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 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…
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…
“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…
“This is the best thing I did for my old age,” proclaimed Gale McCallum, age 91, about her little cottage in The Hamlet. In 1971 Gale and her husband bought a house on the South End of Lopez – a big old Victorian on Alec Bay Road. They moved there permanently in 1986, when they retired.…
One afternoon in the summer of 2009, Lisa and her father, William, walked into the Lopez Island Historical Museum, a small building with an old fishing boat in front, nestled in the middle of Lopez Village. William absolutely did not want be there. He had spent quite a bit of time on Lopez as a child,…
Ah, the simple life. Pigs with abscesses. Ewes that die at birth. Sheep with mastitis. Rows of lettuce plagued by wire worms. Allergies triggered by the ever present dust and pollen in the fields. Though they make it look simple, life on Horse Drawn Farm for Ken Akopiantz and Kathryn Thomas is anything but. I had lunch the…
Project 468 