Book Club

The Light Between Oceans

I’ve been wanting to visit a lighthouse with the book club for a while now, so in April we finally did it. We didn’t go to just any lighthouse, but particularly one on an island. Our book pick was The Light Between Oceans about a young couple who lives in a lighthouse on an island all to themselves. We ferried our way north to San Juan Island for a weekend of exploring, camping, and lighthouse visiting.

I brought my husband and daughter this time and Evie relished in the cold, salty wind of the Salish Sea on the deck of the ferry boat. She ran circles around the inside passenger area and made some new pint-sized friends. I was happy to greet some of the book club members and we got caught up as we soaked up the views.

Upon landing in Friday Harbor, we decided to head directly to the charming little Griffin Bay Bookstore. We could have spent all day in there browsing the books, but we tore ourselves away to visit the Farmers Market and get some grub. We packed up our food and books and headed out to English Camp for a picnic. It was a perfectly comfortable spring day and after our lunch we all unceremoniously lined up and laid down in the grass.

We lounged and chatted for a long while and then decided to head to the campground to get set up for the night. While we drove, we found an adorable alpaca farm and just had to stop. Evie loved the alpacas and we touched everything in the gift store with an “ahhh.” We met the rest of our group at the San Juan County Campground and lingered on the shoreline nearby after setting up camp. We made sweet potato tacos from the Feast by Firelight camp cookbook. They were SO GOOD. They were also super easy and this is definitely my new go-to camp recipe.

Rebecca brought her daughter who is seven years old. She shared her fuzzy slippers with Evie rendering the two girls inseparable. After dinner, we headed back down towards the shore for sunset. Evie painted watercolors with her new BFF and I brought out a special dessert surprise. It was an applesauce cake, an old favorite family recipe of mine, glazed and lit up with candles for my BFF, Laura’s, birthday. We sang to her and indulged in the cake while sipping wine and watching the gorgeous sunset.

Soon the darkness brought a chill to the air and we snuggled up with blankets around the campfire for our book chat. In the book, the lightkeeper and his wife find a washed up boat with a man and a baby inside. They discovered the man was dead, but the baby was still alive. After a recent miscarriage that was preceded by many before, the young woman decides to keep the baby as their own without telling anyone. Her husband, a law-abiding man, was deeply conflicted with the decision his wife made.

As you can imagine, there is little room for this story to end well. While the plot is heartbreaking, I really enjoyed the sense of living on a secluded island as a lightkeeper. San Juan Island is tiny, but it still holds the largest town of all the San Juans with enough to easily fill up our day with activities. It was hard to imagine being in their shoes, the only people for miles and miles.

For the first time he took in the scale of the view. Hundreds of feet above sea level, he was mesmerized by the drop to the ocean crashing against the cliffs directly below. The water sloshed like white paint, milky-thick, the foam occasionally scraped off long enough to reveal a deep blue undercoat. At the other end of the island, a row of immense boulders created a break against the surf and left the water inside it as calm as a bath. He had the impression he was hanging from the sky, not rising from the earth. Very slowly, he turned a full circle, taking in the nothingness of it all. It seemed his lungs could never be large enough to breathe in this much air, his eyes could never see this much space, nor could he hear the full extent of the rolling, roaring ocean. For the briefest moment, he had no edges.

M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

The next day we headed to Lime Kiln State Park to visit its lighthouse which dates back to 1919. A short loop trail takes you up to several old and deteriorating lime kilns from the 1920’s. This must have been a busy place back in the day. Evie picked up the green rocks and inspected them as we explored the kilns.

Evie walked all by herself most of the way with her new friend. When she tired and wanted me to hold her, fellow book club member Mala carefully chose a stick and gave it to her to use as a walking stick. Evie’s face lit up and she charged down the trail with her new stick. Mala’s wise motherly gesture was greatly appreciated. Evie even acquired a second stick that transformed her into a little hiking machine.

The trail traversed a spectacular forest with massive old growth madrona trees, the largest I’ve ever seen. The girls climbed on them and posed for pictures, happy as little clams. Soon we were at the end of the loop trail and near the lighthouse. It wasn’t open that day (tours run from mid-May to mid-September) but we poked around a bit.

We wandered along the shore and found a nice spot to share lunch. We lingered lazily and spotted a sea otter and a seal. Rebecca and I picked our way down the rocks to some tide pools with our girls. They loved bending over and getting their faces down close to the water. The longer we looked, the more life we found: anemones, urchins, hermit crabs, gooseneck mussels.

After much exploration we headed back to Friday Harbor to get our spots for the ferry boats. We met one last time for coffee (or tea), a bite, and one last little pop-in to the bookstore before making the long journey home.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Book Ends

Book Club Archive

Outdoor Life

Orcas Island Camping

Around the time Evie turned 5 months old, I was getting antsy. The weather was cool and drizzly and we hadn’t been getting out as much I’d like. My husband was out of town and there were just a few days when the weather would be nice. I thought it would be fun to take Evie on the ferry and camp on Orcas Island. And then I thought about how much effort that would require and it made me very tired. I took a nap instead.

The next morning I woke up feeling energized. I thought maybe I could pack everything and make it to Anacortes in time for the afternoon ferry. I went into turbo mode and ran around the house packing stuff like a madwoman. I put everything outside next to the car and then puzzled it all into the back of my little VW Golf. It was so much more than I’ve ever needed on a camping trip, but it all fit perfectly with no room to spare. Nali got the backseat next to Evie and we were off.

Leaving on a Sunday afternoon, we basically had the ferry to ourselves. I played it cool among the locals heading back to the island from Seattle. Evie watched out the big window to see islands floating by. We went outside to feel the rush of the wind from the upper deck. First ferry ride: check.

Once we got to Orcas I found a lovely and lonely campsite on Cascade Lake. I set up camp and put Evie in the bumbo which she loves. I sang head, shoulders, knees and toes to get her to smile as I reheated some leftovers for dinner. I have to say I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of bringing leftovers to eat while camping. Gotta celebrate the small victories.


Later, as the sun was beginning to go down, I packed up baby and dog and headed up the long windy road to the top of Mount Constitution. There was just one couple that pulled in ahead of me and a single deer. I exchanged pleasantries with the couple and the deer, and we watched the sun setting on the nearby islands.


It was a long night full of feeding Evie, making sure Evie was still alive, and wondering if Evie was warm enough. It was so calm outside with not even the faintest rustle of a breeze. So I was surprised when I heard a long vrooooom sound like a stealth airplane and then a minute later I heard a splash and a little screeching cry. Then dead silence. Literally. I sat straight up, eyes wide, and didn’t move for a long time. I was listening for a clue to what just happened and I thought to myself, dude, something just got murdered.


I racked my brain to think of what predators might live on the island. It had to be an owl right? Yeah, owl sounds right. But could it have been a bear? Definitely not a bear. A cougar? Maybe… No, cougars don’t live on the island. Do they? Was it a raccoon or a possum? I don’t think they are predators. It was definitely an owl. It had to be. Or could it have been a cougar? This cycle continued on until dawn.


Needless to say, Evie, Nali and I slept in that morning. When we (I) mustered up the energy, we headed to Turtleback Mountain for a hike. The trail starts on an old logging road through the forest. It felt good to be out, Evie in the carrier and Nali at my feet. Evie didn’t make a sound, she just looked up at the tall cedars and Douglas firs. It made me think of when I moved to Seattle and couldn’t believe that there were so many tall trees along the highway. I had never seen trees so tall in my life. This will be Evie’s normal.


The trail left the road and continued through a hardwood forest carpeted in green. It felt like we were in a fairy tale. We lingered at the summit watching hawks glide back and forth in front of us. It felt like we had the whole island to ourselves. After the hike I drove into town and we visited the Brown Bear Bakery for lunch and then browsed the books at the charming Darvill’s bookstore. I picked out a picture book about a girl and a whale for Evie to read when she gets older.

 


I wanted to take Evie to a beach so I drove out to Obstruction Pass. The tide was high and there was a small amount of rocky beach to explore. The sun was just beginning to get lower in the sky. The blue water sparkled and the madrona trees glowed orange in the sunlight. It was a beautiful day. When we got back to the campsite we watched the sunset on the lake while Evie sat in her bumbo smiling away while I sang. I slept good that night.

Hikes Featured in this Post:
Turtleback Mountain
Obstruction Pass

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Road Trip

San Juan Island

The first time I saw the San Juan Islands I was gazing down on them from above. I was in college and the plane was descending into Vancouver, British Columbia where I would spend the week working on airplanes for my summer internship. It was my first time on the west coast and I didn’t know anything about these islands except that they were beautiful from a certain altitude at sunset. I snapped a photo and didn’t think about it until years later after I had moved to Seattle and learned of the islands from a guide book. Last year my dog and I spent a weekend on San Juan Island. It turned out to be a perfect spring getaway destination.

I drove from Seattle in the dark north to Anacortes and boarded the first ferry of the day. The iconic white and green boat chugged through the sunrise snaking around the archipelago comprised of hundreds of islands named by a Spanish explorer in 1791. Faraway mounds of land and second-growth douglas fir rise from the glassy water like the backs of orca whales which frequent these waters of the Salish Sea. The ferry lands at Friday Harbor, the largest town in all of the San Juans. Once a hub for the Hudson Bay Company with an abundance of salmon, it is now a sleepy and charming town of about 2000 residents with a great bookstore, Griffin Bay Bookstore, a whale museum and a tavern or two.

In the 1850’s as the boundary between the US and Great Britain was disputed, the two countries both occupied San Juan Island. The British set up camp on the northwest side and the US on the opposite southeast side. The dispute spawned the famous “pig war”, an international incident started when an American shot and killed a Hudson Bay pig when it was found rummaging through his garden. When the British threatened to arrest the man and evict all American settlers off the island, a backup army of 64 Americans was sent to the island. For months each side built up it’s military threat with battleships and all until the news finally reached Washington and common sense prevailed. The two countries would not go to war over a pig and ultimately 12 years after the border dispute, a treaty was signed by the US and Great Britain and the boundary was settled by a third party; Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, who decided the island belonged to the US.

We started our island exploration at English Camp. We first climbed above English Camp through the forest to the top of Young Hill. A short spur leads to an old cemetery surrounded by a white picket fence and purple shooting stars. The trail continues on to the summit of the hill with great views of the islands. Back at the trailhead we then headed toward English Camp still partly intact with barracks, a hospital and storehouse. Apple trees were just finishing their radiant white bloom as we headed toward a small loop trail to Bell Point. The San Juan Islands, located in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains has a sunnier and dryer climate than Seattle. This climate is perfect for growing apples and the island was once covered with orchards and known as Washington’s apple capital. Later Eastern Washington would claim this title when irrigation was introduced to it’s arid land.

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From English Camp we headed south along the western shores of the island to Lime Kiln Point State Park. A lovely lighthouse keeps watch over the waters that frequent ships and whales. We wandered and had lunch along the shoreline in the sunshine and greeted other tourists. We then moseyed our way to the southern tip of the island, to my favorite part: Mt Finlayson, Cattle Point and American Camp.

Wide open views and tall golden grass welcomed us on this very different part of the island. Deer grazed along the flanks of Mt Finlayson while Nali and I were scorched by the sun on the open trail. We squinted out to the lighthouse at Cattle Point then later drove down to it for a closer look and then continued on to American Camp. The camp is perched on a bluff overlooking the sea and the Olympic Mountains. This was the perfect place to end our wonderful trip with the culmination of history, prairie and lovely views.

More information about San Juan Island:

San Juan Island Trails Committee (with excellent trail maps!)

San Juan Island National Historic Park (English & American Camps)

San Juan Island Camping Information

51mtnNOTkAL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Time Shadows and Tall Tales by Jack J. Crawford

Jack Crawford was a resident of Friday Harbor before he passed away in 2000 at the age of 78. The goal he had for this book was to collect the history and stories told about the island before the memories were gone. He succeeded in creating a fun and engaging read, not just about the historical importance of the island but also about what it was like to live on the island in the days before it became the touristy place it is now. We are lucky to have these stories, whether truthful tales or lore, as they are a delight to read.

 

 

 

 

Hikes Featured in this Post:

Young Hill and Bell Point

Lime Kiln State Park

Mt Finlayson

Cattle Point Lighthouse