After living full time on Lopez for two years, my family and I have decided to move to nearby Bellingham. Because Project 468 has been so instrumental to the relationships I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned during my time on the island, I feel obliged to relate some of those things here. This is…
It was a beautiful summer day in July 2009. Claver Bundac, CEO and Founder of California-based biotech firm, Biomedix, decided to take his boat for a short cruise from his moorage in La Conner, WA. After an afternoon enjoying the water, Claver realized he was dangerously low on gas. He was unfamiliar with the area,…
In the mid-90s, Chimera, the art gallery that sits next to Lopez Coffee Shop and Holly B’s Bakery in Lopez Village, almost closed its doors. The artist cooperative was created in 1987 with what some members refer to as an “informal” approach to doing business. This, very Lopezian, invention needed to be re-invented if it was to survive.…
In 1974, Ann Palmer and her sister, Virginia, purchased property in the heart of Lopez Island – a densely forested piece of land nestled next to Lopez Hill. If you’ve ever been to Lopez Hill, you’ll understand what attracted Ann and her sister to this place – hundreds of acres of forestland, blanked by a…
In December 2014, Aaron Dye decided to close down Island Body and Fitness, much to the chagrin of the loyal followers of fitness class instructor, Heidi Strong. It’s not like they could simply switch over to the local Gold’s Gym or 24 Hour Fitness. Not willing to leave these fitness-minded Lopezians in the cold, the…
In the fall of 2010, Robert Herrmann was asked to help do a job that might be impossible. “It’s very difficult to find somebody willing to work 60 hours a week and only get paid for 20.” That’s how Robert described the challenge before him when he was asked to be an adjunct advisor during…
Bond. In most places, this term conjures up images of top secret missions, evil villains and martinis. On Lopez, the word has nothing to do with martinis. Unless you’ve been living under The Rock, you’ve heard something about the $9.6 million bond that was passed last year to renovate the Lopez Island School District. I attended…
More than 100 home owners have opened their homes for the Lopez Island Home Tour since the first tour in 2004. Though every one of them does it to support the Lopez Center for Community and the Arts, each has a different story to tell about what led them to be one of the Home Tour’s…
Living on a small island like Lopez, it doesn’t take very long before you feel like you’ve been someplace before. There probably isn’t another Lopezian who has that feeling more than Jennifer Turunen. Her consignment clothing store is located in the exact spot she was babysat as a little girl in the 1960s – the…
This week, in an effort to get our kids reacquainted with school after a long summer, my wife and I took our soon-to-be 1st and 3rd graders to the Lopez School playground. While there, I noticed a crew installing solar panels on the gym roof. Wondering what other new things are in store this school year, I dropped…
I’d never had anybody say this to me. But these were the words Russ Levine was shouting as he pulled up behind my little sailboat in Fisherman Bay one Tuesday night this summer. It turns out Russ wasn’t referring to my posterior. This was his way of telling my sailing partner and me to move…
“I was a goner. They sent me home to die.” This is how Randall Waugh, founder of Chicaoji, started to tell me the story of the event that changed his life. In 2010, Randall’s liver failed. After preventing him from dying immediately, the doctors at St. Joseph Hospital gave Randall a few months to live,…
Anybody who has traveled by ferry to the San Juan Islands is familiar with this type of announcement over the ferry’s loudspeaker: “Would the owner of a white Volvo station wagon please report to the car deck.” It’s usually followed by the owner’s walk of shame down the ferry’s stairs, which is followed by their…
When entering a library, one expects a calm, quiet atmosphere. Maybe a few hushed voices and the occasional sound of books being stacked on a counter. As I entered the Lopez Island Library last Saturday, the environment was a cross between a circus and a concert. When I first became acquainted with the Lopez Island…
At a potluck dinner on Lopez Island late in the summer of 2014, Sandy Bishop, executive director of the Lopez Community Land Trust, and one of LCLT’s farm interns, Ezra Fradkin, were having a conversation about a hot topic – eating locally-sourced food. Sandy told Ezra she guessed that Lopezians probably only get about 5-10% of…
Project 468 