Sorry
for the monster image. It's only barely usable at 1024X780 resolution and
really only good at 1280X1024. But it's the only way I could get the good map
to be visible.
After arriving on Thursday Afternoon we checked in to our Hotel "Inn/Suites at Friday Harbor" (The Inn.) The Inn was the closest thing to a regular hotel on the Island, most of the guest accommodations are either expensive B&B's or rental cabins/houses. We like B&B's but they don't tend to adjust their prices for low seasons and hotels do, so we'd reserved a place at the Inn. The Inn is located (but not listed) on the edge of the above map on Spring St. The distances on this map are very small, going from our hotel to the water is about a 5 minute walk.
The Inn is an anomaly on the Island. Although it was a reasonable place to stay (make sure to stay in one of the "Suites" rooms) comparable to a Day's Inn (note that the "Inn" rooms were more like scary-little-nameless motor lodge), although built along the lines of a 2 Bedroom apartment floor plan, it was by far the lowest end accommodation on the island. The Inn seemed to be to only establishment that attracted families (i.e. children). The reasoning for this isn't too hard to guess, the Inn rooms were large and at least during the low season inexpensive ($70-$80 w/AAA). High Season they jump to $300.
We checked in, then spent the eveningin in our room watching the Braves clinch the NL East, the Marlins win game #115 and Bonds hit Home Run #71 & 72. Why exactly do they pitch to him? He's been walked 180 times, leaving him with a HR 1 out of every 4 at bats.
For dinner we walked into downtown and ate at Downriggers on the Marina. They were expensive, the food was mediocre at best and the service was poor. They came highly recommended by the people we asked, although we didn't have much confidence in their recommendations.
This leads to to discussion about San Juan Island tourists, customer service and pricing. First of all to describe the tourist population of San Juan Island. The largest group of tourists were couples, white approximately 55-65 years old (male) and 35-55 years old (women), lower upper class to middle upper class. Doctors, Lawyers, Senior Engineers, VP's and the like. They were all clearly monied, although not "tech money", these tourists were older than that group and seemed to be from older money (several generations of doctors) as well. Many if not all owned yachts that were parked in the marinas all around the island. The feel from them and their female companions was they were travelling to San Juan Island for a date. The men were universally older than their companions and the women were dressed in high end "sexy" attire/styles. It was almost like the bulk of the population was 55 year old successful white males having late-life mid-life crisis with their women. This composed over half the tourist population.
The next largest group was the weekend, yuppie sports enthusiast. These are people from the Pacific NW cities (Seattle, Portland, Vancouver etc.) who are young (30ish), generally employed in tech/tech related positions who arrived for the weekend to go biking/kayaking on and around the islands. Another large tourist population is the backpacker tourist. San Juan Isle has a Youth Hostel and a Bicyclers Hostel as well as several campgrounds. The backpacker tourist generally is on a long vacation across North America, camping and hiking carrying their lives on their back. If you build a hostel they will come.
The remaining small groups included: elderly vacationers - there is even a "cruise" line that travels the San Juan Islands including Victoria with cabins and meals on board, families with children and Washington "hicks". For those of y'all outside of the Pacific NW, there is a strong dichotomy between the residents west of the Cascades (city folk) and those east of the Cascades. On the east side there are mostly farms & ranching with small towns. As with most rural areas that you get "country folk". They are similar to those in South GA, Kentucky and other non-urban areas. Anyway, it's not that far to the San Juan Islands and many of the younger residents go to the San Juans for vacation.
It's not surprising with the small native population and the large tourist population that the bulk of the population on the San Juan Islands at any give time is tourist. This happens up and down the east and west coast, the state of FL is a prime example. What was surprising was the way the residents of San Juan Isle treated us as tourists. The ubiquitous guidebooks to the isles found at every tourist center referred to Lopez Isle as "The Friendly Isle", we didn't realize that this made Friday Harbor "The Surly Isle" (this was the nicest of names we came up with.)(Demaris' note: The Got-Up-On-the-Wrong-Side-of-the-Bed-This-Morning Isle, The What-the-#$%-Do-You-Think-You're-Doing-Walking-Into-My-Store Isle, and a few others that aren't fit for mixed company)
We interact with people a lot when we vacation, visit, etc. The locals, employees, shop keepers we met on the isle gave the feeling that we were "barely tolerated and only because they could take large sums of money from us and don't steal anything because we're watching you." This wasn't universal, we met 4 pleasant shopkeepers who were native. But out of the hundreds of people we interacted with it was astounding. An English speaker in Montreal is treated far better.
Broad statements of universally poor customer service demand evidence. Here's some examples: Silent treatment and glaring by store employees. Count the National Park Service Visitor Center among these! Front desk personnel who are obviously barely tolerant of your staying at their hotel (repeatedly) not to mention a level of helpfulness that was near useless (no, I don't want to go "where the locals go" or any other tourguide phrases.) An expensive restaurant that severely burned the fish they served Demaris and then grudgingly replaced it. Both of the fast food places in town refused to serve us (they were crowded) as we walked in at closing (2pm). We almost got thrown out of a bookstore as we had the gall to take a picture out of their front window (no not flash, not of anyone or at anyone), the store employee decided that we came into their bookstore just so we could take a picture from their window and repeatedly made rude comments to us about it. With exceptions of the 4 pleasant people we encountered not a single local engaged in ANY voluntary conversation with us. That's unheard of compared to our normal social interactions.
I don't think it's possible to properly describe how poor the service was. Best summarized as universally surly bordering on hostile. This was extremely odd. We've both spent a lot of time in other seaside/Island communities and sure there is a little of anti-tourist hostility, it's usually not so blatant and almost never is "in your face" especially in tourist dependant establishments. We don't really have a reason for why the natives of the San Juan Island were so generally rude, if you've got ideas we'd love to hear them. Attire is unlikely the reason, Jay was dressed in his standard "dress casual" slacks and long sleeved button down shirt. Demaris in her usual jeans and nice shirt with jacket. Granted we didn't fit into any of the standard tourist groups but we rarely do and we certainly were within the bounds of their usual visitors.
Since we've said how atrocious the level of customer service was in
San Juan Isle, we should mention the 4 people who were friendly. They were: The
2 employees of the "Doctor's Office" a coffee shop in Friday Harbor:
http://www.sanjuansites.com/doctorsoffice/default.htm
or
http://sanjuanislands.kulshan.com/Washington/San_Juan/Restaurants/The_Doctor's_Office.htm
The
Doctor's Office employees didn't do anything special, it's just they weren't
actively brusk or rude. They provided a level of service you expect in
any/every coffee shop. BTW they made a very nice Tomato-Orange Soup. Another
noteworthy place was Harbor Bookstore located on Cannery Way. The employee
there was notable in that he was one of the only two storekeepers to greet us
as we entered his store. Finally, Serendipity Books. Serendipity Used Book's
manager was actively friendly, glad to discuss her store and bookstores with
us, she even inventories by hand all incoming books so as to provide as a
service a catalog of all books in her store (25,000) and so she can search on a
title to see if they have it in stock. She also was concerned about keeping the
prices of her books low (50% of cover) to keep prices down on books for the
Islands residents.
This concern over pricing was shocking (not just because it was a service issue.) When we arrived our hotel information booklet had a page explaining why prices on San Juan Island were so high, "up to twice as expensive as on the mainland". They tried to excuse the abusive pricing as being due to "the high cost of water", apparently although they have freshwater wells on the island they have to run them deeper than in some areas. They also explained that power had to be transported via 3 undersea cables. And finally, products had to be shipped from the mainland on a ferry. In case y'all are wondering, these reasons are nonsense as all totaled they increase the actual costs on the island <2% greater. A maximum length 18 wheeler on the ferry runs $238 roundtrip. Electric power costs on San Juan Island are identical as on the mainland and water and sewage are a mighty 15% higher. The actual reason is they are tourist gouging.
We can live with tourist gouging and expect it in part. This was more extreme than we've ever seen, prices were higher than in the SF Bay area. Entrees in anything approaching a nice restaurant started in the $20's. Note that the two non-tourist spots (a pizza place and the coffee shop) were below Seattle prices. With all this said, and understanding that we don't plan to return to Friday Harbor anytime soon, we still had a very nice vacation.
</End Rant>
The above picture is
from the National Park Service Visitor Center outside the American Camp, where
the U.S. forces were headquartered throughout the "Pig War".
San Juan Island has had no real items of historical importance. So they've grabbed on to the one event that occurred on San Juan Isle and inflated it as only a tourist community, desperate for federal park land and federal park dollars, can do. What they've seized as an issue of historical importance is the 12 year "Pig War".
Forgive us, if we're just reiterating what you've all learned in school about the bloody "Pig War" between the U.S. and England from 1859 to 1872. Some areas of the country in history class focus on their own regional conflicts that occurred at the same time instead of the big issues that were occurring on San Juan Island.
In 1859 the San Juan Islands were disputed territory claimed by both England and the United States. The Hudson Bay company had a ranch on the North End of the Island. A farmer from the United States had a farm on the South end of San Juan Island. In 1859 a pig escaped from the Hudson's Bay pens and was rooting in the farmers potato patches. After warning the Hudson Bay company about the problem, the second time the pig went into his potato patch the farmer shot the Pig, firing the first shots of the "Pig War". The farmer immediately felt remorseful and went to arrange restitution to the Hudson Bay Company. However they couldn't agree on a fair value.
As negotiations on the fair price for the pig broke down the Hudson Bay Company threatened the farmer with arrest and trial in a British Court. A touring US general on hearing about this (and at request of the governor of the Oregon Territory) landed 100 troops to protect the farmer and U.S. claims to the Island. The British Governor ordered the 3 Warships to bombard the American positions and arrest the farmer by force. Fortunately the Royal Navy was not bound to respond to local civilian authorities (as most of them were appointed as a way to get a less than capable noble well away from Great Britain in the first place) and refused to go to war over a pig. Instead he waited for orders and came to an agreement with the United States officials (who also didn't want to go to war over a pig) to land an equal number of troops.
As the U.S. government was busy at the time with other matters the "Pig War" was at a standstill with an American Camp of 100 soldiers and an English camp of 100 soldiers. There was nothing to do but have parties and so for the next 12 years the two camps spent most of their time inviting each other over for social events. In 1871 the dispute was put up to arbitration under Kaiser Wilhelm I. He decided that the U.S. had the better claim to the San Juan Islands and the British broke camp and returned to Victoria, thus ending the "Pig War."
Upon reading about this we realized that they needed to have
re-enactments of the glorious days of the Pig War. We learned that someone had
already beaten us to the punch (although they haven't gotten Jay's idea of
whole pig roast BBQ celebration at the end of the day.) Learn more about the
Pig War and see the Pig War 2001 reenactment at the following link:
http://www.nps.gov/sajh/home.htm
There is a self guided
hike past all the points of interest in the American Camp, so that "you can
relive the Pig War". The above building is the officers quarters and parade
ground.
We detoured off the
main path to go exploring the coves along the southeast end of San Juan
Island.
