Spring certainly has arrived in Washington State. Hosts of flowering trees line streets. Evergreen trees that cover so much land in the state is interspersed with lighter greens of the deciduous trees leafing out. This morning I had time to monitor about a quarter of the terraced gardens in my yard and plant marigolds, geraniums, and a daisy called osteo..something-or-other. I will tackle another quarter tomorrow after dealing with my writing tasks.

The San Juan Islands between Bellingham WA and Victoria BC  enjoy such a benign climate that foxglove four feet high grow wild. Wild strawberries are coveted by islanders. Of course, shell fish thrive on beaches, a portion reserved for native American harvesting. Because the islands are surrounded literally by the North Pacific Ocean, even if it is within a huge inlet and outlet, sea life abounds. Orca whales are residents, and gray whales sometimes thread through the island channels during migration.

 One morning my young teenage son, an avid fisherman, returned from an early foray, his eyes wide and voice up an octave. He told us of seeing a large weird-looking sea creature next to his small boat. It was, indeed, an unusual sighting for this area of an elephant seal. Perhaps it was because sea otters were hunted so mercilessly by early explorers of the northwest coast, or perhaps other factors prevailed, but in the SJI river otters are commonly seen on island beaches. A fresh water or river variety they have adapted to salt water with ease.  One day at a marina my four-year-old daughter was lying on her stomach peering into the sea, when a young sea otter popped up in the water just inches away.

The lore of settlers who came to this semi-remote and lovely world entertain readers in the book: San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century.

HUGE GLACIERS ONCE COVERED THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS

Horseshoe Lake on Blakely Island in the San Juan Island group probably once was carved out by moving ice.  In the distant past glaciers from what is now Canada continued on to an area beyond today's city of Renton WA, south of Seattle. The ice overhead at Bellingham and the North Cascades (yes, all the way over the Columbia River, too) is estimated to have been 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep in most areas described. When climate changes occurred and the glaciers melted, the huge volume of water overwhelmed the mountains and valleys west of today's Bellingham, drowning them to create the islands of today, most of them just the mountain tops of the prior range and valleys. This leaves a pleasant group of 172 islands and islets we call the San Juan Islands. Marks from this prehistoric glacier can be seen in the North Cascades Mountains west of Mount Baker at Church Mountain. Imagine this ice deposit thousands of feet thick!  Several San Juan islands still have deep lakes for people and trout to enjoy.

Today the islands are a playground for boaters and kayakers, as well as encompassing fertile lands with crops and animals. The North Cascades range running roughly north and south and parallel with the Pacific Ocean shores about 40 miles west remains as a barrier between western and eastern Washington, causing widely different climates in the state. It is cool and seldom snowing on the west with daytime temps from about 45 to 80 degrees year round and an average of about 33 inches of rain annually. The east side is partially a former lava plain interrupted by valleys, hills, flatlands, and forests that averages more like 25 to 100 degrees annually but is rich in rivers and water so is a farming paradise. (Temperatures are my estimates and not official.)

Several of my published books carry tales of what went on in this extremely variable land: The Columbia River, Stevens Pass, North Cascades Highway and The North Cascadians, San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century, and others that touch on featured people or occurrences of the humans that settled these beautiful and challenging lands. I have traveled along all 1243 miles of the Columbia River, and my family has had a log cabin in the San Juans for more than 50 years.

Washington's dramatic mountains and islands vs. desert

I had to visit Arizona this past week for the sad reason of attending the interment of my oldest sister. However, visiting Phoenix's Botannical Gardens was a pleasant respite. Here I found my own Washington State's Dale Chihuly's creations enhancing desert displays. Chihuly's famous works are created only minutes from the tragic Oso mudslide that has made international news this past month. Perhaps his colorful work helps to heal the sadness of both my personal and our state's citizens. The tube like creations were featured in several different colors and enhanced large desert shrubbery, too, if it is even possible to enhance Nature's beauties. 

So much beauty at all seasons is in our Washington State. Now spring along the Columbia River and in the warmer areas of the San Juan Islands is helping natural flowers to open their blooms to accent the already lovely forests and island seascapes of both areas. Rhododendrons, foxglove, and lupine, and acres of daisies of several kinds grow wild in the Northwest spring. Rhododendron are wild mostly on the Olympic Peninsula, foxglove waist-high in the islands, and lupine lines higher mountain roads and clearings.

You may wish to read about the Northwest in several of my books available nationwide and online, especially the recent San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century and The Columbia River. There are others, too.