San Juan Brewing

When discussing San Juan Island, it’s important to make sure you’re not missing an ‘s’ at the end. You see, the San Juan Islands are part of the San Juan Archipelago, located in the northwest corner of the continental U.S. There are more than 450 islands in the chain, but only fifteen are accessible by ferry. Of these, nine are part of British Columbia, and six are part of the state of Washington. Of those six, San Juan Island is the second-largest and the most-populated. It has an area of 55.053 square miles and recorded a population of 6,822 at the 2000 census.Friday Harbor is the only incorporated town on the island. It was named after Joseph Poalie Friday, a Hawaiian sheep farmer who worked for the Hudson Bay Company in Cowlitz County from 1841 to 1860, and then moved to the island. In the early 20^th century, the harbor was a regular stop for the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet of steamships. These ships carried goods such as apples, pears, strawberries, chickens, salmon and more back to the mainland, but this trade diminished starting around the time of the Great Depression and continuing through World War II. In the 1960s, a tourism and retirement industry started, and the harbor remains the center of San Juan Island to this day.In research circles, the island is known for its famous Friday Harbor Laboratories marine biology facility. This station is run by the University of Washington. The Skagit Valley College system also has a campus on the island. The San Juan Island National Historical Park, designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1961, commemorates the Pig War, an 1859 bloodless dispute between American and British authorities over the boundary between the US and British North America. The conflict was initiated when an American farmer on the island shot and killed a pig that was rooting in his garden.