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EspañolSAN JUAN ISLANDS
Location of the San Juan Islands
Major islands in the San Juans. Those served by the state ferries are San Juan Island, Orcas Island, Shaw Island and Lopez Island.
The 'San Juan Islands' are a part of the San Juan Archipelago in the northwest corner of the continental United States. The archipelago is split into two groups of islands based on national sovereignty. San Juan Islands are part of the U.S. state of Washington, while the Gulf Islands are part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. There are over 450 islands in the entire archipelago at high tide, but fewer than one-sixth are inhabited, and only six are accessible by public ferry.
| Contents |
| History |
| San Juan Islands today |
| Transportation |
| The San Juan Islands |
| References |
| External links |
History
The islands were part of the traditional area of the Central Coast Salish.
Linguistically, the Central Coast Salish consisted of five groups: Squamish, Halkomelem, Nooksack, Northern Straits (which includes the Lummi dialect), and Klallam. Exploration and settlement by Europeans brought smallpox to the area by the 1770s. In 1843, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Camosun at nearby Vancouver Island.
The 1846 Oregon Treaty forced by President Polk established the 49th parallel as the boundary between Canada and the U.S., except in the San Juan archipelago. While both sides agreed that all of Vancouver Island would remain British, the treaty wording was left vague enough as to put the boundary between modern-day Gulf Islands and San Juan Islands in dispute. Conflicts over this border led to the Pig War in 1859. Skirmishes continued until the boundary issue was eventually placed in the hands of Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany for arbitration. The border was finally established in 1872.
The name "San Juan" was given to the San Juan Islands by the Spanish explorer Francisco de Eliza, who charted the islands in 1791, naming them ''Isla y Archiepelago de San Juan''. The expedition sailed under the authority of the Viceroy of Mexico, Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo and Eliza named several places for him, including the San Juan Islands and Orcas Island (short for "Horcasitas"). San Juan Island itself was first discovered (by a European) by one of the officers under Eliza's command, Gonzalo López de Haro (for whom Haro Strait is named). Subsequent explorations of the region by the British, under George Vancouver, and the Americans, under Charles Wilkes, resulted in many of the Spanish names being replaced with English ones. Vancouver's expedition occurred within a year of Eliza's, and Vancouver encountered other Spanish ships and traded information. Thus Vancouver knew of the names given by Eliza's expedition and tended to keep them, although he renamed some things, like the Strait of Georgia. Wilkes, sailing in 1841, had some British charts, but may not have been aware of the Spanish names and charts. He liberally gave new names to nearly every coastal feature not already named on the charts he had. The names Wilkes gave tended to be patriotically American (heroes of the War of 1812 for example), or to honor members of his crew. In 1847, due to the confusion of multiple names on different charts, the British Admiralty reorganized the official charts of the region. The project, led by Henry Kellett, applied only to British territory, which at the time included the San Juan Islands but not Puget Sound. Kellett systematically kept the British and Spanish names and removed nearly all of Wilkes' names. In some cases Kellett moved Spanish names around to replace names given by Wilkes. Thus in Puget Sound itself, the names given by Wilkes are common and Spanish names rare, while the reverse is true for the San Juan and Gulf Islands (although the Spanish did not explore Puget Sound as thoroughly as the British and Americans, resulting in fewer Spanish names to start with). Wilkes had given the name ''Navy Archipelago'' to the San Juan Islands, and named individual islands for distinguished officers of the US Navy, such as ''Rodgers Island'' for San Juan Island, and ''Hull Island'' for Orcas Island. Some of his names survived the editing of Kellett, such as Chauncey, Shaw, Decatur, Jones, Blakely, Perry, Sinclair, Lawrence, Gordon, and Percival, all named after American naval officers.[1]
San Juan Islands today
One of the San Juan Islands at Night
Today, the
San Juan Islands are an important tourist destination, with sea kayaking and orca-watching two of the primary attractions. Part of the charm that attracts tourists and residents to the San Juan Islands is that each island seems to have a character of its own, both in terms of geography and of the lifestyle of the people who live there.
Politically, the bulk of the San Juan Islands make up San Juan County, Washington, though some of the furthest east of the islands are in the mainland counties of Whatcom and Skagit, including Lummi, Guemes, Fidalgo, and Cypress Islands.
The majority of the San Juan Islands are quite hilly, the tallest mountain being Mount Constitution at almost exactly a half-mile (800 m) elevation (see Orcas Island), with some flat areas and valleys, often quite fertile, in between. The coastlines are a mixed bag of sandy and rocky beaches, shallow and deep harbors, placid and reef-studded bays. Gnarled, ochre-colored madrona trees grace much of the shorelines while evergreen fir and pine forests cover large inland areas.
The San Juan Islands get less rainfall than Seattle, about 65 miles (100 km) to the south, due to the rain shadow of Olympic Mountains to the southwest. Summertime high temperatures are around 70 °F (21 °C) while average wintertime lows are in the high thirties and low forties. Snow is infrequent in winter except for the higher elevations, but the islands are subject to high winds at times—those from the northeast sometimes bring brief periods of freezing and Arctic-like windchills.
Beginning in about 1900 the San Juan Islands became infested with European rabbits, an exotic invasive species, as the result of the release of domestic rabbits on Smith Island. Rabbits from the San Juan Islands were used later for several introductions of European rabbits into other, usually midwestern, states.
Transportation
One of the smaller ferries serving the islands
Three ferry systems serve some of the San Juan Islands.
★ The 'Washington State Ferries' system serves Lopez Island, Shaw Island, Orcas Island, and San Juan Island (typically in that order), from a dock in Anacortes.
★ Skagit County serves Guemes Island, also from a dock in Anacortes
★ Whatcom County serves Lummi Island, from a dock on the Lummi Indian Reservation.
The San Juan Islands
References
1. Washington State Place Names, , James W., Phillips, University of Washington Press, 1971,
External links
★ San Juan Islands Washington
★ San Juan Islands Emergency Medical Services
★ San Juan Islands Ferry Schedule — Anacortes / San Juan Islands Ferry Schedules, Anacortes / Sidney BC (Victoria BC) Ferry Schedule, Visitor Information
★ San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau — San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau official tourist information
★ San Juan Island Update — San Juan Island News and Information.
★ San Juan Island Web Directory — San Juan Island Information for locals and visitors.
★ San Juan Islands Directory — San Juan Islands Visitor Information, Pictures and Maps.
★ ''San Juan Journal'' — local newspaper
★ ''The Island Guardian'' — local on-line newspaper
★ Pacific Northwest Marine Activities Association — a group of independent tour operators working in and around the San Juan Islands
★ Google Maps Satellite view of the San Juan Islands
★ Virtual tour of the San Juan Islands
★ High Quality Interactive Map of the San Juan Islands
★ Live images of the San Juan Islands
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