A hitchhiker I picked up outside the ferry terminal on Orcas Island regaled me with tales of his adventurous life in the San Juan Islands. Apparently, he had been bopping around the various hamlets on Lopez and Orcas for the last year or so, seeking something he called “real community.”
Perhaps worried about sounding foolish, he didn’t fully expound this concept, but I gathered that by “real community,” he meant a place where everything is fully shared from each person to every other person and back again: property, wealth, emotions, attention—everything a human being can experience or have.
I asked the hitchhiker whether he’d found any such deep connections on Orcas Island. He said that although Orcas was “fertile ground” for such communities to emerge, he did not believe any yet had.
I encouraged him to visit the remote settlement of Rose Harbour in Haida Gwaii. There he might encounter something closer to what he seeks. Rose Harbour has at least the outward form of a “real community,” and perhaps that will be enough for him.
Even in Rose Harbour, land is still privately owned, workers still pay and are paid, and the inhabitants’ utopian lifestyle depends on a steady influx of tourist dollars. Given all that, I don’t know whether this young man would be happy there, but I thought he should give it a look. He did say he was eager to meet the famous Haida woodcarvers. He was a carver himself and was well acquainted with North Bay Forge, where my non-profit Habele used to get carving tools to send to Micronesia. I dropped him off in Eastsound Village with my best wishes.
Route map. The northern San Juans are some of the most attractive islands in the whole archipelago.
I was hoping to get the northern San Juans to myself by arriving during the workweek and after Labor Day. Alas, it was not to be. Sucia Island was crowded with fifty retirees’ boats, all but filling Echo Bay and Fossil Bay, where the nicest campsites are. Still, I found myself a quiet little hideaway in Snoring Bay and ended up having a great time hiking through some of the more remote trails.
View from North Beach north toward Sucia Island. Patos Island is visible on the far left.
Patos Island was a little more my speed. Only a few boaters visited the day I was there, and I was able to enjoy a little solitude even on the landing beach. There was an enormous flock of sparrows, perhaps a hundred or more, of all different species: savannah, golden-crowned, white-crowned, fox, song, Oregon junco, and spotted towhee, all foraging on the grass by the campground. There must have been some kind of delicious seed bonanza in progress to attract so many.
Paddling northwest toward Patos Island. On more than one past trip, President's Channel between Orcas and Patos has been too rough to cross. This time, it was glass.
The seabirds were the best part of the trip. I saw hundreds of common murres, mostly already in winter clothes, groaning and gronking in huge flocks near Patos. The marbeled murrelets were likewise clustered in close-knit, communal groups. As is their customary practice, they waited till I was quite close before they dived.
Rhinoceros auklets and pigeon guillemots were present only in small numbers, but that was still enough to round out the Big Four alcid species. There were no ancient murrelets yet; I suppose I was just a bit too early for these winter visitors.
The avian highlight of the trip was the masses of Pacific loons. This species is common on the swell-tossed waters of the open ocean but rather less common in the protected channels of the San Juan Islands. I was not expecting to see it on this trip. The first Pacific loon I saw surprised me so much I thought it was a common loon in some kind of weird transition plumage, but then another one flew past, and I had to acknowledge what I was seeing.
Shortly after this first encounter, not far from the north beach of Orcas Island, I ran into a flock of seventy Pacific Loons, bobbing along on the ebb tide without a care in the world. I doubt they’ll linger in these inland waters more than a day or two. What perfect timing I had to meet these unusual guests.
Sandstone shoreline of Patos Island. Low, pockmarked cliffs like these are found throughout the San Juans and Gulf Islands, as well as the nearby shores of eastern Vancouver Island and Chuckanut Bay.
Hiking on Patos Island. A loop trail leads around the western half of Patos Island.
Three Heerman’s gulls on Patos Island. Heerman's gulls are my favorite species of gull. What handsome red bills and black feet!
Heerman’s gull on Patos Island. The Heerman’s gull migrates “backward,” breeding in the southern part of its range then migrating north for its non-breeding season, which generally corresponds to our summer and fall.
Departing Patos Island under perfect blue skies. Some days, the water is so smooth you could almost lie on it.
I had a memorable bird experience in the last hour of the trip: I passed through a large flock of California and glaucous-winged gulls just as a school of bait fish broke the surface.
Instantly, the gulls sprang into action, wheeling and diving and keening like crazy all around me. Soon more gulls came to join the frenzy, then more and more until over a hundred were whirring about my head. Then common murres came, too, diving around the periphery of the scrum. Then cormorants came and formed an outer ring around the action, and then Pacific loons arrived to circle the farthest edges like distant comets orbiting a star. In the midst of the bait ball, harbor seals came surging up out the water, scattering gulls and murres in their frantic pursuit of food.
In just a couple minutes, it was all over, and I glided my way back to shore while the birds shook themselves off and gradually dispersed.
There’s never a bad time to visit the San Juans. When the weather’s nice, it’s a watery paradise. When the weather’s cold, it just means the clouds will be beautiful and the crowds sparse. Although no one would mistake the islands for a wilderness reserve, there’s never a dull moment when it comes to the bird action. A kayak, a sleeping bag, and a pair of binoculars, and the world of the San Juans is your oyster.
—Alex Sidles