San Juan Islands and Nanaimo, BC
What a lovely experience it is to wake up to clear skies, no wind and warm temperatures! Sailing through the San Juan Islands in the early morning was lovely and calm and the green forested islands surrounding us with their idyllic settings for beautiful residences seemed so inviting and wonderful. Rhinoceros auklets bobbed and dove in the still waters around the ship as we plied our way through the islands.
The San Juan Islands have an interesting bit of history dating to 1859 when the “Pig War” took place here between Britain and the US. Essentially a border dispute, this war resulted from the shooting of a pig. Even though thousands of military personnel were involved, several war ships and canons the only fatality and even the only injury was the poor pig itself. In 1846 the Oregon Treaty that drew the boundary between the US and the UK in this region defined the line as simply “the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island”. But the middle of the channel could go one of several ways through or around the San Juan Islands, so each country believed that the San Juan Islands belonged rightfully to them. The matter was not resolved, but in the meanwhile both British and American people had settled on the island and one day when a British-owned pig destroyed the garden of an American farmer, the pig was shot in anger. The argument as to compensation for the pig escalated until British authorities threatened to arrest the farmer at which point he called for military protection and had 66 soldiers sent to the island with the instructions not to let the British land. They retaliated by sending three warships. Two months later, nearly 500 American troops with 14 canons occupied the island of San Juan while 5 British warships containing 70 guns and over 2,000 men stood offshore. But no shots were fired. The British Admiral in charge of the fleet was ordered to land but he refused, saying that to start a war over a pig was downright stupid! It took several years subsequent to this for the agreement that was arbitrated through Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany to decide in favor of the Americans and thus the San Juan Island became a part of the US.
We didn’t feel the bump while crossing the line between the US and Canada but the afternoon showers drove us eventually inside.
The small town of Nanaimo was our afternoon stop where after clearing Canadian customs out on the floating dock and listening to a local guide talk about the history of the town, we walked to the old defense Bastion and admired its restored simple beauty and also had a look inside the museum. A river otter was spotted by a lucky few on the docks near the ship. The evening light as we made our way north was beautiful and clear once again.
