The San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century

Join us for a presentation by author JoAnn Roe

When: Thursday, April 11, 2013
Where: Whatcom Museum Rotunda Room 121 Prospect St.
Free and open to all

What’s it all about? The San Juan Islands

The 172 San Juan Islands of Washington State are the uppermost remains of a mountain range that once separated the fifty miles between Vancouver Island and mainland Washington. Its valleys today are saltwater channels and open waters that seamlessly melt into the Canadian Gulf Islands and the Inside Passage to Alaska. Some forested mountains soar skyward to 2,409 feet with their bases plunging underwater to great depths. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany negotiated a boundary agreement between Britain and the United States in 1872, after a period called the “Pig War,” about which much has been written.

From a fifty-year resident’s viewpoint, The San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century examines this remote yet oft-visited northwest corner of Washington State. The author tells of farming lavender rather than wheat and alpacas rather than cattle; of inter-island boats and barges that still fight stormy seas and riptide; of the development of reliable medical care only during the 1950s; of the emphasis today on sensible land management, the orca whales that are native to the area, and the former and current island people.

JoAnn Roe explores both the history and the present of this unique and alluring region. Roe traces the challenging task of bringing electrical power to the islands by Opalco, a possible “first.”