ENJOYING THE ARCHIPELAGO, with JUNE BURN, 1929.

Views of the Archipelago as 
wanderer June Burn cruised from
her home in South Bellingham,
through the islands and home 
again in 1929.
Photographs by Ellis, Jacobson, 
and Clyde Banks Studio.
Click image to enlarge. 
From the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society.

"Just one week from today, I left Bellingham bound for the islands. Another too-perfect day for the return. 

Dazzling sunshine and water ruffled prettily with a wind from over the sea and far away, pushing up the water into little humps that spill over on each as if in conscious play. There is a sense of awareness about the water, as if it responded voluntarily to the playful pushes and pulls of the wind, as if it ran sprawled upon the beaches just for fun.

The bluffs and beaches, coves, and villages of the island shine in the sun as if they had all just come home from the laundry. The Olympics behind us, Mount Baker softened by the thinnest veil of gray haze to the right of us, the white Cascades thrilling in front of us, Canada to the left and autumn-sweet islands around--if anybody thinks he can paint a picture to compare with that, let him try!

Down the channel again past Prevost, and Waldron,  Deer Harbor, West Sound, Orcas, and Shaw, on over the three-hour run from Shaw to Belingham. I have my nose buried in my typewriter this heavenly day, racing to gather the harvest of my days in the islands before other days come swarming down upon me. We are in Bellingham Bay before I know it, the tip of Baker just disappearing over Chuckanut Mountain, across Eliza Island.

"There are more deer on Eliza Island than in the rest of the state of Washington." I hear one of the boatmen say. "They swarm around the cookhouses, so thick you can't get in. But take those same deer when they swim over to Lummi Island, and you can't get near them. They know they are protected here all right."

The neat white cement plant is the first building I can see as we draw in sight of Bellingham. Then, around the Point of Eliza, the smokes of Bellingham and the city itself pour down from all the hills into the bay. Are those the Selkirks over the horizon north-by-west? Shadowy through the yellowish-purple mist?

Five blackfish come spouting up the bay alongside the San Juan II. We leave them behind while we race over the wide harbor towards the city.

Like a wide, deep amphitheater is Bellingham swinging down and around the hills from south to north, the curve narrowing and deepening as we draw closer. South Bellingham in the sun is as colorful as a flower garden or as Heather Meadows in  October. Tan and yellow and red and white against the brown and green of the hill. The Fairhaven Hotel is like a feudal castle nestled at the foot of the hill, while the new hotel in North Bellingham is like a young skyscraper. The smokes remind me of a New England factory town, while the beauty of the scene is like nothing but Puget Sound. 

And Baker! You can't lose that mountain for long at a time! Here she is, her head and shoulders thrust up again over the hills! She is reminding me that Mr. Huntoon has promised to take me up that snowy radiance on snowshoes. I am glad to be hurrying back home! I had clean forgotten about that promise in the joy of the islands. What a world full of things to do in Puget Sound! And what a lot of friendly people willing to help you do them!

This is all of the island for a while--until next summer, maybe, though I make no promise! When the big winds come, I shall want to go down to see how the old eagle's nest rides the storm high in the branches of a dead fir tree. And I'd like to climb Constitution in the snow if there is to be snow this winter. I'd like to see how the spray freezes against a yellow bluff and the sun makes rainbows all down the bank of ice. I'd like to go stand on the end of Iceberg Point on Lopez Island and feel the wind beating against me from all over the Strait. You don't know your land at all if you know her only in summer! I think Puget Sound people, of all the people I have ever known, are winter-time folks, too!

See you tomorrow."

Published in the Bellingham Herald, evening of 5 November, 1929.

If you would like to view the vessel on which she jumped aboard, SAN JUAN II, it and more of her writings can be viewed on this post HERE.