By Steve Ulvi, San Juan Island
Note: This is part one of a two part series tellng a story about intentional community progress; visionary activism, political acumen and more than a little luck, significantly benefiting us today.
Back in the 1980’s, Islanders coalesced in reaction to hyperactive land sales and rapid growth. Years later, Islanders pushed for Washington State legislation for county real estate excise taxing (REET) authority that would enable the purchase of public conservation lands, specific authority not previously recognized in state law.
Those eventful decades also foreshadowed the dwindling of lifeways closely linked to the land and surrounding waters; generational families farming and fishing, hatchery-amped salmon abundance, cannery work, logging, boat works, few constraints on land use, low taxes and rare ‘keep out’ signs on undeveloped acreage. With 7,900 county residents in 1980, social and geographic boundaries were casual and fluid, the sense of community strong.
Elsewhere, suburban sprawl overflowed communities and pulsed ripples of dreamers toward the psychic reprieve of these maritime islands. Youthful back-to-the-landers fled the previously rural fringes of Seattle while well-heeled retirees cashed out of upscale confines in urban California and Washington. Importantly, many newcomers had memories of cherished natural places destroyed by development or recreational visitation.
Naturally, deeply-rooted islanders, reciting multi-family lineages, looked askance at the new arrivals who possessed deep, or nearly empty pockets, and exurban sensibilities. However, many felt the blessings of maritime rain shadow, pastural surroundings, salmon hordes in big salt water and a slower rural pace.
There was unfettered camping out, personal IOUs at stores, homes built using beach driftwood, canneries, noisy taverns, horseback travel, bartering and workers in unplumbed shacks or moldy trailers while many roads were gravel. In Friday Harbor, the vaunted county seat, rustic island ways began to be swept under the rug in a destination makeover fired-up by the cha-ching of unregulated tourism.
It had been a gritty “fishing town with a drinking problem” that succumbed to gentrification and hollow dollar tourism (despite warnings from Waldron’s South Burn); boutiques, art, chocolate and wine, t-shirts, bicycle tour groups and attracting visitors to expand the orca-mobbing industry, leading to “Free Willy” hyper-notoriety.
Some islands protected privacy by shunning sub-area planning and tourism while cheerleaders of the main islands’ growing summer swarm set in play the habitual cycles of brief summer deluge and long winter droughts of revenue, resulting in islanders with “either three jobs or three houses”, and 40% economically anemic absentee ownership. Youthful dreamers, angling to take up more traditional island ways were often priced out in the rush of land speculation, gated estates and a rush to vacation rentals, while competing to hold a couple of low wage summer jobs.
By the mid-1980s tensions mounted for Islanders as ambitious shoreline development plans had emerged, land prices doubled, affordable rentals dried up and flashy vehicles poked around. Rumors swirled. World traveler, photographer and Orcas resident Peter Fisher, could not sit by while Madrona Point was sold off in residential lots. He networked and shared inspiring photos aiming to save the Omphalos (“divine epicenter”) of Orcas. On San Juan, hundreds of condos and homes were planned for a sprawling Lime Kiln Village on the sunset westside. Multiplying threats to cherished places in this county – some with traditional Coast Salish sites, even human graves – and big plans for upscale subdivisions unsettled locals and drew a crossfire of opinions, lawsuits and project delays.
