Whidbey Island

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Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island
Waters Puget Sound ( Pacific Ocean )
Geographical location 48 ° 8 ′  N , 122 ° 35 ′  W Coordinates: 48 ° 8 ′  N , 122 ° 35 ′  W
Whidbey Island (Washington)
Whidbey Island
surface 436 km²
Residents 56,000
128 inhabitants / km²

Whidbey Island is an island in Island County in the northwest of the US state Washington . With 436 km² Whidbey Island is the largest island in Washington state. About 56,000 people live on the island.

The economy is largely based on agriculture. The north end, however, is more urbanized, in large part because of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island near Oak Harbor . This has led to the establishment of shopping centers and branches of retail chains. The southern end has kept its rural atmosphere and is characterized by village structures, arable land, forests and parks. In part, it also serves as a sleeping place for commuters who work in Seattle or in nearby Everett on the mainland, where Boeing's main plant is located.

Whidbey Island, and especially the area around the idyllic village of Langley, attracts many tourists in summer. The main attraction are water sports, with a good view of the snow-capped mountains of the Cascade Range and the Olympic Mountains from the water . There are also several protected areas designated by Washington State such as Fort Casey State Park and Fort Ebey State Park on the island .

The regional cuisine is known for its fish dishes, especially salmon and crab dishes.

Geography, climate and vegetation

The island is about 50 km north of Seattle . The west coast extends into the eastern opening of the Juan de Fuca Strait and the Admiralty Inlet , in the south lies the Puget Sound , eastward the Possession Sound and the Saratoga Passage , in the north the Deception Pass . The island is up to 100 km long and 2 to 16 km wide.

The island is partly in the slipstream of the Olympic Mountains . Therefore the island is not very humid. The south is slightly more humid with annual precipitation of 760 mm, the area south of Coupeville is the driest with 460 to 510 mm, although it is slightly more humid in the north (660 mm). In the south there is a flat coastal area, the north is rockier and steeper.

The vegetation in the south is more similar to that of the mainland. The most important tree species are Douglas fir , red alder , Oregon maple , giant arborvitae and Western hemlock . Otherwise there are red elderberries, salal (Shallon shamberry), oceanspray ( Holodiscus discolor ) and nettles. With the white colonization, foxglove (foxglove), ivy and holly ( ilex ) were added.

Oregon grape grows in the south, a type of grape that becomes rarer towards the north. Much more common is the endemic Pacific rhododendron, a species that grows between southern British Columbia and California . Gerry oaks ( Quercus garryana ), arbutus ( strawberry trees ), firs , sitka spruces and lodgepole pine ( coastal pines ), yes, a native cactus are not uncommon.

In the rocky Deception Pass region, junipers grow near the coast. Bare maple , but above all edible prairie lilies - an important commodity for the Indians - and lilies, plus Indian paintbrush, a type of silk plant that is usually found in the Rocky Mountains , characterize the picture here.

history

The island was originally inhabited by members of the coastal Salish , more precisely the Skagit , Swinomish , Suquamish and Snohomish and was used by other tribes.

She was first sighted in 1790 by a European expedition led by Captain George Vancouver . In May of this year, the navigator and sailing master ( English master ) Joseph Whidbey began together with the naval officer Peter Puget with the exploration and mapping of the area around the Puget Sound . Whidbey circumnavigated the island in June and Captain Vancouver named the island after him. The researchers reported that nowhere else in the region were so many Indians to be found as here. They estimated their number to be well over 1,500.

The cross presented to Father Blanchet 1840. It can be viewed again since 1915.
The oldest log cabin on the island is next to the museum in Coupeville

The Catholic missionary Father François Norbert Blanchet was the first white man to spend the night on the island on May 26, 1840. He reports that the Indians grew potatoes and beans, which they probably took over from the Europeans. The island was cultivated in large areas. In Penn Cove he met the Skagit chief Tslalakum, who had asked him to come to the island. According to his own statements, there he met 400 people willing to be baptized, plus a cross that he blessed.

In 1850 Colonel Isaac Ebey became the first permanent settler on the island. After him was Fort Ebey on the central west coast, northwest of Coupeville named. He ran a daily mail service to Port Townsend by boat . The Admiralty Head Lighthouse is also located there . The area around Coupeville is now Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve , the oldest house is "Alexander's Blockhouse" from 1855.

For decades, the region has suffered from raids by northern Indian tribes, to which the first settlers also fell victim in 1857. In November 1856, a group of Tlingit from the Sitka area camped at Port Gamble . The USS Massachusetts ship told them to leave, then opened fire, killing 28 Indians, including a chief (actually a Hyas Tyee , a very high-ranking person ). The next year, the Kake returned to kill a Hyas Tyee , a person of their own rank, in revenge . Ebey, who was killed in the process, was considered a candidate for the office of governor. The catastrophic smallpox epidemic of 1862 put an end to these raids.

Patkanim , chief of the Snoqualmie and Snohomish , had his center of power at the confluence of the Snoqualmie and Tolt Rivers in a place called Yelhw (now Fall City ). Its territory stretched on both sides of the border between the United States and Canada. With the disposal of the Snoqualmie Pass , the two tribes controlled the trade. In 1848, Patkanim initiated a pow wow of around 8,000 Indianson Whidbey Island. He signed the Treaty of Point Elliott on January 22, 1855, supported the residents of Seattle ,sided with the United Statesin the Puget Sound War , helped build forts and covered the Snoqualmie Pass with 100 of his people. In 1856 Governor Stevens put a bounty on robbers , whereupon the chief handed him over numerous prisoners against payment of $ 20 for ordinary warriors and $ 80 for chiefs.

The first larger non-indigenous settlement was Coupeville , where more than 50 of the early houses are still listed today. As the first resident of the island, Judge Lester Still bought a car, which he bought in 1902 from the Chicago company Holsman Automobile Company and had it brought to the island.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Oak Harbor grew into a larger town, but until the construction of the bridge over the Deception Pass that connected Whidbey Island with Fidalgo Island and thus with the mainland in 1935 , the island was rural-isolated. Oak Harbor, whose population is around 30,000, took on urban character with the establishment of a naval base in 1940.

A fundamental change in the attitudes of most islanders towards their natural environment took place in 1972. That year more than 25 orcas were rounded up and slaughtered and the young were sold to zoos. The film documentation of this process led to violent reactions. The marine mammals were placed under strict protection.

government

Whidbey Island, Camano Island and some uninhabited islets now make up Island County .

economy

The Deception Pass Bridge connects the island at the north end with Fidalgo Island via the Deception Pass . Ferries connect Clinton south with Mukilteo, and Keystone on the west coast with Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula .

Penn Cove is known for its clams. Tourism has gained a certain importance, especially around Langley to the south. The town is mainly frequented by visitors from Seattle who are looking for privacy and tranquility.

Infrastructure

There is a hospital in Coupeville and an ambulance in Clinton . The air force base also has a health service, but only for the staff there and their families.

There is an Environmental Action Network (WEAN) on Whidbey Island , which monitors the landscape for illegal pollution, logging, etc.

Island Transit finances its nine free bus transports through its own tax. However, the offer is very thin on Saturdays, and the buses don't run at all on Sundays. The Washington State Highway 20 and 525 are part of the very dense road network of the island.

Two small civil airports, one southwest of Langley, one southwest of Oak Harbor, handle the low air traffic, plus six private airports. There is also a Navy training base southeast of Coupeville, which also has an air base. After all, a seaplane company lets its ships land in Oak Harbor Marina and connects the area with Seattle, more precisely Union Bay.

Since many commuters from nearby Everett work on the mainland, where Boeing's main plant is located, there is a ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo, on the mainland, every 30 minutes between 5 a.m. and 1:30 a.m.

places

(from north to south)

Others

The United States Navy named a class of dock landing ships after the island in the 1980s , the Whidbey Island class . The USN warship USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41) was also named after it.
On the steep coast, subsidence or landslides such as B. on March 28, 2013 in Ledgewood

See also

literature

  • George Albert Kellogg: A History of Whidbey's Island (Whidbey Island) State of Washington , Island County Historical Society 1988, ISBN 0-929186-00-1
  • Jimmie Jean Cook: A particular friend, PENN's COVE '. A History of the Settlers, Claims and Buildings of Central Whidbey Island , Island County Historical Society, Coupeville, 1st ed. 1973, 3rd ed. 1988

Web links

Commons : Whidbey Island  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jessie Stensland: Historian fails in scalp hunt , in: Whidbey News-Times of May 24, 2003, last accessed on August 26, 2017.
  2. ↑ It is now in the Coupeville Museum. One of the tires came from Firestone (March 8, 1904).