AT WOODMEN HALL AND AROUND LOPEZ ISLAND with June ::: May 1930

 

Lopez Island, 
San Juan Archipelago, WA.

"We didn't arrive at the big Woodmen hall, standing alone in the middle of the woods, until along about 9:30 p.m.

It was exactly like going to meeting in the South. The meetinghouse was a lodge hall and we were going to play five hundred instead of sing and pray. But the feeling was the same. The same quiet assembling of buggies, one after the other coming in out of the night, finding their places between the trees. Except that they were all automobiles instead of buggies. The same leisurely goings and comings to and out of the meetinghouse. The same low talking. And when we get inside, the meeting had started so that we felt a little embarrassed at being late, exactly as if the friendly preacher was about to scold us!

It was a delightful evening and I almost learned how to play five hundred. 

Esther is coming to drive me over the island. What a prosperous, beautiful island it is! The  New England farms look no mellower, no healthier than these big Lopez farms reclaimed in the last seventy-odd years ago. they look like generations of people, of cattle, of crops had grown up here.

Grassy pastures and orchards in blossom on the Strafford farm. Berries and cattle, green fields, and a tractor plowing on the neat Erb place. Rolling green slopes and dozens of gorgeous apple trees in fragrant bloom on the Kilpatrick farm.

Down the road along the backbone of the island, beautiful farms fell away into pleasant valleys on both sides. Sheep in the pastures, chickens cackling from modern hen-houses. Loganberries on Joe Ender's place. The McCloud house, low and brown, nestled on a big rock.Strait of Juan de Fuca. 

A very tiny loghouse with a very big ivy cluster nearly hiding it, a cloud of pear blossoms hovering over it. Somebody lived in that diminutive picturesque house once and enjoyed its charm, enjoyed the sweep of pastoral beauty on the slopes below it.

Pheasants and mountain quail in gardens. the McCauley farm is lush and lovely on both sides of the road. 

Down the dim cathedral woods to McKay harbor. Hemlock, white fir, and cedar. Long, curving beach washed by gentle surf. Crows on a fence. The pretty white Tralness house above the beach and a lavender-pink mass of starry flowers on the edge of the road. Out in the harbor, a gray slick rock tipped with seagulls.

In Barlow's Bay a great flower-covered rock. Lacy yellow blooms. Sedum is about to burst into fragrant blossoms. Dark blue verbena-like flowers, bell-like flowers. Crane's bill. A creamy white bell-like flower––how tantalizing not to know the names of these sweets! You would not live here so long without knowing all the flowers by their real and common names, would you? Well, I knew them once. And I shall know them again!

We climb up into the woods and around the outer bluff of the island to find Washington's profile. 

Washington's profile
A rock formation on Lopez Island
that went by several names.
June Burn mentions the
landmark in this essay.
Click image to enlarge.

We find the bluff where the face used to be, but something seems to have happened to the nose, or else we have not come to the right place.

But we find dark blue camas in bloom. And against an old abandoned house a gorgeous lilac heavy with purple flowers. The woods are full of wildflowers. Lady slippers, Oregon grape, starflower. Soapalalee will be along presently. From these berries, the Natives make a bitter foam which some call Native ice cream.

Across the island, is John Thompson's big lonely house where the white-headed old mariner lives alone. He promises to take us with him to Smith's island next Monday. 

The Mud Bay schoolhouse and Eaton's pretty home. On up and around to the Vogt loghouse built a half-century ago of alder logs mind you. Inside, an old square piano, hooked rugs in original designs, and handsome ship models made by the son while tending fishtraps. Outside, flowers and blossoming fruit trees and green meadows and the forest not a hundred yards away. A lovely place.

Well, you needn't think I can go all over the whole island in one letter! See you tomorrow. June"

June Burn. Puget Soundings May 1930