Though Tim and I had each seen San Juan Island separately, it is too fabulous a place to only go once. Saturday we decided to explore downtown Bellingham and then camp on the island. We woke up early in the morning in the marina and drove into town.
Bellingham is a lively city with a thriving downtown area. Coffee houses, restaurants, and little shops are everywhere. But unlike the tourist towns we’ve been through, these places are for the locals. Everywhere you see signs for organic, buy local, recycling, and stay green. It’s a community with a conscience.
Tim and I got some work done in the morning and then tracked down the restaurant with the biggest line for breakfast. We knew it would be good. And at The Little Cheerful, it’s all good. We had the crabcake benedict with a side of “pimped up” hashbrowns. It’s the type of place that when you order a cup of tea they bring you a cup of water, a refill of water and two teabags – one for each. They get it.
The Little Cheerful - Best Breakfast in Bellingham
After errands, packing, a trip to the laundr0mat and a lunch of fresh local raspberries, we drove back to Anacortes to board the evening ferry. Tim had landed in Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor but hadn’t seen any of the interior of San Juan Island. I had lots to show him.
Two Tickets to Paradise
We loaded our bikes and backpacks and mapped out our destination. By 7:30 pm we planned to arrive at San Juan County Park, 7 miles across the island. We didn’t know what the camping situation would be, but we figured we could squeeze in with somebody.
We arrived just as the sun was starting to set. When we rode through the Park, it looked very full. Then Tim found a large meadow down by the water. No reservations necessary and it was for bikers and kayakers only. It was also the best camping, we’d seen on our entire trip.
San Juan County Park, where the sunsets...
Just Keep...
Getting Better
We set up our tent next to a very cool guy named Joel. He was from Thailand and started a cross country bike trip in Yorktown, VA in April. He’d spent the last 5 months riding solo through small towns across the US. His final destination is San Francisco. He spent the evening snapping photos – to prove to his boss that he really was riding – he told us. We’ll post his blog soon. It will be in Thai, but I know his pictures will tell an awesome tale.
The next morning we got up, said goodbye to our site mates, Joel, Haven and Dan, and started north towards Roche Harbor. On the way, we took a detour. On the banks of the Washington Coast lies a fully preserved 1850’s English Army Outpost, a historical reminder of one of America’s lesser known military entanglements, The Pig War.
English Camp
Below, Wikipedia tells the story:
The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between American and British authorities over the boundary between the United States and British North America. The Pig War, so called because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig, is also called the Pig Episode, the Pig and Potato War, the San Juan Boundary Dispute or the Northwestern Boundary Dispute. The pig was the only “casualty” of the war, making the conflict otherwise bloodless.
The Oregon Treaty of June 15, 1846, resolved the Oregon boundary dispute by dividing the Oregon Country/Columbia District between the United States and Britain “along the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Juan de Fuca Strait, to the Pacific Ocean.”
However, there are actually two straits which could be called the middle of the channel: Haro Strait, along the west side of the San Juan Islands; and Rosario Strait, along the east side. Because of this ambiguity, both the United States and Britain claimed sovereignty over the San Juan Islands.
During this period of disputed sovereignty, Britain’s Hudson’s Bay Company established operations on San Juan and turned the island into a sheep ranch. Meanwhile by mid-1859, twenty-five to twenty-nine American settlers had arrived.
San Juan Island held significance not for its size, but as a military strategic point. While the British held Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island to the west, overlooking the entry point to Puget Sound at the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the nation holding the military presence on San Juan Island would also have a vantage point for Haro Strait and the Straits of Georgia.
On June 15, 1859, exactly thirteen years after the adoption of the Oregon Treaty, the ambiguity led to direct conflict. Lyman Cutlar, an American farmer who had moved onto the island claiming rights to live there under the United States’ Donation Land Claim Act (1850), shot and killed a large black pig rooting in his garden. It turns out that the pig was owned by an Irishman, Charles Griffin, who was employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company to run the sheep ranch. The two had lived in peace until this incident. Cutlar offered $10 to Griffin to compensate for the pig, but Griffin was unsatisfied with this offer and demanded $100. Following this reply, Cutlar believed he should not have to pay for the pig because the pig had been trespassing on his land. (A possibly apocryphal story claims Cutlar said to Griffin, “It was eating my potatoes”. Griffin replied, “It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig”). When British authorities threatened to arrest Cutlar, American settlers called for military protection.
Brigadier-General William S. Harney, commanding the Dept. of Oregon, initially dispatched 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry under the command of Captain George Pickett (of later Civil War fame) to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing.
General George Pickett - Before Petersburg
Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships under the command of Captain Geoffrey Hornby to counter the Americans. Pickett was famously quoted as saying defiantly, “We’ll make a Bunker Hill of it,” placing him in the national limelight.
The situation continued to escalate. By August 10, 1859, 461 Americans with 14 cannons under Colonel Silas Casey were opposed by five British warships mounting 70 guns and carrying 2,140 men. During this time, no shots were fired.
Cannons Protect English Camp
The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, ordered British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes to land marines on San Juan Island and engage the American soldiers under the command of Brigadier-General Harney. (Harney’s forces had occupied the island since July 27, 1859.) Baynes refused, deciding that “two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig” was foolish. Local commanding officers on both sides had been given essentially the same orders: defend yourselves, but absolutely do not fire the first shot. For several days, the British and U.S. soldiers exchanged insults, each side attempting to goad the others into firing the first shot, but discipline held on both sides, and thus no shots were fired.
When news about the crisis reached Washington and London, officials from both nations were shocked and took action to calm the potentially explosive international incident.
In September, U.S. President James Buchanan sent General Winfield Scott to negotiate with Governor Douglas and resolve the growing crisis. Scott had calmed two other border crises between the two nations in the late 1830s. He arrived in the San Juan’s in October and began negotiations with Douglas. As a result of the negotiations, both sides agreed to retain joint military occupation of the island until a final settlement could be reached, reducing their presence to a token force of no more than 100 men.
The “English Camp” was established on the north end of San Juan Island along the shoreline, for ease of supply and access; and the “American Camp” was created on the south end on a high, windswept meadow, suitable for artillery barrages against shipping. Today the Union Jack still flies above the “English Camp”, being raised and lowered daily by park rangers, making it one of the very few places without diplomatic status where US government employees regularly hoist the flag of another country.
The British Flag Flies over San Juan
During the years of joint military occupation, the small British and American units on San Juan Island had a very amicable mutual social life, visiting one another’s camps to celebrate their respective national holidays and holding various athletic competitions. Apparently the biggest threat to peace on the island during these years was “the large amounts of alcohol available.” This state of affairs continued for the next 12 years. The dispute was peacefully resolved after a more than a decade of confrontation and military bluster, during which time the local British authorities consistently lobbied London to seize back the Puget Sound region entirely, as the Americans were busy elsewhere with the Civil War.
In 1871 Great Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Washington, which dealt with various differences between the two nations, including border issues with the newly formed Dominion of Canada. Among the results of the treaty was the decision to resolve the San Juan dispute by international arbitration, with Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany chosen to act as arbitrator. Wilhelm referred the issue to a three-man arbitration commission which met in Geneva for nearly a year. On October 21, 1872, the commission decided in favor of the United States. The arbitrator chose the American-preferred marine boundary via Haro Strait, to the west of the islands, over the British preference for Rosario Strait which lay to their east. On November 25, 1872, the British withdrew their Royal Marines from the British Camp. The Americans followed by July 1874.
After a tour and a lesson on spinning wool. Tim and I made our way to Roche Harbor. We’d been craving some Oyster Shooters ever since Casey sent us an enticing email last week. Madronas Grill was the right place to be.
Oysters and Hefe in Roche Harbor
After oysters, beers and a nap in the sun, we rode the last 9 miles back to town.
Naptime
Packing Up
Friday Harbor
We arrived just in time to catch the 5:00 ferry home. On the way, we talked to local boat builder Art Newbaucle. He gave pointed out the local sites as we sailed to Anacortes, including the rock that a ferry captain smashed into not once, but twice in the 80’s (apparently he was distracted by a lady in the cabin. According to Art it was the same lady in both incidents.)
Back to Anacortes
After funny tales and a quick, uneventful ferry ride home, we climbed back into Frank. We were off to Washington County Park and then back to Bellingham for the week. We can’t seem to get enough of the San Juans.