaurant near the Friday Harbor ferry landing, serving highly regarded dishes that elevate the local ingredients. Forest hideaway Duck Soup calls itself a country restaurant, which is borne out by the rustic environs. But its artfully plated dishes, which interpret the Pacific Northwest through a global lens, will appeal to gourmands.
Orcas Island
Beat the crowds that gather early on the porch of Eastsound favorite Brown Bear Baking and score a flaky kouign-amann and a morning bun. One of the most pleasant eateries in all the islands, Buck Bay Shellfish Farm offers a seafood-heavy menu (halibut ceviche, salmon sliders), tasty Washington wines, and a lovely alfresco setting. Located on the edge of Eastsound, Houlme serves inventive pizzas, Mediterranean-tinged small plates, and natural wines in its dining room or backyard.
Surrounded by heirloom plum orchards, the restaurant with water views at 1869 farmhouse Inn at Ship Bay sources as much as it can from Orcas—including the lamb it serves with quince grown on-site. While not fussy, it’s about as fancy as the island gets. After a hike in Moran State Park, stop at Sugar Shack for tasty waffle cones from Lopez Island Creamery—the fruit flavors, like wild blackberry, are especially memorable.
Where to play
San Juan Island
One of most seasoned operators in the region, Discovery Sea Kayaks offers sunset and bioluminescent tours, half- and full-day paddles, and overnight experiences. If you’re traveling with kids, stop by The Farm at Krystal Acres, a 40-acre family-run on the west side of the island to feed the fleecy critters, then hit the shop to purchase alpaca socks, beanies, yarn, and more. Lime Kiln Point State Park, on the western edge of San Juan, is one of the best places on Earth to watch whales from land and an example of the numerous great state parks in this part of Washington.
In addition to orcas, you may see migrating baleen whales, not to mention seals and sea lions, bald eagles, and more, in the company of warm and knowledgeable guides at Western Prince Whale Watching Adventures. What’s especially wonderful about The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor is the layered cultural history it tells about these remarkable mammals, as well as the intense pressures human activity has placed on them. Amazing for kids.
Orcas Island
Orcas’s best hiking and swimming can be found within 5,250-acre Moran State Park. There’s an easy 2.7 mile hike around Cascade Lake and pedal boats and SUPs to rent. A bit higher up, Mountain Lake has more challenging trails and kayaks. For panoramic views, head to the lookout tower at the summit of Mount Constitution. Master potter Jerry Weatherman has turned out stunning ceramics with island-inspired shapes and glazes at his studio and showroom, Olga Pottery, since 1979.
This article appeared in the May/June 2024 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.