{"id":1545,"date":"2016-07-06T00:30:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T07:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debgarland.com\/?p=1545"},"modified":"2026-05-16T17:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T00:06:10","slug":"sentinel-island-the-last-island-homestead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/?p=1545","title":{"rendered":"Sentinel Island – The Last Island Homestead"},"content":{"rendered":"

We motored our sailboat northwest toward the narrow channel between Sentinel and Spieden islands, hoping to spot a few of the exotic animals grazing on the golden grass of the latter island before sunset.\u00a0Suddenly, we\u00a0realized we were\u00a0losing power and our forward momentum dropped to nil.\u00a0Drifting\u00a0backward like a cork in the current toward Green Point’s strong riptides off the southeastern tip of\u00a0Spieden Island<\/a>, we scrambled to launch the inflatable dinghy with its 15-hp. outboard engine from\u00a0the stern davits.<\/p>\n

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Photo credit: Washington State Dept. of Ecology<\/h5>\n

Tying it alongside our sailboat, my husband gunned its motor while I steered the larger boat toward the shallow, east entrance to Roche Harbor, normally impassable at anything but high tide, and squeezed our stricken vessel\u00a0into a slip in the marina. Calm seas\u00a0and weather, a nearly slack high tide, and experience towing our boat enabled us to prevent a potential calamity at sea. A week later, we sailed home with fewer dollars and a new transmission. We are thankful God kept us safe.<\/p>\n

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The BIG Problem<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"Kelpie_Inflatable-Desolation20080728-155039-18-372x367\"<\/a>

The SMALL Solution<\/p><\/div>\n

Sentinel Island is a 15-acre island owned by the Nature Conservancy.<\/a> Passengers aboard the Washington State ferries travelling to and from Victoria on Vancouver Island from Anacortes pass by this gumdrop-shaped island on the northern side of Spieden Channel.<\/p>\n

\"Sentinel_Spieden_Cactus_Islands-3167-1024\"<\/p>\n

Cactus, Spieden, and Sentinel Islands (L to R)<\/h5>\n

Interesting seabirds like black oyster catchers, cormorants, eagles, glaucous-winged gulls, and pigeon guillemots can be seen nesting on nearby Sentinel Rock, Center Reef, and Barren Island. These rocky gems form part of the San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge, so going ashore isn\u2019t permitted. Instead, bring\u00a0a good pair of binoculars and a camera telephoto lens to see and photograph the birds.<\/p>\n

\"Pigeon_Guillemots-Orcas_0310-1024\"<\/p>\n

Pigeon Guillemots<\/h5>\n

Sentinel Island, the final island in the San Juan Islands to be homesteaded, was settled in 1919 by Farrar and June Burn. In her autobiography\u00a0Living High<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0June tells about their experience.\u00a0“There was Sentinel Island, like a green gumdrop, fir trees lifting their beautiful crowns into the sky, sedum-covered bluffs sheering straight down into the rich, green-blue water.\u201d Ashore were \u201cdelicious little plateaus where we later found grass up to our knees and wild peas, tiger lilies, camas and fritillaria in their seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Wild_Sweet_Peak-DenaliPark-Hedysarum_boreale_(7833498338)\"<\/a>

Wild Sweet Pea<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Raindrops_On_Tiger_Lilies_(172675287)\"<\/a>

Tiger Lily<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Camas1\"<\/a>

Camas<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Chocolate_lily_flower\"<\/a>

Fritilleria<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons<\/h5>\n

But wanderlust drew\u00a0them to accept teaching positions with the Alaska School Service. After selling their sixteen-foot rowboat with its single fishing line for $25.00 to a blacksmith from Roche Harbor, the couple packed two trunks with bedding, cooking pots, clothing, and a typewriter.\u00a0They lived among the Eskimos at Gambell on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska during\u00a0the 1920-21 school year.<\/p>\n

The following year, the couple\u00a0relocated\u00a0to Sentinel Island where June would give birth to their two sons. The couple moved to nearby Johns Island<\/a> to raise their boys, exploring the rest of the islands in\u00a0the\u00a0San Juanderer. <\/em>They didn’t stay long. In 1928, the Burn family embarked on a camping trip around the United States. When they returned to the Pacific Northwest five years later, they resettled at Sundown Farm on Fishery Point on Waldron Island.<\/a> After further travel,\u00a0Farrar and June\u00a0returned home\u00a0between 1957-62. Now advanced in years, they chose to retire on Sentinel Island in 1967, but physically could not manage the lifestyle. Instead, they\u00a0bought a farm near Fort Smith, Arkansas — Farrar\u2019s hometown. June passed away in 1969 and Farrar\u00a0in 1975. The\u00a0Burn family donated Sentinel Island in 1979 to the Nature Conservancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Photo credit. www.Amazon.com<\/a><\/h5>\n

The above photos of our 30-year-old transmission and anchorage in Desolation Sound remind me that if the failure had occurred\u00a0two years earlier, we would’ve been\u00a0many miles from a repair facility. And if we’d not replaced our rowing dinghy with an inflatable, we may not have been able to rescue ourselves.<\/p>\n

Thank you for reading!<\/p>\n

Blessings,
\nDeb<\/p>\n

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We motored our sailboat northwest toward the narrow channel between Sentinel and Spieden islands, hoping to spot a few of the exotic animals grazing on the golden grass of the latter island before sunset.\u00a0Suddenly, we\u00a0realized we were\u00a0losing power and our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":1614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,479],"tags":[481,185,482,254,596,189,439,438,202,188,111,184,480,483,127,183,167,89],"class_list":["post-1545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-san-juan-islands","category-sentinel-island","tag-barren-island","tag-cactus-islands","tag-center-reef","tag-deb-garland","tag-deb-garlands-san-juan-islands-beyond","tag-farrar-and-june-burn","tag-httpwww-blog-debgarland-com","tag-httpwww-debgarland-com","tag-johns-island","tag-living-high","tag-roche-harbor","tag-sentinel-island","tag-sentinel-island-the-last-island-homestead","tag-sentinel-rock","tag-spieden-channel","tag-spieden-island","tag-the-nature-conservancy","tag-waldron-island"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1545"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2605,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions\/2605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debgarland.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}