The San Juan Islands are a living museum of historic American apple varieties by Madrona Murphy, Kwiaht Apples may well be the most long-standing crop grown in the islands, as native Pacific crabapples were harvested and tended by the Coast Salish families that were the islands’ original inhabitants. When planting orchards became a way of…
The venerated pig is a microcosm of the cycle of food, farmers, and the future of sustainable farming in the Islands With a history that includes a war named after the porcine species, the San Juans have a love affair with pork. And who wouldn’t? Because…bacon! But just as the simple hog revealed a complex…
Market gardens and farms have sustained islanders from the earliest people to Gold-Rush hopefuls, soldiers, settlers and sailors (Photo courtesy of the Town of Friday Harbor) Local restaurant menus tell just the current chapter of a long and varied story of the humble vegetable in the San Juan islands. Today, the carrots, kale and peas…
From barging rams to the outer islands to running sheep through the streets of Lopez Village, the history of wool in the San Juans is a warp and weft of ingenuity and tall tales NAMING ISLANDS, RUNNING SHEEP Raised for breeding, meat, and wool, sheep have always been a major part of agriculture in San…
Discover Heritage Tastes of the San Juans Eat Island Grown! By Caitlin Leck The unique “terroir” and “merroir” of the San Juan Islands and the Salish Sea create conditions that have offered a fragile but bountiful harvest to islanders and beyond for generations, from from camas root to cockles, from salal berries to salmon….