This is the title of a new book in Darvill’s Bookstore, with an article called “The Ferry to Orcas Island,” written by local author Ayn Gailey and photographed by non-local Anthony Blasko.
Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the article…
Traveling to Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest may feel like a journey to the end of the earth. It requires at least two of the following: boat, airplane, train, automobile. Depending on your point of origin, you may take all of these in one day.
For a first visit, the ferry may be the least timely means of transport, but it makes for the most memorable. The ninety-minute route begins in Anacortes, Washington, a coastal town situated halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, BC. The car-loading ferry sails west through the Salish Sea—an intricate network of straits and waterways carved by massive glaciers over ten thousand years ago—to the San Juan Islands, where Orcas is located. For the best view, exit your car and head up to the bow. Wind, sea, rock and towering trees conspire to rouse awe. With your back to the mainland, face turned toward the sun, the wind tugs at your hair and everything else falls away.
The name Salish Sea pays tribute to the region’s first inhabitants, the Coast Salish tribes, including the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) or “People of the Sea,” who have fished its shores since time immemorial and still do so today. The Salish Sea is home to three resident endangered orca pods, as well as the North Pacific giant octopus (the world’s largest) and three thousand species of marine invertebrates.
Orca sightings are to be expected on the ferry, but sightings of land mammals in the water also occur. Spotting a family of deer swimming between islands is possible and, a few years back, a black bear swam to Orcas and stayed a couple of weeks, the only predator on the island. In 2017, a folk song was written about Frieda, a pig that escaped a farm truck and fell overboard, only to be found hours later running down a country lane on Orcas.
If you haven’t heard it before, that’s a song that was written by Mandy Troxel. She’s performing it here…
To read the rest of the article or for last-minute Christmas shopping, go to Darvill’s for a copy. Or visit the Kinfolk site here to continue reading.
There are 35 other stories from around the world – Iceland, Dubai, the Greek Isles, Seoul, Tasmania, Santiago, Oman, Israel, Scotland, the Faroe Islands, and so on.
Thank you, Ayn, for the copy of the book and for bringing my and other locals’ attention to its publication. I look forward to reading about the other places when the Christmas week affords some respites of relaxation. I don’t know anything about what Kinfolk is, so I will look into that as well when time affords.
Article photos by Anthony Blasko
